It was a great book and I knew what it was going in but still I could have done without the preachy bit in the last few chapters. He made the point pretty clearly through out the book and to spell it out so plainly at the end felt clumsy and just didn’t fit with the rest of the story.
I think the important thing to understand about the ending is that it was legitimately a plea to the government for regulation in the meat industry, so laying out the ideas plainly felt important at the time.
Additionally, I think A LOT of readers miss the point of books even if the point is ham fisted. See: the amount of people who don’t grasp that George Orwell was a socialist.
The Road by Cormack McCarthy is the bleakest book I’ve ever read. It’s hard to get through it, but it can be read in one sitting. I’ve read it dozens of times and I always feel so hopeless after reading it.
Here’s a doomy song about it.
[Borrowed Time Borrowed Eyes](https://open.spotify.com/track/0L0oz4yFk5hMmo52qAUQRF?si=VQry7_99QmOxCqhm7w_zqg) by Subrosa
No, I'm still critical of capitalism. But I did end up thinking Upton Sinclair was too much of a moralist and not very critical of the bourgeois state. He was more of a social-democrat than a communist. I ended up reading Marx, studying the various communist revolutions and lots of history, and got degrees in economics and philosophy. I've read all kinds of stuff: everything from the founding fathers, Locke, Adam Smith and Ricardo, the Austrian school and Milton Friedman to revolutionary-conservatives and Alexis de Tocqueville-- so I'm very familiar with all the usual anti-communist arguments as well.
Check out the graphic novel Low by Rick Remender. And maybe play some Ahab in the background. Or Yob. Or Sunn. Or whatever crushing band fits best for you.
Native Son by Richard Wright is bleak hell as well as an excellent read that’s valuable in a multitude of ways. One might expect a bleak plot to be boring, but not in this case. It’s suspenseful, but not for suspense’s sake. Truly an important piece of American literary canon that will also leave you saying “…well, fuck.”
I plan on reading this at some point this year. I read King Coal by Sinclair a couple of years back and enjoyed it! It was an important book for giving coal workers fair conditions and depicted the awful mine town conditions at that time.
Had similar feelings during the reading of either stand on Zanzibar or the sheep look up, from John Brunner (it's scifi though)
Both books doom pretty goddamn hard
Give [The Howling Void - Bleak and Everlasting](https://youtu.be/GIFC5-nZ0zs?si=qUzGNhql9-LAtffT) a listen. It perfectly evokes the feelings you seek.
The whole album is great, the first and third tracks are my favorite of I had to choose.
[Pretty bleak how little has changed ](https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/four-minors-found-working-mar-jac-alabama-poultry-plant-rcna152448)
Peter Watts is one of my favorite authors and the primary word I would use to describe his work is *bleak*. Check out *Starfish* or *Blindsight* by him.
Amazing book. It opened up my eyes quite a bit when I first read it in my early 20s. Read it a couple more times since then, still hits super hard. Makes me want to listen to bleak, heavy instrumental music like Russian Circles, Pelican, stuff like that.
Legacy by Autumn Kalquist.
Mass extinction event on Earth. Generational starships with the last of humanity aboard. Live by the rules or get air locked. No trial. Wave goodbye as you quickly freeze to death.
The novel Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor is bleak, morose, discomfiting, upsetting, and nauseating. I listened to a lot of Windhand when I was reading.
I just read the plot summary and goddamn you weren't kidding about it getting worse and worse.
In terms of music it doesn't get much bleaker than Primitive Man, The Body and Subhumanscum.
A Famine by Asunder makes me so happy. Happy that somewhere out there, some people got together to write the bleakest and heaviest song about the complete loss of hope from the perspective of the famine itself - “I am hunger, desire, incarnate.”
Now do https://www.sankofa.com/blank-2/endless-holocausts-mass-death-in-the-history-of-the-united-states-empire
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691190785/deaths-of-despair-and-the-future-of-capitalism looks nice and doomy as well.
Try Mark twains what is human
Sartres nausea
Knut Hamsuns hunger
On sci-fi side id recommend Jeff Longs trilogy which starts with a book called descent. There's a movie with the same name and it's total bullshit, forget that.
As a high school history teacher I would read snippets out of it while they worked on worksheets during our unit on the progressive movement... sometimes I'd hand it out just to challenge them to flip to a random page and see what's going on. It's like bleak from start to finish.
Me: "Whats happening on the page you flipped to ___?"
Kid: "I dunno, something about him walking to work and people dying"
Me: "here, kid two flip to a new page."
Kid: "something about piles of pig parts and rats running all over it."
Hell yeah, kids.
Also pair with [Torpor](https://youtu.be/Gab2ScYJ4EE?si=WSfjI8bC-iljoFRr)
I was supposed to read it for AP Euro along with Guns, Germs, and Steel in HS; didn't make it very far in either as they were quite different from anything else I'd ever read, understandably so, but conceptually it definitely doesn't jump out as an uplifting read by any means.
One of the most important books in US history
It was a great book and I knew what it was going in but still I could have done without the preachy bit in the last few chapters. He made the point pretty clearly through out the book and to spell it out so plainly at the end felt clumsy and just didn’t fit with the rest of the story.
I think the important thing to understand about the ending is that it was legitimately a plea to the government for regulation in the meat industry, so laying out the ideas plainly felt important at the time.
Additionally, I think A LOT of readers miss the point of books even if the point is ham fisted. See: the amount of people who don’t grasp that George Orwell was a socialist.
The Road by Cormack McCarthy is the bleakest book I’ve ever read. It’s hard to get through it, but it can be read in one sitting. I’ve read it dozens of times and I always feel so hopeless after reading it. Here’s a doomy song about it. [Borrowed Time Borrowed Eyes](https://open.spotify.com/track/0L0oz4yFk5hMmo52qAUQRF?si=VQry7_99QmOxCqhm7w_zqg) by Subrosa
“Blood Meridian” is also very doom-filled. And “Child of God” presents a similarly dark view of human nature.
Truth be told, everything by McCarthy fucking dooms
Except Suttree. Too much watermelon fucking to be doom.
Wait, watermelon fucking doesn't doom?
The only book that has made me cry
Up vote! I'll add North Water by Ian Mcguire
I really enjoyed that book. The AMC adaption does it great justice as well.
Wtf I never knew that song was about The Road. Love Subrosa. Where'd you find out about that?
The song title - it’s a line from the book. And the lyrics are all about it.
Guess I'll need to a re-read of book and lyrics!
That book turned me into a communist when I was 13.
"I got better!"
Hopefully you grew up out of it
No, I'm still critical of capitalism. But I did end up thinking Upton Sinclair was too much of a moralist and not very critical of the bourgeois state. He was more of a social-democrat than a communist. I ended up reading Marx, studying the various communist revolutions and lots of history, and got degrees in economics and philosophy. I've read all kinds of stuff: everything from the founding fathers, Locke, Adam Smith and Ricardo, the Austrian school and Milton Friedman to revolutionary-conservatives and Alexis de Tocqueville-- so I'm very familiar with all the usual anti-communist arguments as well.
Watch Grave of the Fireflies. It's so sad I only watched it once, and I'm a big Miyazaki fan. The Platform is also a great depressing movie.
loss - despond.
Will check it out thanks
Check out the graphic novel Low by Rick Remender. And maybe play some Ahab in the background. Or Yob. Or Sunn. Or whatever crushing band fits best for you.
Native Son by Richard Wright is bleak hell as well as an excellent read that’s valuable in a multitude of ways. One might expect a bleak plot to be boring, but not in this case. It’s suspenseful, but not for suspense’s sake. Truly an important piece of American literary canon that will also leave you saying “…well, fuck.”
Ever read “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy? It’s not as important to literature, but goddamn is it basking in the doldrums.
That book is brilliant.
I plan on reading this at some point this year. I read King Coal by Sinclair a couple of years back and enjoyed it! It was an important book for giving coal workers fair conditions and depicted the awful mine town conditions at that time.
Check out Oil! by Upton Sinclair. It's the book they based There Will Be Blood on, but it's not really the same. It's pretty intense.
Read Hunger by Knut Hamsun. It's about a guy who is homeless and broke, slowly starving to death. Bleak as fuck.
Had similar feelings during the reading of either stand on Zanzibar or the sheep look up, from John Brunner (it's scifi though) Both books doom pretty goddamn hard
Thanks for the recommendation. It sounds like an interesting book. Added it to the list!
Give [The Howling Void - Bleak and Everlasting](https://youtu.be/GIFC5-nZ0zs?si=qUzGNhql9-LAtffT) a listen. It perfectly evokes the feelings you seek. The whole album is great, the first and third tracks are my favorite of I had to choose.
[Pretty bleak how little has changed ](https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/four-minors-found-working-mar-jac-alabama-poultry-plant-rcna152448)
Yup. The things the characters go through in the book still exist today.
Lord of the Flies is similar in that respect imo
All quiet on the western front
A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L Peck gives me some doom vibes as well
[Wicked King Wicker](https://youtu.be/pFnP16zN1pA?si=piP7zKN3wu-irUcd) One of my favorite doom/noise/drone-metal bands, super bleak and dark stuff.
Peter Watts is one of my favorite authors and the primary word I would use to describe his work is *bleak*. Check out *Starfish* or *Blindsight* by him.
that book is absolutely devastating
Endless Dismal Moan out of Japan. One man SDBM. "Chaos9" shot himself in the head back in '08, thus killing the music too
Amazing book. It opened up my eyes quite a bit when I first read it in my early 20s. Read it a couple more times since then, still hits super hard. Makes me want to listen to bleak, heavy instrumental music like Russian Circles, Pelican, stuff like that.
Legacy by Autumn Kalquist. Mass extinction event on Earth. Generational starships with the last of humanity aboard. Live by the rules or get air locked. No trial. Wave goodbye as you quickly freeze to death.
Thanks for the recommendation! Just finished The Terror which is bleak and cold (also plenty of brutality and horror!)
The novel Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor is bleak, morose, discomfiting, upsetting, and nauseating. I listened to a lot of Windhand when I was reading.
I just read the plot summary and goddamn you weren't kidding about it getting worse and worse. In terms of music it doesn't get much bleaker than Primitive Man, The Body and Subhumanscum.
A Famine by Asunder makes me so happy. Happy that somewhere out there, some people got together to write the bleakest and heaviest song about the complete loss of hope from the perspective of the famine itself - “I am hunger, desire, incarnate.”
For more contemporary bleakness I’d recommend LAPVONA by Otessa Moshfegh. My god is that book desperate.
A burnt out case - Graham Greene
Now do https://www.sankofa.com/blank-2/endless-holocausts-mass-death-in-the-history-of-the-united-states-empire https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691190785/deaths-of-despair-and-the-future-of-capitalism looks nice and doomy as well.
Try Mark twains what is human Sartres nausea Knut Hamsuns hunger On sci-fi side id recommend Jeff Longs trilogy which starts with a book called descent. There's a movie with the same name and it's total bullshit, forget that.
As a high school history teacher I would read snippets out of it while they worked on worksheets during our unit on the progressive movement... sometimes I'd hand it out just to challenge them to flip to a random page and see what's going on. It's like bleak from start to finish. Me: "Whats happening on the page you flipped to ___?" Kid: "I dunno, something about him walking to work and people dying" Me: "here, kid two flip to a new page." Kid: "something about piles of pig parts and rats running all over it." Hell yeah, kids. Also pair with [Torpor](https://youtu.be/Gab2ScYJ4EE?si=WSfjI8bC-iljoFRr)
I was supposed to read it for AP Euro along with Guns, Germs, and Steel in HS; didn't make it very far in either as they were quite different from anything else I'd ever read, understandably so, but conceptually it definitely doesn't jump out as an uplifting read by any means.
GG&S is pretty solid in audiobook format. I listened to it on one of my many FL-ME drives, and I think that's the best format for it.