Here’s a question from the indispensable I Love Books:
Now I differentiate between two different kinds of crying. Plenty of books have made me mist up, have brought a lump to my throat … but only a few have made me literally burst into sobs. Those burst-into-sobs books remain almost radio-active to me – those books are books I have only been able to read once. Once was enough. I didn’t just find the books sad. No. I found myself REVEALED by those books. I felt called OUT by those books. I sat in my OWN life, in my OWN experience … and felt a searing pain that was literally unbearable. Now THAT’S a good sad book. No distance between the story and my own revelations.
But that’s why I probably won’t read those 3 books again. The revelations that came, the searing truth revealed … it was a once in a lifetime thing. And it hurt. I remember sitting on the floor in my room after finishing one of the books, and literally holding onto my heart, pressing down on my chest, because it HURT. I’m not talking about a metaphor. I am saying that my heart, the organ, actually HURT.
So.
Here is my 2-part answer to the 1-part question.
Books that have made me mist over, tear up, get a lump in my throat, yadda yadda – I will probably add to this
Brothers Karamazov – by Dostoevsky
The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay – Michael Chabon
Moby Dick – Herman Melville
Wrinkle in Time – Madeleine L’Engle
Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
Angela’s Ashes – Frank McCourt
It – Stephen King
Books that have literally made me burst into spontaneous stormy tears. Books that seared into my soul like a hot poker. There are only 3 on the list.
Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
Geek Love – Katherine Dunn
Atonement – Ian McEwan
I actually tried to re-read Atonement recently. I got through the first chapter and had to put it down again. Nope. I can’t read it again.
Pete B sent me a copy of Atonement recently. Everybody raves about it. I’m going to crack it this weekend. Is it really that sad?
emily – it is a very very sad story.
But it’s really more sad in the WAY it is written, and how it unfolds. Hard to describe.
It might be just that the sadness the book describes dovetails perfectly with my own sadness – so I flipped out – I just flipped OUT. I took the ending of that book PERSONALLY – and that’s rarely happened to me before.
I’ll look forward to hearing your thoughts on it. Really good characters, really good writing. but the ending!!!
Emily – I think a lot of the impact came from HOW he tells the story. Not the story itself. It’s not literal or chronological … you get tangled up in it … the missed connections, how certain events look completely different seen through different eyes …
I found it devastating.
Do non-fiction books count?
If not, there’s never been a fiction book that moved me like Losing Julia by Jonathan Huff. Oh, sure, people would look at it in the stores and scoff, “It’s a ROMANCE” as if it were some bodice-ripper or Danielle-Steel-piece-of-crap-du-jour and never pick it up, but they’d be the poorer for it.
It’s so much more. It DEVASTATED me for DAYS. I hung on to the character and when he would cross my mind, I’d start crying again. It was BLISTERINGLY sad. But beautiful, too.
I’m looking forward to reading it, though I’m glad for the warning about it being a tear jerker.
And Geek Love still kills me. “Strap us to the hood of your traveling machine and take us on the road again.”
wow, Lisa. I’m gonna have to check that out. I’ve never even heard of it. am I an idiot? what’s the topic?
If we’re counting non-fiction, then I have to put The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang on there. That book made me so angry that all I could do was cry. I was on the Metro North, weeping under my jacket. Horrible.
emily – God.
I know.
It’s been almost 15 years since I read that book – and that last chapter is just – emblazoned in my mind.
i wept openly in a cafe in Chicago while reading “Lives of the Saints”. I laughed like a hyena and then wept. Owen Meaney did it to me too…Kavalier and Clay as well…Plays Well With Others by Alan Gurganus sent me into a spiral of tears…beautifully earned tho’..not manipulative…just great writing.
Emily..i realize i dont know you but i think you would really like the Alan Gurganus book.
I loved Plays well with Others. He’s a lovely writer.
And I remember you bursting into loud guffaws in our one-room apartment while reading Lives of the Saints – that I made you read!! And then you – with tears in your eyes – saying to me in an accusatory tone: “You did not tell me that Saint died.” You were so mad at me!!!
It probably didn’t hit your radar.
Here’s a synopsis:
http://www.curledup.com/losing.htm
Oh, it’s fiction? For some reason from your comment I thought it was non-fiction – like a man describing his wife’s kidnapping or something. “And that was the day I lost Julia.”
I’m actually a sucker for love stories set in a backdrop of a huge historical event.
Oh, I’m sorry, I wasn’t clear. My bad.
Lisa – just wondering: what non-fiction books would you put on your list?
Hm.
Dear Barbara, Dear Lynne. Written by two women who met through RESOLVE (infertility support group). It is a collection of letters they wrote back and forth while both were trying to build their families, either through adoption or fertility treatments. To want something SO BAD and not be able to achieve it no matter what you do, especially something that most of us can do easily (and most of the time try to prevent!) is so. . . SAD to me, for lack of a better word. I read it in one day, and just sobbed and sobbed. Even though it has a happy ending, it was a long hard journey for both of them.
The Power to Hurt. True story of a judge who sexually harassed the women in his office and the women who appeared in his court, all the while enjoying a pillar-of-the-community lifestyle. He did HORRIBLE things to these women, threatening them with all types of retribution if they told (even threatening to take away their kids), and when they told, they weren’t believed. (It wouldn’t have mattered anyway if they had been believed, because his brother was the prosecutor.) I cried like a baby through the whole middle, and there were times reading the book that I had to put it down; it made me physically ill.
BUT, they filed a federal case and won, and set the precedent in federal court that sexual harassment is a violation of a person’s civil rights, so yay. But, man, what a price to pay.
The Broken Child. I’ve read many books about multiple personalities, but the abuse suffered by the author in this book will make your hair stand up. I start crying from about Page Five. How ANYONE could hurt a defenseless child is beyond me, but this girl’s mother defies explanation.
I blubbered through the last five pages of the Joy Luck Club, when the American-born daughter visits her Chinese-born older sisters to tell them that their mother died. Oh man! I could hardly read the pages because my eyes were so full of tears.
APFOM is probably the best thing my crazy canadian ex ever gave me. damn that book impressed the hell out of me. and i am no fan of irving.
The Yearling did it to me but I think I was a teenager then. None since although some have almost gotten me in a “is that all there is” kind of way. Plowing my way through an 900-pager with no payoff will tend to bring me to tears.
Rob, one word:
Underworld.
Is the movie of the same name based on that? The movie was fun although seriously stupid.
No. It’s not a movie.
It’s the magnum opus of Don DeLillo – and there are some breathtaking passages – truly – the opening is one of the best book openings I have ever read – but 900 pages later, I staggered towards the finish line, thinking: “Uhm … IS THAT IT????”
I cried through a lot of The End of the Affair. Right from page one, when he says, “I hated his wife Sarah too.” It was strange — I felt the precise quality of his sentiment when I read that line. It was so … stark. Like a slap in the face. It stung and brought tears to my eyes in exactly the same way. I read the whole novel in one sitting and cried repeatedly throughout. Great novel. Inadequate movie, though I loved the casting choices (Julianne Moore! Ralph Fiennes!) But awesomely great novel.
Atonement has been on my shelf for a while, but every time I read the jacket synopsis I think, “Nope, I can’t handle this.” The above discussion cofirms my suspicions. Thank you!
No book has made me cry before but APFOM came the closest. A friend gave it to me years ago, said it was good, should give it a try. I could not put it down. I read it at least once a year and cite it as my fav book of all time.
I remember reading it on the bus to work/home and strangers would come up to me and comment about how great APFOM was. No one before, or since, has come up to me to comment about a book I was reading. What a brilliant story, book.
Little Women made me bawl when I was younger.
I read The Lovely Bones in an airport/plane with tears streaming down my face.
There was another book that I clearly remember SOBBING over…now I can’t remember the name of it! (I wish I had your incredible memory Sheila!)
Atonement seconded. Also, and probably more so, was Disgrace. Rather than be scared to reread them, I’ve found myself compelled to reread Disgrace a couple of time since then, and have been meaning to reread Atonement. I’ve cried upon reread Disgrace, but nothing like the first torrent. I’ll have to put APOM and Geek Love on the to-read pile.
The only thing jumping into the lesser tears category right now is The Corrections, and I’m going to chalk that one up to the fact that it was 5 in the morning when I finished it.
Charles Dickens does it for me, A Tale of Two Cities especially.