Why is so much of literature so miserable and depressing? is it because writers generally sad people?

it's not just that the heroes are being beaten, it's that the whole point seems to be that the there is disorder and tragedy. everyone knows "life sucks blah blah blah", how about "but face it!" or something triumphant like that?

Because real life is miserable and depressing, you goddamn moron.

>The Iliad
>not depressing
Literally about the horrors of war and the futility of life

It descends from the Greek Tragedy. You're supposed to vent your own frustrations with the Tragic Hero to achieve Catharsis. There are books that are considered classics where the hero eventually triumphs. See, for examples from the last century, since you don't seem the type to enjoy literature from further back than 1914:
>Parade's End
>Brideshead Revisited
>A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man

Our English curriculum was nothing but miserable white guilt novels

>muh slavery
>muh trail of tears
>muh holocaust

repeat until sick

to you maybe, but ask someone like conor mcgregor who buys and fucks whatever he wants whenever he wants and does so because of his own hard work if life is so depressing, and think he might hesitate

i'm tired of this emo shit people seem to jerk off to and then the lesson is "life is hard", yea no shit cry more about it, \

thanks for these suggestions. im afraid my life will turn to shit one day and its because i read too many books where thats exactly what happens

you sound stupid and entirely lacking perspective on the human condition 2bh

Because life is suffering?

You have the choice to cry about it or not but the objective truth is that the world is a miserable place however you look at it. One happy guy doesn't compensate for all the shit humans beans like to do/be

this

no joke we had to read anne frank's diary, night by elie wiesel, the book thief, number the stars through middle and high school, and the only number i remember from school apart from 1776 and 1492 was fucking 6 million 6 million 6 million seriously all this emo shit, humans are fucking evil, life is a tragedy, nothing exists. "we've made mistakes......that we should never repeat...." how about shit we should actually do and strive for?

>A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man
That's somewhat debatable. He is Icarus, after all.

>if only you knew how miserable life REALLY is
yea no shit, kids die, blah blah blah tell me more

but any story WORTH telling isn't some emo nihilistic shit, there are certainly people who don't just sit around and suffer, stories about these people, that are ALSO part of reality that impart MEANING instead of a lazy "tough luck pal... in the end it doesn't even matter....."

I mean, it's left ambiguous, but this guy should take it to mean that he did well.

If you want something written before 1914, check out Crime and Punishment or War and Peace.

you're living it you fucking mong. the fact this is the canon you refer to (that doesn't sugar-coat the human condition) in living in a first-world country and having the internet is testament to that. even fucking nietzsche, herald of the overman from the ashes of morality, recognized the necessity of tragedy and giving the spectrum of what *Is* its due

if you don't want to engage in the human condition mapped out over 2 millenia (yet somehow proceeds despite this """emo shit""""?????) then all the better for you if you ignore it and continue referring to mcgregor or the like as ideals

Moby Dick
Divine Comedy

>history is nothing but tragedy and misery

read a book you nig

no story has been about a guy who just sit and suffer. Books are depressing when they depict the reality but the hero isn't just a slobbery loser

>my high school reading is depressing :(
you should thank God you had to read classic literature and not contempory you asshole

the alchemist
a well written, simple story that basically boils down to "you do you". just try not to think of the oprah circus that gets associated with it.

What he said. Even Notes from Underground isn't about a schlub who sits in his basement and nothing else. It's about terrible person who appears decent outwardly contrasted by a good person who appears awful outwardly.

>simple story that basically boils down to "you do you"
t. Rick and Morty fan

journey to the end of the night

an uplifting book

you're thinking of anime

McGregor was exceptionally poor 4 years prior to making it big and collecting welfare cheques. How about a vast majority of Irish people who are on the dole, struggling to find their place and realising they can't take hits to the head in order to "make it"

Fun, happy = sensory, hedonist, mindless entertainment. Sadness appeals to the intelligent mind.

Basically, if you don't like sad texts, you're a pleb who should go watch the newest Adam Sandler movie or watch anime.

>books are depressing when they depict reality

simply not true! i have an uncle and he as 350, but he lost 200 lbs at the age of 40 and got married to a beautiful wife and now has two children. he was this close to dying a fat lonely fan and somehow he turned it around.

his family isn't going to die in a tragic accident and he isn't going to realize how futile and everything is meaningless. he's going to die with his children and grandhcildren at his bedside and his wife holding his hand.

Yes, and to what extent does he really know his wife? To what extent will a 40 year old man be able to properly raise children? To what extent does any of that actually make him happy? To what extent is his wife just Winnie Verloc, trapped in a marriage to a massive, fat old man because of financial security?

The one thing I know is that having read at least some of the canon, I'm happy to not be as stupid as op.

the dude just mopes about how miserable he was and even him giving the inspirational speech to the prostitue was motivated because he's a manipulative loser?

he doesn't literally sit around, but all he does is bemoan how much of a loser he was, the only actual message is "don't be like this guy"

>his family isn't going to die in a tragic accident and he isn't going to realize how futile and everything is meaningless

uhh buddy, you have *no idea* how its going to end until it ends. death can come at any time. you dismiss tragedy flippantly because you lack life experience. at the very least by your mid 20's you will know several people you grew up with who have been killed in car accidents, workplace accidents, rare diseases, drug overdoses, etc.

e.g. I'm 26, a guy I grew up with from kindergarten fell out of a building at a construction site and bled out when he (we, since he was in my year all through grade school) was 23. a few months later his 22 y/old fiance's 16 year old sister died of a fentanyl overdose in a starbucks bathroom. what do you think this girl would respond to you, whose kid sister and fiance had died in the space of less than half a year, if you went up to her and gave her your idiotic spiel about your uncle? you've got a dopey attitude man

so theres positives and negatives to everything, doesn't mean you have to dwell on the negatives and pretend its profound, since being happy is still a goal that we all have, regardless of how many times you insist "life is suffering" you still smile when a girl texts back

>He ignores the character of Liza as not only an independent actor, but the moral good of the novel

Everyone please leave OP alone. He's convinced that life can be a sweet thing and that's all he needs. Why try to take another human being down into the grime?...

OP, don't bother with books if you want to be happy. These people tell you to read Nietzsche for positivity, but even Nietzsche will lead your mind to thoughts it ought not to bother following. Just get out there and grab the world by the pussy, and don't think about things too much. Advice from a friend.

The great counterthesis, E7, is not literature at all.
You're in the wrong medium, and thereby you are missing the great masterwork.
Literature is written by der Letzte Mensch.
No, he's essentially summarized the argument of the fr*nch 'existentialists'.

why don't you jerk yourself off over how hard your life was, how many people you saw die and how it scarred you emotionally and hardened you, no shit things can go bad, but we all hope they don't and sometimes they go well, but somehow seeing people succeed isn't romantic enough to include in your sappy rant

My theory is this: nearly every form of expression, entertainment, and recreation doubles as a form of escape from the daily grind of the reality and the mainstream society around you. The people most likely to engage in these as a form of escape from the daily grind and reality and whatnot are also the people who are incentivized to do so by their failure to fit in and are miserable because of their personal failures and loneliness.

Also, the only time I've ever been inspired to write anything of value was when I was miserable.

What's that from and who is that? She's gorgeous...

>boo hoo these poor people suffer every day
So let's change things.

>boo hoo the old man worked so hard but then the sharks ate the fish
So let's keep moving forward and don't let lack of instant success turn us into emo faggots.

>in the future the government will torture people and brainwash them
So let's pay attention and don't fall for muh terrorism memes to prevent that.

>literally everyone kills each other/dies
BECAUSE they were idiots obsessed by power and revenge. So, let's not be like that.

You only found that shit depressing because you're a weak faggot who can't handle looking at the dark sides of humanity without wanting to give up, instead of letting it motivating you to surpass that shit.

>learning from the past
>muh miserable white guilt
Why would you even identify with the people based on their whiteness? The main point are their horrible actions, not by who or against who, and how these actions shaped the world. We could get that learning about Chinese history with few differences and smaller impact on the world beyond China.

>All forms of expression are escapism
Read The Waste Land and tell me that

Kim Stanley Robinson's "Mars" books are somewhat utopic. If you like hard sci-fi they are worth a shot.

>i'm miserable because i'm too intelligent
keep drinking your whiskey and telling yourself that

My high school didn't have literature lol

He's not doing that at all. He's just explaining why dismissing tragedy the way you do is stupid and shows a lack of life experience.

I can respect your tough attitude, especially in today's pussy society, but don't be unrealistic. Sometimes unexpected and life-altering/ending tragedy is just part of reality.

genuinely, how was she the moral good? i always thought she was just the victim

We have to accept that the world is by and large shit.

Once we accept it we can no longer ignore it. So we have two choices: wallow in it, or understand that we most likely cannot change it, and attack it with courage anyway.

I personally think that the more you're exposed to in terms of anything academic, the less depressed you become. You're just in the stage where you're depressed from what you've been exposed to. Image related.

She refuses his money. She leaves his money on the table, and never sees him again. Think about what that implies about her moral character as opposed to his.

op's the one at the bottom of the rung

>all forms of expression are escapism
Not what I said at all, user. But that all forms of expression, among other things, CAN serve as escapism, even if that isn't their primary purpose.

tragedies are the highest form of storytelling, hence they can be made into literature.

Who said I thought I was intelligent? I've just encountered some bad thoughts and I know they came from books. This was not a feat of stunning brainpower or something. And I don't drink.

Let's make OP a list of life-affirming books. I'll start

>Leaves of Grass

except tragedy is inherently and literally life-affirming

t. Aristotelian catharsis

>Ulysses

>The Brothers Karamazov

A quote I found that kind of explained the pain of life for me was from an essay on Dostoyevsky.
"Even Ivan Karamazov says he would 'respectfully return the ticket' to God when he realizes that he can neither accept the fact of suffering in the world, nor change the world to eliminate it wholly, nor comprehend the truth which alone makes it intelligible and endurable."

thanks for rec

ok so they were all just lessons/warnings, i'd take that, better than the "wake up life is suffering" crowd

i always thought it was just a "fuck off" to the loser character, "your money isn't worth shit to me"

right click search google for image genius

Turns out she's from Brazil.

wherever she's from if i saw her irl and she told me to kill myself, i'd do it gladly

>implying it would be because she told you to and not because you're a sad fuck

This is so American

Your life is going to be shit and its because you have a double digit IQ. And I don't mean that in a negative way sweetheart.

I love these dumbbell thrads they make me feel smard lol

Fucking this. I will never forgive my kike teachers for this.

Since I spent all of high school reading about "muh slavery" and "muh holocaust" when I should have been reading Shakespeare and Homer, I'm still trying to repair the damage by trying to read classics I should have read when I was 15 or 16.

Most classic novels are depressing shit, I don't think anyone will argue that.

Sounds like poetry is for you.
All the beauty of language, minus the woe is me emo nonsense (unless you're reading Baudelaire or Poe).

Then again, you might read Yeats or something and then get second hand depressed that you will never write something even 1% as beautiful as one of his minor poems.

reading/writing is an evolutionary tool - devoting your life to it is masturbation - of course these people are going to have a miserable outlook

Because you're supposed to read them and think how can I make the world better and less like this.

Our institutions are plagued with corruption and abuses of power, what are you going to do about it

There are millions of hero based novels and stories out there throughout time, take Jack Reacher, the reason eng professors don't like them is 'cause they know they're stupid

GARGANTUA AND PANTAGRUEL

it's about the hollowness of glory, not the futility of life

that's part of the fetish idiot, its like you've never wanted to be humiliated before

educate yourself:
pornhub.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ph584d461e412e7

you are an entitled faggot and your teachers did you a favor trying to let you know about it. every class has it's share of invincibly stupid mouth breathers like you though. you'll do fine working at a gas station

why the fuck can't a 40 year old man raise children? he'll be in his early 60s when they graduate college, and then he can die whenever and get out of their way

you are right my dude which anime should i watch to understand how dark the world really is?

evangelion

triggered as fuck

enjoy your african diaspora shitlit, I'll be reading Proust and Joyce

I didn't see it as tragic, Hemmingway could have easily done a Moby Dick 'The Old Man dies at sea in his battle against nature!' but instead, it was a celebration of the old man's battles with nature and the joys of a simple life.

A lot of the books you listed end tragically but have upbeat and downbeat moments: A book without struggle wouldn't be a very interesting book, struggle often causes misery.

>the world is a sad place
Compared to what other place?

Why are you posting whores?

your desire

If you want happy stories then read visual novels.

Not really. Third worlders living in squaller aren't even sad until someone exposes their own conditions to them, not to mention people in the west who are succeeding and living passionately.

You have to be 18 to post here

Mark Twain's stuff is cheery but still considered classic. It's pretty good shit.

THe world is sad not the mindless sheep living in it

ROBINSON CRUSOE
reading it unironically feels just like watching a guy playing single player Minecraft
and then discovering he's actually playing multiplayer
pic related, crusoe even goes over the crafting recipe for bread

This has to be bait

Writers tend to be intelligent and intelligent people tend to be sad