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My theories, some people think they might learn why bad things happen, but never underestimate the human capacity to wallow in misery, even vicariously. lol
You have a point. Many people do like to wallow in misery. I try not to have anything to do with them. My family pushes my limits with all their drama, lol. Depressing books make me less patient for BS because I have always read worse.
I'm just finishing up Mikiso Hane's Peasant/Rebels and Outcastes, The Underside of Modern Japan.
I've read too many depressing books about peasant life in various countries during the 18th/19th/early 20th centuries, but there were a few new twists to peasant life in Japan. Like the Burakumin outcaste society, which exists in Japan to this day, but to a lesser extent.
The killing of animals is against the Buddhist faith, so anyone connected with killing animals, working in tanneries or with leather, were condemned as outcastes, treated worse than stray dogs, the whole family, as they believed they were stinky/smelly people. They even had separate Burakumin schools and you couldn't marry a non-Burakumin. Occasinally, in a village, when they would arrive, they'd build their straw huts, and before long, the village people would burn them to the ground. And they were restricted to even what they could wear, to identify them. Starving, they'd even resort to eating the dogs and cats in the villages.
Ironically, the Japanese lick their chops over Sukyaki (made with beef) or their mixed grills, but as long as they didn't do the killing, they don't consider it sinful!
The contract labor was also new to me, rural grass-eating peasants selling off a son or daughter to the cotton-textile/silk factories, brothels or to the coal mines. These unfortunate children (as young as 7-8YO) would be literally purchased from the parents on a contract for X number of years. A prostitute, working in Shanghai, wanted to get out of the contract, but to do so she'd have to repay the amount they paid her parents, translating to having sex with roughly 2200 men to do so!
The big light at the end of the tunnels when I read of the exploitation that went on, in whatever country, is the lowering of the fertility rate throughout the world, best thing happening in this planet right no, IMO!
Let's see them try and exploit workers in Japan today with their 1.2 fertility rate, or even Mexico where the fertility rate has plunged to 2.2.
Not intentionally. Couldn't stand Kafka on the Beach. It wasn't boring, but it was depressing. Character just drifts randomly, overcome by ennui. I guess I don't understand the modern Japanese novel.
I'm just finishing up Latinos, A biography of the People, by Earl Shorris. This book didn't seem like it was going to be depressing at all, and then? Yikes! Life in the sweatshops, the agricultural migrant camps, this book got more depressing as I waded into it! 5 chapters to go!
Learned a few things, like no Latino immigrant group rises more quickly from poverty to comfort than the aggressive, arrogant Cubans, referred to as the Jews of the Caribbean!
Also, the consensus seem to point to the Guatemalans as the hardest of the Latino workers, many Central Americans deem Mexicans lazy!
I work with an older Guatemalan lady at a LTC facility, and she's been working 2 full-time jobs since her arrival in this country, and I would never pick a fight with her! One punch to the stomach and I'd be dead!
Next in line, a choice between a thick bio of Margaret Thatcher and a thick bio of Billy Graham. Now! How could a bio of Billy Graham be depressing reading?
The latest depression book that I read was Looking for Jake.
I learned that my life was still more depressing than that book. That book was only a sidekick for my real life. Therefore, that novel was categorized Comedy's by me. Not sad enough; keep come in.
Non-fiction:
I don't read non-fiction to feel good, I read it to learn.
Fiction:
Again, my goal in reading fiction is not to read shiny happy pleasantness. It's to hear a good tale (which invariably involves some sort of conflict, and thus some level of unhappiness on the part of someone) and to enjoy good prose.
I don't specifically gain anything from the 'depressing' aspect of some books, but that aspect also doesn't prevent me from gaining the usual pleasure I gain from reading a book that does a good job of conveying information in an engaging way (non-fiction) or relates an interesting story and/or deploys an aesthetically-pleasing use of language (fiction).
I was actually about to start a thread on this topic, because I've been wondering about it for a while now (probably ever since I started attending our local library book group).
Having dealt with anxiety and depression since childhood, I have found that reading certain books about depressing circumstances just makes me more depressed and anxious. I'm fully aware that people do horrible things to other people, but why would I need to put all the horrendous details into my brain, especially when, as in the case of past wars, there's absolutely nothing that can be done about it?
A good many of the books that our group selects (by voting from a list of well reviewed current books selected by our moderator) seem to center around human misery. The vast majority of them, but not all, are set during WWII. These books are selected, I imagine, because they have won the most awards and critical praise.
So in reading a book like The Zookeeper's Wife, which so many people have praised, do most of the readers who loved this book just let the bad stuff kind of float by them, as they focus on the courage and grit of the protagonists? I had to be done with that book at the 9% mark, when it apparently wasn't enough that the Nazis were killing people, but not even the birds in the trees survived the strafing. And now that image is embedded in my brain and I can't delete it. Can most readers just let those images go and never return to them again in their minds?
I was actually about to start a thread on this topic, because I've been wondering about it for a while now (probably ever since I started attending our local library book group).
Having dealt with anxiety and depression since childhood, I have found that reading certain books about depressing circumstances just makes me more depressed and anxious. I'm fully aware that people do horrible things to other people, but why would I need to put all the horrendous details into my brain, especially when, as in the case of past wars, there's absolutely nothing that can be done about it?
A good many of the books that our group selects (by voting from a list of well reviewed current books selected by our moderator) seem to center around human misery. The vast majority of them, but not all, are set during WWII. These books are selected, I imagine, because they have won the most awards and critical praise.
So in reading a book like The Zookeeper's Wife, which so many people have praised, do most of the readers who loved this book just let the bad stuff kind of float by them, as they focus on the courage and grit of the protagonists? I had to be done with that book at the 9% mark, when it apparently wasn't enough that the Nazis were killing people, but not even the birds in the trees survived the strafing. And now that image is embedded in my brain and I can't delete it. Can most readers just let those images go and never return to them again in their minds?
Non-fiction, as another person said, I read to learn from.
For fiction, it depends on if there is hope at the end of the tunnel. It doesn't have to be some big happy turnaround in circumstance - I dislike unrealistic 'happiness.' But I don't like nihilism either - there has to be a spark of humanity, something that points to the idea that the human spirit is capable of rising above the swamp and misery is survivable.
On the other hand, I rarely read Second World War/Holocaust books now. I read enough non-fiction and fiction about it years ago. The reason I read it back then was that even in fiction, I was looking for a hint of how people can do that to other people. And the only thing I can come up with to this day is that there is no depth so low that a person cannot sink that far. And that to be silent is to be complicit and not to think myself above them in case I ever fall into a similar trap.
I am interested in drama. I do not consume fiction merely to feel good, though that sometimes is the result.
Mostly, I want to feel. Sometimes the emotion evoked will be positive, other times negative. Such is the art of fiction, be it a book (or a film or a song or a play or whatever).
There can be a lot of beauty in tragedy. Cormac McCarthy's The Road. The astonishing film Downfall, which I found draining to watch and plan to watch again for precisely that reason. The Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter. Romeo and Juliet. Breaking Bad.
But today The Umbrellas of Cherbourg arrived in the mailbox from Netflix, so by no means do I require horror or tragedy to be entertained!
This question has come up a few times in my real life, and my answer is always that interesting things always have some kind of depressing element. You read about a plane crash and its survivors and what caused the crash -- that's interesting. I doubt it would be interesting to read about some people who got on a plane, the mechanics and pilot did checks on the aircraft, everything looked good, plane flew to its destination, plane landed without incident, and everyone got off.
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because I have always read worse.
And they were restricted to even what they could wear, to identify them. Starving, they'd even resort to eating the dogs and cats in the villages.
Not sad enough; keep come in.
