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Books That Make You Cry
Inspired by the movies thread

Books That Make You Cry

Deej
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Posted 03/27/08 - 11:06 AM: Subject: Books That Make You Cry	#1
It may be cheesy, but I remember crying when I first read the Hobbit. I was about ten or eleven and the ending when a lot of the heroes die made me really really sad. I think it was the first time I knew that major characters could die, and since everyone I knew was a major character in my life it informed my young brain about mortality. -Deej

MatthewbCurry
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Posted 05/06/08 - 09:05 PM:	#2
Shiloh made me cry: an abused dog rescued by a young boy. Not really. I've never cried about a story...well maybe a tear from laughter. For the arts, many of my tears are for operas. The theme of well liked characters dieing is quite common. I just do not cry for such stories. I did almost cry during the movie Titanic when Leonardo DiCaprio's character, Jack I think, sank into the water. Edited by MatthewbCurry on 05/06/08 - 09:12 PM. Reason: Desired to add content.

quickly
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Posted 05/07/08 - 06:20 AM:	#3
Not cry, but brought me to a point of utter, affirmative, laughter (of the silent kind), amidst their (the character's) despair. Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, for instance. The scene where the main character and her transient aunt burn down their house, where the main character loses herself (in every possible sense) in the dark, dreaming of children inhabiting an abandoned house, only to affirm herself at the end, was a powerful moment. The kind which is so captivating you feel captivated by something deeper than the emotion to cry, because you can't cry, but you can't laugh, only remain silent. The last sections of James Joyce's Ulysses had the same effect. Same with W. B. Yeats, and a few others. I always found it kind of useless to cry during a novel. Those parts in which a person wishes to cry, I found after a while, are the places the reader needs to focus most intently, until they've discovered every reason they did, until they've deciphered the book until it becomes impossible to cry because they're outside of themselves, knowing why another would.
_____________________ "Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: 'here are our monsters', without immediately turning the monsters into pets." -Jacques Derrida

Benkei
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Posted 05/07/08 - 07:21 AM:	#4
Hmmm... I cried when all the superheroes died fighting Onslaught in the Marvel Universe. It was horrible!
_____________________ We all warm ourselves on fires we did not kindle. We all drink from wells we did not dig. - ancient Celtic saying

quickly
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Posted 05/07/08 - 07:36 AM:	#5
No way! It was when fucking Batman died. Batman doesn't die...Heresy
_____________________ "Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: 'here are our monsters', without immediately turning the monsters into pets." -Jacques Derrida

Benkei
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Posted 05/08/08 - 04:33 AM:	#6
OMFG! Batman died?!
_____________________ We all warm ourselves on fires we did not kindle. We all drink from wells we did not dig. - ancient Celtic saying

Seperaii
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Posted 05/08/08 - 02:00 PM:	#7
"Private Peacefull" - Micheal Morpurgo I first read it when I was about 8, and it made me cry then. I read it for the Insert rather large number here-th time last week, and it still bought the same result. I don't know why I like it so much, I can't really relate to any of the characters, but it does. If you havn't read it, I suggest that you do. Right now. Go and buy it. Then read it.

jdrw
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Posted 05/08/08 - 06:34 PM:	#8
As I recall, A Woman in Amber a memoir of a little girl's survival of WW II in Latvia made me sob. And The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, too. And also I wept over the sales figures for the Left Behind series and was depressed for weeks. And of course there's always Hegel. Hegel has brought tears to many people's eyes. Cheers. jd
_____________________ OTOH I might be exhaustively wrong about everything I've ever thought--with the possible exception of this sentence.

7
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Posted 05/09/08 - 12:03 AM:	#9
I have never cried due to the content of a book, but I have laughed many times.

Benkei
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Posted 05/09/08 - 12:43 AM:	#10
Well, to be serious, I have gone misty-eyed with quite a few passages in various books. I even had it with the uplifting words in Plato's Politea: with our feet on the upward path all shall be well. As a barren quote it doesn't work of course but within the context it opened up the realisation that human greatness is a journey and one we need not walk alone. For some reason the contextual metaphor struck me emotionally in those last few pages. In any case, I am very sensitive to strong descriptions of friendship, love and honour, whereas violence just doesn't resonate with me whether in written or graphic form - I felt nothing during the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan but was dumbstruck into reverent silence seeing the graves in real life of all those soldiers that died there; rows upon rows of white crosses.
_____________________ We all warm ourselves on fires we did not kindle. We all drink from wells we did not dig. - ancient Celtic saying

litkey
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Posted 05/09/08 - 08:52 AM:	#11
I cried whem I read Plato's Republic. Although it was because someone dropped a hammer on my head- it hurt terribly. ouch!
_____________________ Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. - The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware. -Henry Miller

loveofsophia
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Posted 05/09/08 - 12:26 PM:	#12
I believe tears are closely associated or embedded within our social nature. I can't think of a single time when I have cried when it did not in some respects relate to my relations with others. Tears relate to needs and desires being disappointed, there is no harsher criticism of another than to weep at their behavior and its effects upon you or others. Interestingly, there is no finer release of such disappointment or trauma than to cry. Ones "degree" of tears or laughter, joy or weeping, indicate the emotional pleasure or displeasure events have upon us (and always occur with a certain social implication). It is interesting to think on. To a certain extent, frustration leading to tears, occurring while trying to accomplish a task, relate to ones wish to fulfill certain tasks or activities to the degree others and yourself think you should (often retains a social dimension). If nothing else, tears and laughter are affective in relaying to others ones wants and desires and their level of fulfillment. They create a certain level of transparency...due to the fact that we often just react joyfully or with displeasure/frustration/weeping without a conscious decision to do so. Emotion and how or why it exists, considering its function, has always fascinated me.
_____________________ It is amazing how susceptible to lies we are when young. I believe people are still far more susceptible to lies as adults than they would like. Balancing what could be, our imaginings, with what we know, this is a delicate act of mind.

jdrw
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Posted 05/09/08 - 06:14 PM:	#13
loveofsophia wrote: Emotion and how or why it exists, considering its function, has always fascinated me. If you're not already familiar with him, you might try taking a look at Robert Solomon. A couple or more relatively easy reads on emotion and value judgments as contributing rational aspects of consciousness. He died recently, but was a Philos Prof, I think, at the Univ of Texas, Austin. Michigan Ph.D as I recall. Cheers. jd
_____________________ OTOH I might be exhaustively wrong about everything I've ever thought--with the possible exception of this sentence.

unenlightened
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Posted 05/12/08 - 05:37 PM:	#14
Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes) Pobby and Dingan (Ben Rice) The Idiot (Dostoevsky) The Wrong Boy (Willy Russell) Shikasta (Doris Lessing) I list merely a few highlights... There really ought to be a crying emoticon for people like me... though I haven't read a post here that's made me cry yet - wince a few times, but not cry.
_____________________ The observer is the observed. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

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