My usual example separating inherently depressing from gratuitously depressing is a Holocaust novel in which everyone dies in a concentration camp, and a Holocaust novel in which everyone dies in a concentration camp except for the protagonist's true love, who is liberated, runs joyously across the street to meet her, and is squashed by a cement truck. Not only was the cement truck not a logical consequence of genocide, but by adding implausible elements to make genocide even more depressing, the entire novel and so the genocide it contains seem less real, and so defeats the author's purpose.
OH MAN. That's an actual book, isn't it? Do I want to know?
Mockingjay is a cement truck novel.
'Cement truck novel' = Term of Awesome.
The page numbering starts at 3. Page 3: Katniss stumbles despairingly through the firebombed ash of her district.
o.000000000000000
Page 5: Drugged, concussed, and depressed, Katniss stares at the mounds of corpses and blames herself.
So....yeah!
Page 6: 90% of her district is dead and it's all her fault.
Katniss breathes in the ashes of her friends.
what
Page 13. Yay! A moment of happiness! Prim's cat Buttercup survived... by eating the corpses of Katniss's friends.
//glances at elderly calico
When Katniss briefly feels like she’s done something good by comforting the wounded, the hospital is promptly bombed and everyone is killed
OY
When he recovers, gets married, and is happy, I immediately thought, “He’s so dead!” Sure enough, he is soon after eaten by lizard-dogs.
................well, I knew I probably wasn't going to read this anyway.
The final cherry of doom on the sundae of despair is the death of Prim
'Cherry of doom' also = Term of Awesome.
Isn't....Prim the sister she originally steps in to save, at the beginning of the first book? Because braid my hair and call me Pollyanna, but I hate endings like that. I don't think there's anything wrong with tragedy, or despairing literature (I like Plath and Dostoevsky, for God's sake). But yeah, I have no patience for cement-truck stuff. It's just gratuitous.
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Date: 2010-09-28 08:46 pm (UTC)OH MAN. That's an actual book, isn't it? Do I want to know?
Mockingjay is a cement truck novel.
'Cement truck novel' = Term of Awesome.
The page numbering starts at 3.
Page 3: Katniss stumbles despairingly through the firebombed ash of her district.
o.000000000000000
Page 5: Drugged, concussed, and depressed, Katniss stares at the mounds of corpses and blames herself.
So....yeah!
Page 6: 90% of her district is dead and it's all her fault.
Katniss breathes in the ashes of her friends.
what
Page 13. Yay! A moment of happiness! Prim's cat Buttercup survived... by eating the corpses of Katniss's friends.
//glances at elderly calico
When Katniss briefly feels like she’s done something good by comforting the wounded, the hospital is promptly bombed and everyone is killed
OY
When he recovers, gets married, and is happy, I immediately thought, “He’s so dead!” Sure enough, he is soon after eaten by lizard-dogs.
................well, I knew I probably wasn't going to read this anyway.
The final cherry of doom on the sundae of despair is the death of Prim
'Cherry of doom' also = Term of Awesome.
Isn't....Prim the sister she originally steps in to save, at the beginning of the first book? Because braid my hair and call me Pollyanna, but I hate endings like that. I don't think there's anything wrong with tragedy, or despairing literature (I like Plath and Dostoevsky, for God's sake). But yeah, I have no patience for cement-truck stuff. It's just gratuitous.