Psychological Novels.

Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino is THE most depressing book I have EVER read. It is seriously fucking depressing. I felt miserable just reading it. And I got to about 80 pages before deciding that I could not continue any more. It was just TOO depressing. I felt like this huge dark cloud was hovering over me the whole time I read. It was gloomy, it was twisted, it was weird, it was the stuff of dark, gothic mangas maybe. The kind where they ponder the meaning of misery and the innate cruelty or evil in every person kind of thing. The kind where none of the characters ever seem to be happy and they all live in a perpetual state of psychological instability and uncertainty, and speak in low monotones. *shudders* It was depressing. The Japanese seem to like this kind of stuff.

I mean I don't deny the "deepness" of the novel. It certainly provokes a lot of thought. Miserable ones but still. It's... reflective. Of the human spirit, of the mind, of love and relationships between family members and friends, in a way. In a depressing kind of way.

God I hate psychological novels. They all lead nowhere. And "happiness" is a contraband there.

Stephen King's Lisey's Story is another one of those. Full of flashbacks, retrospective kind of stuff. Wikipedia brands it a "psychological thriller". Yeah psychological. Hate it. Depressing stuff.

I think any novels that "explores human nature" is depressive in a way. Even happy endings can have these bittersweet undertones that somehow never escape a story like that. Paulo Coelho's stuff are good examples. I mean what does it say? That humans are miserable creatures? That introspection leads to depressing discoveries?

My friend, he seems to like a bittersweet existance. He embraces it. Calls disenchantment a neutral state of being. Riiiight. Ok... Well not me. I've had enough of bittersweet. It's no state of existence. Whatever happened to the pursuit of "happyness" (heh heh heh). It exists because people wanna be happy. I don't know what kind of twisted, non straighforward (possibly elitist) pleasure that people get out of "bittersweetness" but it's lost on me.

Give me a romantic comedy anyday. Cheesy, happy and highly optimistic. Incidentally, Leap Year is awesome. It's funny. Really funny.