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Post by Feral on Jan 3, 2008 0:38:23 GMT
I finished reading Stephen Fry's autobiography 'Moab is my Washpot' the other day. And apart from being generally fantastic, it actually made me properly get all emotional in places AND ACTUALLY CRY. Which is ridiculous for a few bits of paper and some ink.
Anyway, it made me realise that its ages since a book last actually made me shed some proper actual genuine rolling-down-my-cheek tears. Whereas I seem to cry at the slightest hint of a emotional surge of strings in the score of a movie (lest you think i've got a heart of stone)
So I was just wondering what books have make you all properly emotional and that…
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Post by Cherubic on Jan 3, 2008 8:27:20 GMT
I cried at the Subtle Knife, when it's going on about how that boy had to defend his crazy mother from the secret service. I was going to blame it on being ill and therefore unstable when I read it, but since I'm welling up now I think we can safely say I'm just mental.
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Post by FeelsLikeKellyCrabtree on Jan 3, 2008 12:28:32 GMT
What part did you cry at Feral? I've read it too and must say it's an amazing book.
Does anybody know what his fiction is like?
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als
Jane Asher
"you can't be a princess, you aren't even a woman!"
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Post by als on Jan 3, 2008 15:14:36 GMT
His fiction is more than a little bit mental in places!
'The Hippopotamus' involves a boy thinking he has special powers and can cure people by shagging them and does so far more often than you really want to know (most ickishly once with a horse!)
'The Liar' is really bloody confusing because I spent most of the book trying to decided what was actual plot and what had been totally made up by the lead character, made up bits included days as a male hooker, and a really strange conspiracy theory involving, I think, some germans. That said, I did rather like it.
My favourite is 'The Stars Tennis Balls' but I'm not sure I can really explain that one very well, so I won't bother. The end made me almost cry though.
Other books to make me cry though are:
Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials
That trilogy by the American guy who was one of the worst child abuse cases in history
A fair few Aidan Chambers books (supposedly late teen fiction but actually fantastic novels with with really interesting themes linking a group of 6 books)
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh (the end with Charles and Julia gets me every time)
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Post by LoveMusic on Jan 3, 2008 19:43:00 GMT
I seem to cry at anything. I read Moab is my Washpot too - i loved it.
As i can remember, Noughts & Crosses, the five people you met in heaven, the lovely bones and the bit in Harry Potter - Chamber of Secrets - where he sees his parents in the mirror
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Post by Feral on Jan 3, 2008 23:41:29 GMT
What part did you cry at Feral? I've read it too and must say it's an amazing book. It really is. Though it did make me feel horrendously ill-read. And dredged up some deep-seated crushing regret that I never got to go to some posh boarding school as a kid. Even though I know I would almost certainly have hated it really. Despite the bumming. The stuff about Matthew Osbourne properly sent a tingle down my spine, cos it reminded me so much of the way I felt about one particular guy at school. The part that really got to me though, was the bit about his mum had cut out the crosswords from the Times every single day that he had been missing, so she could give them to him when he was found. "There was more love in every straightly snipped cut than one might think was contained in the whole race of man". Oh bugger its doing it to me AGAIN. The bit with the Mirror in Harry Potter got to as well. It seems I'm a sucker for all that family love type stuff. |
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Post by Rad on Jan 3, 2008 23:56:43 GMT
I choked a little when Harry named his kid Snape and talked about how ace Snape was, because Snape really was the aces.
I can't really think of others, though there probably are some.
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Post by jetsetwilly on Jan 4, 2008 9:33:13 GMT
I didn't cry, because I am so repressed it takes an Act of Parliament to make me blub, but Jude the Obscure got me so emotional I had to put the book down and make myself a soothing cup of tea. The little boy killing his brothers and sisters and then himself because the family are too poor to support all of them still upsets me.
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Post by thelovelykate on Jan 4, 2008 10:58:14 GMT
I cried at the end of the Subtle Knife. I also cried at Babycakes by Amistad Maupin and repeatedly during quite a few of the Number One Ladies Detective Agency books. The end of the first book makes me want to cry just thinking about it.
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Post by lockjawsghost on Jan 4, 2008 11:52:27 GMT
the five people you met in heaven ooh ooh i love this book. i don't remember crying, but i am somewhat repressed. |
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Mike
Su Pollard
"I want a chandelier. A motorised one."
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Post by Mike on Jan 4, 2008 14:45:05 GMT
The Time Traveller's Wife and The Lovely Bones.
As regards the respective film adaptations - both due this year - I'm veering between 'can't wait' and 'they'd better not fuck this up'.
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boxedjoy
Su Pollard
Don't you wish your snack was as tempting as this?
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Post by boxedjoy on Jan 4, 2008 15:01:21 GMT
I cried at the end of the Subtle Knife. I also cried at Babycakes by Amistad Maupin and repeatedly during quite a few of the Number One Ladies Detective Agency books. The end of the first book makes me want to cry just thinking about it. What was it about the Number One Ladies Detective Agency that made you cry? I really like those books, they make me feel very, very happy. Am I reading them wrong? |
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Post by thelovelykate on Jan 4, 2008 16:39:46 GMT
I cried at the end of the Subtle Knife. I also cried at Babycakes by Amistad Maupin and repeatedly during quite a few of the Number One Ladies Detective Agency books. The end of the first book makes me want to cry just thinking about it. What was it about the Number One Ladies Detective Agency that made you cry? I really like those books, they make me feel very, very happy. Am I reading them wrong? No. They are completely lush and make me very happy too. Just any of the bits where she thinks about her dead dad or baby are really sad. The end of the first book makes me cry in a sort of good way because I think it is the best proposal ever and I would cry if anyone ever proposed to me like that. I then actually cry because I suspect that no one will ever propose to me like that. Gutted. |
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Post by LoveMusic on Jan 4, 2008 19:44:29 GMT
The Perks of being a Wallflower is the most blubsom book in history and was told not to read the ending on public transport (am glad cos it'll give you snotty blurts) Though half the people I talked to seemed to have skipped over the most major piece of information which is revealed at the end. silly shit readers. That sounds really interesting, i'm going to order it from the library. |
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Post by David on Jan 9, 2008 22:30:51 GMT
I don't cry at all, but the tears flowed at the end of Michael Tolliver Lives! If you've read all the Tales of the City books, the scene in the hospital really is the most amazing pay-off.
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Dennis
Junior Member
Like Zorro.
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Post by Dennis on Jan 16, 2008 15:10:54 GMT
Pigtopia by Kitty Fitzgerald. In a train coming back from Berlin. People must have thought I'd just lost a loved one, it was that bad. That's been the only one ever, though, I think.
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carlygig
Junior Member
I've got spinster carved on to my bones!
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Post by carlygig on Jan 16, 2008 20:36:35 GMT
The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton. HE JUST WALKS AWAY. I may in all fairness be using this as some form of emotional transference from actual events.
Atonement - Ian McEwan: can't bring myself to watch the film; Id probably need therapy to ever stop crying again. I was in mourning for a week after I finished reading it.
The worst one of all time was a Saddle Club book I read about fifteen years ago where the Saddle Club girls had to say goodbye to Lisa's favourite horse, Pepper. Probably before, yknow, he was shot and made into French burgers, but it was horrendous at the time. Look, I can even remember the horse's bloody name it made such an impact!
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Post by LoveMusic on Jan 16, 2008 21:15:24 GMT
God! I used to love those books, even though i was always scared of horses!
Lisa, Stevie and Carole!
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nixxxon
Jane Asher
This is a two-sets-of-marigolds problem
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Post by nixxxon on Jan 18, 2008 16:26:32 GMT
I cried for pretty much the whole last 50 pages of His Dark Materials. Then when I went to see the stage version, it was told in flashback so the bench from the ending was already on stage when I went into the theatre - that nearly set me off again.
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Post by mcqueen on Jan 20, 2008 23:39:25 GMT
I have read his Dark Materials but i didnt cry (I dont think I was concentrating- the whole aethism and God analogy thing passed me completely by until the film hoopla started).
Anyway, The Kite Runner is simply the most heart wrenching book i have ever read- I have never cared so much about characters in a book before and there is so much love and betrayal in this book- it had me in tears on quite a number of occasions.
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Post by Elly on Jan 21, 2008 19:42:49 GMT
I've just started reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, and felt myself brimming up within the first few pages. Doesn't bode well for the rest of the book, really.
Atonement and The Kite Runner are next. I'm in a weepy sort of place in my life at the moment.
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Post by Rad on Jan 21, 2008 19:55:46 GMT
I'm reading The Book Thief too! No tears yet from me, though, am afraid. I do have two thirds to go, mind.
I'm really wanting to read The Kite Runner.
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Post by mcqueen on Jan 23, 2008 0:48:56 GMT
I'm reading The Book Thief too! No tears yet from me, though, am afraid. I do have two thirds to go, mind. I'm really wanting to read The Kite Runner. I went through a faze of buying it for everyone I knew- six people got it or Christmas last year! 4 have told me how much they loved it- they other two probably thought "A book?!!". Anyway, get it! |
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Post by audrey notwhatsheusedtobe on Jan 31, 2008 14:13:12 GMT
The Perks of being a Wallflower is the most blubsom book in history and was told not to read the ending on public transport (am glad cos it'll give you snotty blurts) Though half the people I talked to seemed to have skipped over the most major piece of information which is revealed at the end. silly shit readers. That sounds really interesting, i'm going to order it from the library. I have to say that I very rarely get teary at books, so as an experiment I plucked The Perks of being a Wallflower from my unread-books shelf and read it this week. It is rather good and I can report that I did wibble somewhat on the bus when the first time he drives by himself, he goes to visit his Aunt Helen's grave. I keep pondering the stuff revealed at the end, he doesn't say a lot about it, but it explains a lot of what's alluded to in the rest of the book. Hmmm. |
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Post by smellslikesomeghost on Jan 31, 2008 19:45:27 GMT
Harry and the Robots. Seriously.
Everytime I read this to my twins and it got to the bit where his nan coughs and goes to hospital, and Harry thinks his robot will zap her better, I get a crack in my voice no matter how prepared and steely I feel, and then the tears plop. The boys are too old for it now, but when younger used to ask for the Harry books over and over, and then go 'Oh, mummy, don't cry this time' and I'd say, no, i won't, then would.
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