What do you think are the saddest scenes/passages in literature? *General spoiler alert*

[QuimReaper]

For me, it's either:

• Lyra leafing Pantalaimon on the shore in The Amber Spyglass
• Will leaving to go back to his awful mother in Goodnight Mr Tom

Makes me tear up just thinking about either. What's yours?

Quotes would be much appreciated, even though I was too lazy to look any up!

(This thread will probably contain assorted spoilers, don't read on if you're going to complain about them )

I really dont know why, but there are only two things in film/literature/books etc that has made me sob and sob and sob.

1. Mike's funeral in Desperate Housewives. When Susan says "I love you once, I love you twice, I love you more than beans and rice" just ends me.

2. the scene in Interstellar where Matthew McConaughey is watching his children's videos to him. Can never make it past that scene.

I sobbed at the end of The Go-Between. Think it was a release of the pressure that builds and builds during the book.

Several parts of Les Miserables, but particularly Eponine's death where she tells Marius "I think I was a little bit in love with you". And also Grantaire standing with Enjolras to be executed .

The bit that haunts me the most in Northern Lights/The Golden Compass is when Roger is severed from his Daemon.

Agree with loads of these.

Black Beauty/Ginger
Lyra leaving Pantalaimon in The Amber Spyglass
The end of Of Mice And Men

Also the end of Winnie the Pooh

I've said this before on a similar thread, but the last line of 'In Pursuit of Love' by Nancy Mitford. You really believe, like Linda did, that if she and Fabrice had lived it would have been different and they'd have remained faithful to each other forever. And the the Bolter sighs and says, with the absolute voice of experience 'Oh dulling, one always thinks that. Every, every time.' SOB!

I cry at most books (am generally very emotional about stuff) but the ones that come to mind are:

The bit towards the end of The Time Traveller's Wife where you get a sudden realisation of how it's going to end because his death has already been referenced earlier in the book. And also in TTTW, where his wife is pregnant and but the babies have inherited the condition and they keep jumping out of her and dying. Heartbreaking.

@Origin Yes, that bit was so awful and the descriptions of his cries

@LetsGoFlyAKiteee - Oh The Lovely Bones! She's so close to them the whole time and they have no idea. Just so sad. Read the end of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas on the bus and cried and cried.

Has to be Hester and Lee Scoresby.
Ginger in Black Beauty.

DH cried like a baby at Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. I read it super quickly to find out why he cried. I didn't cry at all because I rushed it. I could never watch the film though

@TalkToMeAboutSocialWorkPlease I think that might be from Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. It’s about an American Chinese family and there’s lots in there about the Chinese looking children not fitting in at their very white school. I can’t quite place the quote but it’s really familiar and I read that book quite recently.

Fiver dying in Watership Down

Towards the end of L' Assommoir where Gervaise is reduced to living in a corner of a hallway and she becomes sick and dies and it describes how her body becomes green. It's just so awful and heart rending as she'd once been such a hopeful young woman, but then went on to have a hard life with a feckless husband.

The chapter in Life After Life where she's slowly starving in Germany during the war and gives her daughter cyanide rather than allow her to be raped by soldiers. It haunted me for months.

In my gratitude to this thread I've dug out Goodnight Mr Tom for a quote. It's even worse than I remember - it's Mr Tom's quiet pain which makes me wait so much.

"They sat on a bench on the platform and gazed at the hedgerows on the other side of the railway tracks.
'Don't forgit to write, William,' said Tom huskily and with shaking hands he took his pipe out of his pocket and began to fill it.
'No, Mister Tom,'
[...]
A cloud of smoke drifted upwards from a clump of trees in the distance. They watched it getting nearer and heard the sound of the approaching train growing louder. They stood up and Mister Tom picked up Sammy in his arms.
'Now you takes care of yerself, boy. You keeps up that ole drawin'. You've a fine gift. If you runs out of pencils, you lets me know.'
Willie nodded and his eyes became misty. He blinked. Tears ran down his cheeks. He gave a sniff and brushed them away quickly.
'Ta,' he said.
Tom swallowed a lump in his throat.
'I'll miss you,' said Willie.
Tom nodded.
'Me too.'"

I am actually trying not to cry typing that out

Wail*

@Hobbes8

How utterly incredible, half an hour ago I was looking at the World Service schedule and noticed that at 3pm today there was a 50 minute programme with the author talking about this novel. I'll go and listen to it now, thanks.

Also, oh yes to Roger, and Hester and Lee. Those books are so affecting, and I still think the ending line is the most heartbreakingly poignant in all of literature.

'And then what?' said her daemon sleepily. 'Build what?'
'The republic of heaven,'said Lyra.

I gave my copy of Kes to my dad (well ok, I gave him his copy back). Not being able to recall the last line is driving me mad.

If anyone has a copy please look it up!!! The book is also called A Kestrel for a Knave.

Elizabeth Laird’s Red Sky in the Morning when the little boy, Ben dies. I read that to Year 8 classes and every time I get a lump in my throat.

@TalkToMeAboutSocialWorkPlease Amazing! Well I’m not 100% it’s the source of your quote but it’s a fine book anyway.

Pretty much everything John Coffey says in "The Green Mile"

I'm tired of bein on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin no buddy to go on with or tell me where we's comin from or goin to or why. I'm tired of people bein ugly to each other.

Just thinking about Beth’s death scene can make me cry.

And the moment Anne realises the baby is going to die.

Yes, The end of the mayor of casterbridge, the end of Jude the obscure. Also, the tv episode when inspector morse dies

The whole of Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life.

There were so many times I sobbed and ached for Jude.

Just to clarify, i have read all the colin dexter morse books, but i can't remember reading the part when morse dies, but watching it on tv was heartbreaking.

The bit in The Road when the boy has to leave his dead father in the woods.
There’s a wonderful children’s book called When Marnie was There about a lonely girl; I remember being profoundly moved by it as a child.