uh, thats jacked up (disturbing books)

[Jorpho]

Hey, how about that Phillip Jose Farmer? He's probably not in the same league as some of the other stuff in this thread, but "Riders of the Purple Wage" (his Hugo winner) surely led some people to look at spermicide in a rather different way.

[Nyssa]

The book in question by Poppy Z Brite was Exquistite Corpse, not Exquisite Skin, and really, by the end of it, it felt like she was just trying to gross the reader out, rather than have a decent story. Not saying that she doesn't have a way with words, as some of her books are beautifully written, but that one was a stretch.

House of Leaves... I didn't get that. I read it, and it didn't bother me in the slightest, but one of my friends said he threw it in the nearest dumpster just a few chapters in because it was so disturbing and he didn't want to give the book to someone else to read because books that disturbing should never have been written. Personally, I was horrified that he threw away a book.

Aside from guts and gore, I've been told that Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood is the most depressing book one may ever hope to read. Personally, Where The Red Fern Grows had me bawling for days... but I was nine.

[circasirvibing]

I have read quite a few of Palahniuk's books but haven't yet got around to Haunted. But after reading this thread, I think I'll have to put it on the top of my To-read list.

Also I'm not sure if I'd call House of Leaves disturbing, I think I'd describe it as psychologically thrilling or something of that sort. That also reminds me that I have to read that book over again. Side note: Never lend a book to a friend who normally doesn't read, you will never get that book back.

[Semidi]

I found 120 Days of Sodom and Justine by Marquis De Sade rather disturbing, especially with 120 Days of Sodom. I never finished either of them, not because they were disgusting, but because I just got bored with it all the rape, torture, mutilation, philosophy, pedophilia, and murder that constantly occurs in both of them. Well, he did get rather creatively disturbing in such cases as (Gross factor warning for links)

Spoiler:

in Justine (I think) a group of monks rape a girl, sew her vagina shut, and then penetrate her again—and again—and again."

Or

Spoiler:

In 120 Days of Sodom, it talks about the rather detailed buggering of 8 year old boys and girls--a lot. Let’s not even go into how some of the libertines’ victims were their own daughters.

His work is slightly old (18th century) and in mildly archaic language, but I still find it to be a rather disturbing book. There’s a good reason sadism is derived from his name. Sacher-Masoch (wrote a less disturbing, but in my opinion better, novel Venus in Furs) is where the word masochist comes from--good trivia knowledge.

[McCaber]

"The Illuminatus Trilogy" will screw you up. It's not disturbing as in gross, but it will do strange things to your mind. I find that altogether more satisfying than gross.

If you read that, "Masks of the Illuminati" is pretty much along the same veins. Both are very good books.

[SPsnow02]

I have to agree with Mccaber, and I just killed him too...

[Deep Thought]

Perdido Street Station disturbed me to no end. Meiville is such a descriptive writer... and his scenes are disturbing in themselves.

Godfather started off really disturbing. Especially some of the assassinations.

Kinda Like the one I just carried out.

Yes, SPsnow. You are dead.

[LeapingLizards]

Exquisite Corpse was about a homosexual necrophiliac serial killer.
Very beautifully written, made having sex with a dead body sound oh so sexy.

I haven't read all of it, but my girlfriend says it also includes zoophilia, pedophilia, and whatever the fetish for contracting AIDS is.

[parkaboy]

i just read a short story called Bloodchild by Octavia Butler. I think I am going to become a great, great fan of her work. This story is FULLLLL of gender-based social commentary and its CREEPY AS HELL FILLED WITH GIANT CENTIPEDES. Despite the abundance of heebie-jeebies it gave me, by the end of the (very short, 6 pages or so in my text book) story I found myself letting out a somewhat begrudging "awwww"...

Spoiler:

right about the time the GIANT FUCKING (literally) ALIEN BUG is having a very tender love scene with a human boy, implanting her eggs into his body. and they're both all "I LOVES YOU!" O_o;;

[titanicdaze]

If Elie Wiesel's Night disturbed you, you must NEVER NEVER NEVER read Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird. And I mean, NEVER.

[Culden]

CTRL+F find:william s. burroughs Phrase not found
CTRL+F find:anthony burgess Phrase not found
CTRL+F find:jg ballard Phrase not found
CTRL+F find:henry miller Phrase not found
CTRL+F find:harlan ellison Phrase not found
CTRL+F find:robert anton wilson Phrase not found

It's like you guys aren't even trying, at least someone mentioned Pynchon.

Naked Lunch, by Burroughs, while certainly very strange, is not what I'd consider disturbing (I'm a tad desensitized). I'm not familiar with the other authors, though.

[steewi]

i just read a short story called Bloodchild by Octavia Butler. I think I am going to become a great, great fan of her work. This story is FULLLLL of gender-based social commentary and its CREEPY AS HELL FILLED WITH GIANT CENTIPEDES. Despite the abundance of heebie-jeebies it gave me, by the end of the (very short, 6 pages or so in my text book) story I found myself letting out a somewhat begrudging "awwww"...

Spoiler:

right about the time the GIANT FUCKING (literally) ALIEN BUG is having a very tender love scene with a human boy, implanting her eggs into his body. and they're both all "I LOVES YOU!" O_o;;

I didn't find the Bloodchild stories all that disturbing (although I really liked Speech Sounds). Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents did more to remove my faith in humanity. But you're right to an extent that Octavia Butler didn't shrink from icky subject matter if it went well in a story. I've been searching out all her books since I discovered her writing last year.

[Jorpho]

I was reading about Irvine Welsh's Filth the other day. It sounds quite disturbing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filth_(novel)

[parkaboy]

i just read a short story called Bloodchild by Octavia Butler. I think I am going to become a great, great fan of her work. This story is FULLLLL of gender-based social commentary and its CREEPY AS HELL FILLED WITH GIANT CENTIPEDES. Despite the abundance of heebie-jeebies it gave me, by the end of the (very short, 6 pages or so in my text book) story I found myself letting out a somewhat begrudging "awwww"...

Spoiler:

right about the time the GIANT FUCKING (literally) ALIEN BUG is having a very tender love scene with a human boy, implanting her eggs into his body. and they're both all "I LOVES YOU!" O_o;;

I didn't find the Bloodchild stories all that disturbing (although I really liked Speech Sounds). Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents did more to remove my faith in humanity. But you're right to an extent that Octavia Butler didn't shrink from icky subject matter if it went well in a story. I've been searching out all her books since I discovered her writing last year.

i just hate centipedes. they are about the only bug i purely despise, and her description made me think 8 foot tall centipedes =( the rest was pretty awesome. I'll be looking into more of her work very soon.

[Greenly]

Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk has some awesome stories if you're looking for messed up and unsettling. Gruesome masturbation accidents, castration, eating an expelled fetus...

Sometimes I think reading this type of stuff has an adverse effect on what I can find interesting after the taboo becomes common place.

[Killy_mcgee]

Wow. I just read guts. That's not disturbing at all to me. Not one bit. The evil part of me got a good chuckle and I was completely unphased. Except for the part where the kids guts get sucked out. That was somewhat... well, I wouldn't say scary, but This post had objectionable content. Please people, give me the best you have. Not that. That's nothing.

Addendum: You'd also have to be a shit head to do most of the stuff in this book. Shove a stick in your dick. Does that really need any explanation why not to do it?

[Narsil]

This post had objectionable content.

Wow, someone's new here.

Anyway, I think the point of Guts, and to a greater extent, Haunted, is not to gross-one out, but to show the addiction society has to being grossed out, how we constantly seek a better high, in search of a better story, but in the end it's ourselves we're mutilating, like the characters in the story.

But if Guts doesn't gross you out, buy Haunted. It's brilliant, first off and he deserves the money. Second, it's stories will disgust you if you have any sort of conscious. They progress over the novel to disgust of a much more sublime nature, going from injuries of the body to mutilations of the human mind and spirit.

[Malice]

Addendum: You'd also have to be a shit head to do most of the stuff in this book. Shove a stick in your dick. Does that really need any explanation why not to do it?

According to the story it's a cultural thing. As in, there are entire cultures where they do this safely and normally. The problem with what the kid did in the story was, he didn't have the proper tools, and instead used a dangerous substitute.

[DarkKnightJared]

Warren Ellis' Crooked Little Vein definately has some...interesting moments.

Two words,

Spoiler:

Godzilla Bukakke.

[Sir_Elderberry]

House of Leaves. I was reading it, fine. I finished it a few days ago, I was fine. A few nights ago, I get up in the middle of the night to walk through a dark house to the bathroom....and am vaguely disturbed, even at one point wondering if I'll be able to get back or if the hallway will expand. I laugh it off in the morning. Tonight, I've spent a few hours reading the HoL forums (considering the book actually stops to note the effects on people who spend lots of time examining The Navidson Record, perhaps this wasn't the best idea) and I just went out and turned off all my house's lights. It was really, really freaky, and I'm currently uncomfortable sitting with my back to the door. It's odd, because there really isn't anything definitively creepy in the book--the dangerous parts of the Navidson's house are pretty clearly differentiated from the rest by their complete blackness, cold, etc. My house doesn't resemble that at all. Yet somehow, the book has me afraid of the dark for the first time in more than a few years.

[Narsil]

Thanks in no small part to that book, I too have developed a slight fear of the dark. That book is sublime on so many levels.

[DarkKnightJared]

Just read Guts and...yeah. The intestines coming was disturbing, I might have went "woah" a few times. Then, I ate a muffin. Is that bad? Haunted is definitely on top of my to-get list now, though.

[bennyprofane]

Anyone ever heard of "The Leather Funnel" by Sir Arthur Canon Doyle?

Seriously, very messed up, especially considering when it was written.

People remember Doyle for Holmes and tend to forget that he was a horror writer as well, and even dabbled in early science fiction.

[cephalopod9]

Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk has some awesome stories if you're looking for messed up and unsettling. Gruesome masturbation accidents, castration, eating an expelled fetus...

Sometimes I think reading this type of stuff has an adverse effect on what I can find interesting after the taboo becomes common place.

I got a copy of Invisible Monsters recently. I don't know if it's as outright disturbing as some as his other stuff, but still pretty twisted. Plastic surgery gives me the heebie jeebies on its own, and the end is just very... Wat?
I think he has a captavating writing style even without the gore and taboo.

[existential_elevator]

Someone has mentioned Iain Banks, but not the worst Iain Banks.

Complicity, anyone?

Plot intro from Wiki:

Spoiler:

Its two main characters are Cameron Colley, a journalist on a Scottish newspaper called The Caledonian, which resembles The Scotsman, and a serial murderer whose identity is a mystery. The passages dealing with the journalist are written in the first person, and those dealing with the murderer in the second person (not the more common third), so the novel presents, in alternate chapters, an unusual example of an unreliable narrator. The events take place mostly in and around Edinburgh.

Messed up things that you're going to end up reading through:

Spoiler:

- second person revenge rape
- second person revenge violence and torture
- second person murder
- re-enacted rape fantasies
- not being too sure who the hell you are any more

It's a complete mindfuck.

[sparks]

I'm not a Palahniuk fan, but "Guts" is pretty damn disturbing. Very few books have scarred me as much. Also "120 Days of Sodom" was a little disturbing in some parts (though my unsensitive self didn't get very disturbed by it).

[gibberishtwist]

I can't believe only one person mentioned 120 Days Of Sodom. I couldn't finish it either, partly because the day-by-day description of pedophilia and rape got strangely boring, but mostly because by the time I stopped reading, I didn't want to know where else the depravity could go.

Other than that, American Psycho was the first book to ever make me feel truly uncomfortable. The rat, the rat.

The Giver is definitely disturbing, if not in such an in-your-face way as the other books mentioned. Someone else already summed it up pretty well; Mandatory euthanasia of the elderly and twins, genetic programming leading to colorblindness, doping the population out of their sex drive, trivializing all emotions that make up real humanity, etc. I absolutely love that book and think it's incredibly beautiful, but at heart it is very unsettling.

A book I randomly picked up at the library, A Kayak Full Of Ghosts (Inuit folk tales) turned out to be pretty disturbing. Obviously a grim climate/existence will lead to some grim tales, but damn. Most of them were fairly short, but 90% of them didn't have any moral lesson or real purpose other than scare/gross-out factor. An example that springs to mind is a story of a man whose penis swung below his knees, and he bragged about it constantly, and one day a seagull flew by and bit it off, and his name around his village was changed "He Whose Penis Cannot Peek From Its Cave." Shudder.

[cephalopod9]

Oh man, ancient mythology is some of the most messed up stuff ever.
I don't know about Inuit, but I'm taking Art History of the Mayan and Ancient Mexicans. Those guys had some interesting ideas. Like skinning someone, and then wearing the skin until it rots off.

[Mr. Beck]

Lesson 1 of Greek Mythology:
Zeus banged everyone.

[i_ll_winn]

"The Illuminatus Trilogy" will screw you up. It's not disturbing as in gross, but it will do strange things to your mind. I find that altogether more satisfying than gross.

If you read that, "Masks of the Illuminati" is pretty much along the same veins. Both are very good books.

Why doesn't anyone know about these! They are sooooo disturbing, it just sticks in my head for days and days,

Spoiler:

Especially the part where he fucks the apple, OH MY GOD STOP IT!

and I somehow almost believe it for a few days. It changed my whole world view every time I've read it. But the real reason it messes people up, I think, is because it tells you the truth about you and everyone around you.

[smw543]

Exquisite Corpse was about a homosexual necrophiliac serial killer.
Very beautifully written, made having sex with a dead body sound oh so sexy.

The most disturbing stories are always the ones that make you identify, or at least sympathize, with the batshit crazy protagonist.

Another kind of disturbing pops up in Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market." It's technically a poem, but it was published in a book... Anyways, it's sort of an allegory, with the fruit representing temptation for sin, etc. The interesting parts are

Spoiler:

Lashing their tails
They trod and hustled her,
Elbowed and jostled her,
Clawed with their nails,
Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,
Tore her gown and soiled her stocking,
Twitched her hair out by the roots,
Stamped upon her tender feet,
Held her hands and squeezed their fruits
Against her mouth to make her eat.

White and golden Lizzie stood,
Like a lily in a flood,
Like a rock of blue-veined stone
Lashed by tides obstreperously, --
Like a beacon left alone
In a hoary roaring sea,
Sending up a golden fire, --
Like a fruit-crowned orange-tree
White with blossoms honey-sweet
Sore beset by wasp and bee, --
Like a royal virgin town
Topped with gilded dome and spire
Close beleaguered by a fleet
Mad to tear her standard down.

One may lead a horse to water,
Twenty cannot make him drink.
Though the goblins cuffed and caught her,
Coaxed and fought her,
Bullied and besought her,
Scratched her, pinched her black as ink,
Kicked and knocked her,
Mauled and mocked her,
Lizzie uttered not a word;
Would not open lip from lip
Lest they should cram a mouthful in;
But laughed in heart to feel the drip
Of juice that syruped all her face,
And lodged in dimples of her chin,
And streaked her neck which quaked like curd.
...
Come and kiss me.
Never mind my bruises,
Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
Squeezed from goblin fruits for you,
Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
Eat me, drink me, love me;
Laura, make much of me:
For your sake I have braved the glen
And had to do with goblin merchant men."

Before this, Laura had already fallen to the temptation of the fruit the goblins sell. The first part is when Lizzie goes to the market and tries to buy some more fruit to sate Laura's urges. When read in the common scheme of the fruit specifically representing sexual temptation (pretty conclusive when you consider Rossetti's background) this scene reads like literary snuff porno written by Roman Polanski. The second part, of course, is loaded with blatant lesbian overtones. And there's tons more I didn't quote here.

Here's the kicker: this was originally considered a kid's story...

Suck my juices, indeed.

[Narsil]

Why doesn't anyone know about these! They are sooooo disturbing, it just sticks in my head for days and days,

Spoiler:

Especially the part where he fucks the apple, OH MY GOD STOP IT!

and I somehow almost believe it for a few days. It changed my whole world view every time I've read it. But the real reason it messes people up, I think, is because it tells you the truth about you and everyone around you.

I feel like this and Gravity's Rainbow irrevocably altered my worldview. My personal motto is now, "Yes, I'm paranoid. But am I paranoid enough?"

The apple was weird. So was Eris, for that matter. And Leviathan and how all this relates back to cunt-worship somehow, and how that inspired the symbol of the Rosy Cross, which went on to...damn. Has anyone read Masks of the Illuminati or the Schrodinger's Cat trilogy? Are they as good?

[McCaber]

I enjoyed Masks. It deals more with general occultism then conspiracy theories, but any work putting James Joyce and Albert Einstein in the same pub is worth it.

I've looked for Schrodinger's Cat for a while and haven't been able to find it.

[smw543]

I've looked for Schrodinger's Cat for a while and haven't been able to find it.

Have you heard of "Schrödinger's Baby"? It wasn't very "jacked up," but it did remind me of Wilson's trilogy, only with a more philosophical approach. More importantly, it has an awesome name. I got it at a book sale at my school's library; I had never heard of it and the blurb on the flap told me nothing about it, but I simply could not pass up owning a book called "Schrödinger's Baby".

[Jorpho]

I only read Schrodinger's Catbox, a short story from a while back that is in fact fairly disturbing, though not nearly on the same level as some of the other stuff here.

(Or was it Schrodinger's Cathouse?)

[i_ll_winn]

My personal motto is now, "Yes, I'm paranoid. But am I paranoid enough?"

The apple was weird. So was Eris, for that matter. And Leviathan and how all this relates back to cunt-worship somehow, and how that inspired the symbol of the Rosy Cross, which went on to...damn. Has anyone read Masks of the Illuminati or the Schrodinger's Cat trilogy? Are they as good?

I've read both and, Schrodinger's is just as good but, it keeps changing dimensions, sometimes it even changes dimension mid paragraph. It is fun trying to figure out who is/does/was what. Some people are a women one second a man next. You still see that the worlds all have certain shared principals.
Masks was mainly about a man who has gone through strange things that all link to the occult.

My motto is "just because you are paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get you."
Also, remember Malik's dogs?
No you don't, how much else goes your brain ignore or forget?

What stories are true?
Can you believe anything anyone says?

[McCaber]

Also, remember Malik's dogs?
No you don't, how much else goes your brain ignore or forget?

I actually periodically kept thinking back to them my first time through Illuminatus! and wondering about them. I think I finally decided that they were Hounds of Tindalos, based on the way only Malik saw them and they left soon after he did.

But each time I pick up that book I find something I missed before. Crazy, eh?

[i_ll_winn]

Also, remember Malik's dogs?
No you don't, how much else goes your brain ignore or forget?

I actually periodically kept thinking back to them my first time through Illuminatus! and wondering about them. I think I finally decided that they were Hounds of Tindalos, based on the way only Malik saw them and they left soon after he did.

But each time I pick up that book I find something I missed before. Crazy, eh?

I thought they were part of the disappearing gorillas, was that in that book?
Anyway, I think we might want to make a new thread for discussing the Illuminatus! trilogy.

[Post-Internet Syndrome]

QB VII by Leon Uris is fucked up not in that the book itself is written in a special kind of way, but that the story itself is so disgusting. It contains one of those "oh crap it was like THAT, yuck!"-endings. One of the few books that has ever given me nightmares.

Use of Weapons, by Ian M. Banks is similar in that the end reveals that things were not so nice as they seemed. Turns the whole book on its head.

And well, all the sequels to Dune are pretty wierd by my standards. Good, interesting, but weird. I mean, chairdogs? Ew.

[natraj]

I will definitely second American Psyko and Haunted. William Burroughs's Wild Boys also kinda disturbed me, though not to the same level.

Also I shall add to the list the Marquis de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom. But, you know. de Sade.

In terms of not gross/violent/squick disturbing but the-world-is-creepy disturbing, Little Brother totally (in addition to being one of the awesomest books I've read in a while) disturbed me on a "ack that world is too much like ours" level.