What kind of literature "scares" you?

[lavendar1]

I was just wondering -- what kind of literature "scares," or intimidates you?
I've always been rather scared, so to speak, of poetry, or at least in trying to discuss it or analyze it: kind of in the way the villagers and king's advisors were in the children's tale called The Emperor's New Clothes, when they were too scared (or intimidated) to admit that they couldn't see his "clothes" and went along with the tailor's hoax...or I feel like a fraud like some of the people in art museums who travel in packs and ooohhh and aaaahhh at all the artwork and make profound statements of the art's ephemeral yet timeless appeal... I guess when reading poetry I often worry that I've missed the author's intended meaning -- particularly when I'm reading Wallace Stevens or T.S. Eliot, for example.

Some philosophical literature also scares me, for much the same reason. I recall feeling particularly like a moron when I took a 17th century French philosophy class (as a very-much undergraduate and non-philosophy major). I just couldn't get where everyone else was going. Or at least I felt that way.

And then there's James Joyce. Anyway, I've tried to overcome these 'fears' in recent years, with varying amounts of success and failure. Anyway, what do you think?

[PeterL]

Only kind of literature that scares me is the type like the left behind series. I have found that my opinions of literature are as good as, or better than, any opinions. If you are afraid of poetry, then sit down with some and analysize some: what is it saying and how is it being said. You probably will miss something, but anyone would. You might also try writing some poetry to see what you can put into it.1

[Sirius_Kai]

I think the type of literature that scares me is propaganda. While it can be a good thing used in this context, it is unfortunately used most often as a tool for wrongdoing.

[mono]

No real actual literature intimidates me to read, to tell all honesty. Literature, as art, readers seem supposed to accept it as they will. I have read a few things, however, that seemed far from my understanding - anything by Aleister Crowley, Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre, and certain works of poetry by Alexander Pope, Sylvia Plath, and Emily Dickinson.

[Bianca Fransen]

Poetry does have a tendency to initimidate me. I hardly read it because I constantly feel like I miss out on something. And the books of Virginia Woolf and James Joyce I did not dare to read, because everyone said they are very hard to understand.
The funny thing is - I also don't understand most art.. but then it does not frustrate me. I just watch it and either enjoy it or not. It does not stop me from going to musea. Lately I have been trying to adopt the same attitude towards poetry.. Just read it.. and enjoy it (or not).

[Monica]

I'm scared by literature talking about cities. Cities as almost living creatures, governing human lives, listening, thinking, feeling maybe. It's scary.

[Sally Brown]

I'm scared by typical love novels. They are full of fictitious suffering and exaggerated pain. Love is reduced to pathetic sentimentalism.
This is really scaring.

Bye,
Sally

[Mark F.]

Erotic novels scare me, I just have a problem with the concept LOL.

[Bianca Fransen]

LOL.. A problem with the concept 'erotic' or with the fact that there are novels?

[Mark F.]

I guess it's with "the fact that they're novels" part because an erotic movie never scared me away, heh.

[baddad]

No obvioius trend marks literary offerings that I shy away from, but many topics have partially confounded me (string theory, deeply existential philosophical literature, other complex sshhhhtufffff.....). I digest what can, sweat past the parts that are a mystery....and noticably sigh with relief when I finish these difficult reads.

[chispa]

some times I have read books that leave a bitterness in our spirit. I think that may be scary...It happened to me when I read The stranger , a great book, but the subject matter about human relationships and society unfair punishment against an individual or the difficult to understand human behaviour is overwhelming...

[EAP]

400 page dissertations of 'classics'.

Blech.

[Beaumains]

Political fiction (or "non-fiction"), that is, anything by a pundit, scares me because even though much of what they spout is false (that goes for both the Left and the Right), there are many who still believe it to be truth.

As for regular literature, anything by H.P. Lovecraft or Edgar Allen Poe makes me feel a bit nervous.

[Basil]

Boo!