Disturbing books.

[Marmaduke]

Apologies for the title, but I couldn't think of a better term for the books I wanted to describe. :p I love to read books which disturb, or which concern disturbed minds. For example,

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Girl, Interrupted - Susanna Kaysen
American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis
Anything by Chuck Palahniuk

Etc.

I've just ordered 120 Days Of Sodom because I heard it's of a similar nature - does anyone else have any recommendations? Thank you in advance.

[Charles Darnay]

120 days of sodomy is definatly a messed up book, and yet it's fairly well written (ah, Sade, you crazy Marquis). It gets a bit wordy at times - until you et to the list.

[mir]

probably a bad suggestion but - gone with the wind? it's the only book i've ever read which makes you like and hate the main character at the same time. or the Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - if that's what it's called - and Flowers for Algernon, which is a short story that's sort of about a disturbed mind, and an amazing piece in itself. Catcher in the Rye might be good, too . . .

[subterranean]

Apologies for the title, but I couldn't think of a better term for the books I wanted to describe. :p I love to read books which disturb, or which concern disturbed minds. For example,



I also love to watch the movie version (if any) as well. But I think the movie version of American Psycho is not as good as the book version .

[Jean-Baptiste]

Look into the short stories of Flannery O'Connor. (Shudder ooooo shudder.)
William Faulkner can also provide you with the degradation that you seek. These two authors have a definite grasp on true human cruelty.

[Nightwalk]

The 120 Days of Sodom surely ranks at the top of the list, perhaps the uppermost. Sade seems to have covered every sexual aberration the human mind can conceive.

Maldoror by Lautreamont - Perhaps the first Surrealist masterpiece, the author gives free rein to his imagination and delves in the beauteous as well as the most horrible aspects of man's nature.

Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs - The tales of a homosexual drug addict are certainly something that would worry your mother if she finds out your reading such.

Journey to the End of the Night and Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Celine - Black humor at it's peak and one of a kind, but Dr. Destouches' vulgarity and his relentless and unyielding pessimism would be too much for a member of the Jane Austen Book Club.

Notes of a Dirty Old Man, Tales of Ordinary Madness, and The Most Beautiful Woman in Town and Other Stories by Charles Bukowski - This trilogy of below the radar classics is akin to a guilty peek at the wrong side of town: you don't mind seeing it, but you're glad you aren't there.

The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll - Basketball, drug addiction, gay hustling, juvenile crime; all experienced from the eyes of a talented and precocious teen in the Big Apple during the 1960's.

The Poems of Catullus - His woman treated him like crap but he couldn't think of anything better to do so he let it go on way longer than any reasonable person should.

The Poems of Propertius - This one upped the ante: his woman violated him literally, and he loved it.

Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille - Sex involving murder, eggs, and urine. Yummy!

The Decadent Reader ( Anthology ) - Fetishisms, gender reversal, deviance, woman as ultimate corruptor, incurable illnesses, etc., in late 19th-Century France.

These are books that I haven't read yet but would certainly qualify as "disturbing" reads:

Hunger by Knut Hamsun - The day to day travails of a down and out individual in 19th-Century Scandinavia.

Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch - Male submission to female dominance at it's most extreme. The author who's name gave us the word masochism.

Story of O by Pauline Reage - Same as above, with the roles reversed.

The Torture Garden by Octave Mirbeau - Evil femme fatales playing host in exotic locales thriving on depraved lust and calculated suffering.

A good selection to read to your little nephews and nieces by the fireplace when they come over to visit.

[Marmaduke]

Thanks for the recommendations, everyone. I'll be maxing out my card on Amazon haha.

[Nightwalk]

The Poems and Art of Adolf Wolfli - Admiring the work of this mental institution patient and pedophile is like ingesting lethal amounts of acid without having to do so. For the mind-bending and consciousness-altering-stretching connoisseur, this stuff is hard to beat.

[mono]

Even the mere thought of Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs still unsettles me; anyone who has read it knows of what I speak. Though a far less disturbing film remake, The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty had some really seemingly 'messed up' parts, if that interests you.
Unfortunately, I cannot think of much more, though I will likely recall during another visit to the forum; as Nightwalk mentioned the poetry of Charles Bukowski, however, I also felt reminded of the other earlier beat poets, like Allen Ginsberg, Jack Keruoac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Richard Brautigan.

[rot]

I say you should read The End Of Alice...by AM Homes, methinks. 'Tis a veddy twisted book, so I think you will like it :D It's good to know that I'm not the only one into disturbing books! You could also give the True Crime section a look. I know I loved Helter Skelter!

And looking at the Vladimir Nabokov section, I suppose you can put Lolita into this category, as well.

[subterranean]

Even the mere thought of Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs still unsettles me; anyone who has read it knows of what I speak.


I saw it online today and after reading the synopsis (again), I included in my cart. Already read/heard so much about this book.

[Nightwalk]

It's good to know that I'm not the only one into disturbing books!

More people should appreciate the contributions of the bad boys and bad girls of literature. They truly are one of a kind.

[Moira]

Apologies for the title, but I couldn't think of a better term for the books I wanted to describe. :p I love to read books which disturb, or which concern disturbed minds. For example,

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Girl, Interrupted - Susanna Kaysen
American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis
Anything by Chuck Palahniuk

Etc.

I've just ordered 120 Days Of Sodom because I heard it's of a similar nature - does anyone else have any recommendations? Thank you in advance.

I was just wandering ... did you read Venus in Furs? I am reading it right now and i would like to hear another opinion.
Also Bitter moon by Pascal Brukner is disturbing and soooo different.

[Stieg]

Oh, I have collected yet another list of must reads. If you want messed up literature that's majorly screwed and FUBARed try anything by Carlton Mellick III or Bighead by Edward Lee (the latter has gone straight into the horror genre and hasn't delivered anything up to par since).

I have books packed away in boxes,

The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum. Available in mmpb. Inspired by a true kidnapping. Shocking!

[Scheherazade]

The Collector by Fowles - Story of a kidnapping (One of the best books I have read)

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks - story of a disturbed teen - the line between the reality and fantasy is often blurred.

[MarcMcGrath]

Infinite Jest By David Foster Wallace is sprinkled with absurdity and horrific imagery. Scenes such as a crack addled prostitute, cradling her dead baby (still attached by the umbilical cord) and turning tricks so she can continue to chase her addiction (until the stench of the rotting infant causes the police and child social services to arrest her) are just some of the lovely imagery the Wallace uses in his novel. There's plenty more if you're interested, but it's also genius in its idea and execution, and really critiques societies addiction for entertainment in its many facets. It's a witty and ironic a masterpiece, but I'll digress before this becomes a 'Reading Rainbow' pitch for twisted literature...

[Moira]

The Collector by Fowles - Story of a kidnapping (One of the best books I have read)

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks - story of a disturbed teen - the line between the reality and fantasy is often blurred.

I agree, The Collector by Fowles is a very good reading although I consider The Magus to be the best novel he wrote.
Also you might enjoy The Divine Child - Pascal Bruckner - about a child that does not want to be born in this world and stays in his mother's womb for a few years while reading a lot and interacting with the outside world. Funny, inteligent, original ......

[Scheherazade]

I agree, The Collector by Fowles is a very good reading although I consider The Magus to be the best novel he wrote.
I haven't read The Magus yet... Can that be considered 'messed up Literature' as well.

I have also read French Lieutenant's Woman by Fowles, which was an excellent read.

[higley]

The Turn of the Screw is pretty disturbing, not because of the 'ghost story' but more the psychological stuff. Dean Koontz has written some really disturbing books that are very good reads.

And anything by Palahniuk is basically trippy.

[Robert Jordan]

It's hard to define "messed up' but here go my picks: Naked Lunch, IT, American Psycho, Lolita, Dracula, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Filth, Crime And Punishment, Trainspotting, Tropic Of Cancer, Sleepers, Battle Royale, etc etc. There are really too many to list but some of these are still masterpieces.

[Moira]

I haven't read The Magus yet... Can that be considered 'messed up Literature' as well.

I have also read French Lieutenant's Woman by Fowles, which was an excellent read.

I don't think The Magus should be considered messed up lit although it is hard to define 'messed up'. French Lieutenant's Woman was a very good read too but The Magus surpasses everything Fowles ever wrote.
I've read so many things on this site about Nacked Lunch that i really should give it a try. There was a movie made after the book, right? Does anyone know if it is good?

[CaptureLife]

Everybody's got that one book that you finished and said "wow, that was bizzare". Tell us about it.
For example:
When I was younger, I read the book Lizard Music by Daniel Manus Pinkwater. I know it was fantasy, but still... Synopsis: a young boy stays up late watching tv. When it goes off the air (it's the 70s), strange lizards appear and play hypnotizing music. He goes on what appears to be a drug-induced adventure with a man who has a chicken for a pet. The End
Your turn...

[Twister]

Amnesia Moon by Jonathan Lethem

It takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. A guy by the name of Chaos embarks on a journey throughout the United States to find his identity as well as the cause for the breakdown of society.

The book ends rather abruptly leaving all the questions left unanswered.

[Derringer]

Leonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers. I have no idea what it was about.

[PeterL]

Probably Burroughs' cut-up novels, they look like they should be going somewhere, and they are ,ostly grammatical, but they are gibberish.

[Niamh]

by far it has to be "The Third Policeman" by Flann O'Brian

[NickAdams]

A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings- Gabriel Garcia-Marquez

[malwethien]

Hmmm...define "weird." Hard to say, really....The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is wierd. So is A Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinsi...Kafka's "Metamorpohsis" is weird too...and anything by James Joyce...

[nps_marina]

The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
I'm an Ishiguro junkkie, because I believe he writes beautifully, but he really was into something when he wrote this book- it's about this really good pianist who comes to a town to play for the grand opening of something, and he stays in a hotel. All of a sudden this hotel guy, who just a while ago he greeted as a stranger, is now his father, some woman is his wife, so... anyway, it's like these two full days of something that I could just compare to when we dream and wird ideas just merge together, one after the other.
Weird, well written, but what drove me really crazy was that the main character was always being late or disregarding previous meetings when new 'weird associations' sprung up and he was dragged elsewhere.

[tulysg1982]

Jane Austen's 'Emma'.well i read her pride and prejudice and was immensely pleased with it. then i thought to read her other novels.I get started with emma and i felt furious.its characters are not as intense as the former one.the 486 pages novel with numerous characters not having a sub plot not other setting except the highbery in uk.Reffering emma in each chapter.i felt its something the novelists personal revelation on some personal issues.i couldn't get what.I learned something from the novel---Always read the famous novels of a particular writer or you will get dissapointed.

[Aiculík]

The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan, and
The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan

Those two caused great nausea when I was reading them so I decided never to read any book by him again. If I ever had, I think it would be the third item on this list. :p

[THX-1138]

The Trial by kafka

[Taliesin]

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

But that wasn't wierd at all! Just original and perhaps a bit unusual.

Ours, we would think would be Lord Malquist and Mister Moon by Stoppard, although there could be even more wierd things we have read.
And yes, Kafka is quite high on our wierdometer too.

[adagiosostenuto]

Everybody's got that one book that you finished and said "wow, that was bizzare". Tell us about it.


And I quote:
"...thnthnthn.

Chips, picking chips off rocky thumbnail, chips. Horrid! And gold flushed more.

A husky fifenote blew.

Blew. Blue bloom is on the

Gold pinnacled hair.

Trilling, trilling: I dolores.

Peep! Who's in the... peepofgold?

Tink cried to bronze in pity.

And a call, pure, long and throbbing. Longindying call.

Decoy. Soft word. But look! The bright stars fade. O rose! Notes chirruping answer. Castille. The morn is breaking.

Jingle jingle jaunted jingling.

Coin rang. Clock clacked...

Jingle. Bloo."
Recognize it? Ulysses. Now that was bizzare. Consider: what would become of us if we wrote all our posts in stream-of-consciousness. No I say no I will no.

[andave_ya]

The Five People you Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom. That was a weird book. A librarian saw me reading it at the library and asked me to tell her what I thought of it when I finished. It was just...odd. Went totally against my faith and was just bizarre.

Same with Morning Girl by Michael Banks, I think. Never really make sense to me.

[kratsayra]

I'm thinking . . . probably one of the weirdest books I've read is The Castle of Crossed Destinies by Italo Calvino. I really like Calvino, but this book I was unable to understand, which is probably why I'm calling it weird. If I understood what was going on it, it might not have seemed as weird to me . . .

I'm just sure there must be something else extremely weird that I've read. But I can't think of anything else.

[THX-1138]

The Five People you Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom. That was a weird book. A librarian saw me reading it at the library and asked me to tell her what I thought of it when I finished. It was just...odd. Went totally against my faith and was just bizarre.

Same with Morning Girl by Michael Banks, I think. Never really make sense to me.

that book wasn't weird it was STUPID .

[andave_ya]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who thinks so :nod:

[malwethien]

Tuesdays with Morrie was stupid too...I hated that book

[stella]

the weirdest book i read was "the wayward bus" by stienbek ... i just couldn't find the story ...!

[The Catcher]

'Mistral's Kiss' by Laurell K. Hamilton


i thought it was just a nice fun gothic vampire novel. i read it for fun....and i still have no idea what the point, plot and meaning of that story was.

[kathycf]

Hmmm. I like some of Alice Hoffman's work but her novel Here on Earth, is just weird. I didn't like it at all. It is a modern, "sexed up" version of Wuthering Heights.

[kratsayra]

Hmmm. I like some of Alice Hoffman's work but her novel Here on Earth, is just weird. I didn't like it at all. It is a modern, "sexed up" version of Wuthering Heights.

Haha. I haven't heard of that novel, but I can just see someone trying to do that. I mean, there is already so much passion and drama in Wuthering Heights. Actually, the writer Maryse Conde from Guadeloupe has a novel that redoes Wuthering Heights in the Caribbean. It has some sex scenes in it, but not overwhelmingly so. It's called Windward Heights in English.

[_JadeRain_]

Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel.

It is a story about a Mexican girl who is not allowed to get married because she is the youngest daughter and needs to take care of her aging mother. So her older sister marries her boyfriend. Each chapter begins with a recipe that somehow have strange effects on those who eat it. Fore example she cries in the wedding cake and everyone at the party becomes terrible. Her older sister ends up dying of excess gas. She finally marries the man of her dreams at the end, and the house explodes into fireworks.

[linz]

Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse

[Haven]

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson, premier gonzo journalist. Truely bizzare, but in the best possible sense of the word. And if anyone mentions that movie with Johnnie Depp, well I just hope it doesn't happen as that film was a crime against fiction [actually, y'now I have a horrible suspicion it was true] and nature.

[Niamh]

Hmmm. I like some of Alice Hoffman's work but her novel Here on Earth, is just weird. I didn't like it at all. It is a modern, "sexed up" version of Wuthering Heights.

That reminds me Kathy, i thought her book the Ice Queen was really weird.

[higley]

Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut was a little weird, I read it a few years ago. Strangest characters I ever saw. :P

[Monica]

Leonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers. I have no idea what it was about.

I agree with you. I had to read it for Canadian literature and I almost physically forced myself to do it. :sick: There's also this book by Raymond Queneau "Exercises in Style". He tells the same short story in 99 different ways...

[BlueSkyGB]

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson, premier gonzo journalist. Truely bizzare, but in the best possible sense of the word. And if anyone mentions that movie with Johnnie Depp, well I just hope it doesn't happen as that film was a crime against fiction [actually, y'now I have a horrible suspicion it was true] and nature.

@ Haven....
no point in mentioning the bats........:lol:

"We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, laughers, screamers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get into locked a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge, and I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff pretty soon. :lol: "

[*Classic*Charm*]

Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel.

It is a story about a Mexican girl who is not allowed to get married because she is the youngest daughter and needs to take care of her aging mother. So her older sister marries her boyfriend. Each chapter begins with a recipe that somehow have strange effects on those who eat it. Fore example she cries in the wedding cake and everyone at the party becomes terrible. Her older sister ends up dying of excess gas. She finally marries the man of her dreams at the end, and the house explodes into fireworks.

My aunt recommeneded that book! She said it was quite good.

I'd have to say the weirdest book I can think of right now was The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk. I read it recently for a book club, and no one really enjoyed it. Oh! And Steinbeck's The Red Pony. What a waste of time.

[Monica]

Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel.

It is a story about a Mexican girl who is not allowed to get married because she is the youngest daughter and needs to take care of her aging mother. So her older sister marries her boyfriend. Each chapter begins with a recipe that somehow have strange effects on those who eat it. Fore example she cries in the wedding cake and everyone at the party becomes terrible. Her older sister ends up dying of excess gas. She finally marries the man of her dreams at the end, and the house explodes into fireworks.


There was a film based on this book. I quite liked it, really. Sort of magical realism, like GG Marquez.

[_JadeRain_]

I never said it wasn't a good book. I said it was weird. It was surely the strangest book I ever read.

[Haven]

@ Haven....
no point in mentioning the bats........:lol:

"We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, laughers, screamers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get into locked a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge, and I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff pretty soon. :lol: "

Bluesky, where on earth did you get that from? Thank you. It is such a brillliant thing you have done. I haven't read this for years [never watched that movie! Gag!]. It's like Christmas coming early. I love Hunter, the premier gonzo journalist and miss him terribly after he shot himself in the face. What was going on that night?

Haven [aka Raoul Duke: Lawyer and confidante to the Gonzo journalist]: You can turn your back on a person, but, never turn your back on a drug. Especially when it's waving a razor-sharp hunting knife in your eye. :D

Dr. Gonzo: I have to go.
Raoul Duke: Go?
Dr. Gonzo: Yes. Leave the country. Tonight.
Raoul Duke: Calm down. You'll be straight in a few hours.
Dr. Gonzo: No. This is serious. One more hour in this town and I'll kill somebody!

I'll PM you on GB.
Okay just searched everywhere for a big smoochie kiss smilie - another gap in the market...

[kathycf]

That reminds me Kathy, i thought her book the Ice Queen was really weird.
Well, Hoffman often writes in this everyday magic/realism sort of a way. While most of her stuff is weird, I tend to like it. I really should have clarified earlier that I found Here on Earth to be both weird and distasteful. Sometimes weird is good. Niamh, I know you hate Wuthering Heights, but that isn't the reason why I disliked Here on Earth....I just thought it was creepy.


@ Haven....
no point in mentioning the bats........:lol:

"We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, laughers, screamers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get into locked a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge, and I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff pretty soon. :lol: "

:eek: :eek2: :eek: Wow!



I'll PM you on GB.
Okay just searched everywhere for a big smoochie kiss smilie - another gap in the market...
Haven, would this one do? :ladysman: :)

[BlueSkyGB]

Wow...didn't expect that.....LOL:lol:
Thanks Kathy and Haven....

[Haven]

Haven, would this one do? :ladysman: :)

Kathy, I think that we have our answer, seems like the perfect 'smoochie kiss'. Night night to you and BlueSky. :yawnb:

[Bii]

Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel.

It's not weird, it's just beautiful. One of the loveliest books I've ever read.

Mostly, I think, I like to read weird stuff.

Anything by:
- Haruki Murakami
- Angela Carter

Is generally on the strange side.

Started reading A Clockwork Orange once and couldn't understand a word of it, so I guess that's the strangest book I didn't quite read.

[Jedidiah]

Probably not that weird, but A Wrinkle in Time

[Monica]

Started reading A Clockwork Orange once and couldn't understand a word of it, so I guess that's the strangest book I didn't quite read.


Hehe, I was lucky with this one, I had a glossary at the end of the book. Though it was tiring to look at the back of the book every 5 words.

[Behemoth]

It's a close fight between Ulysses and Metamorphosis. Though Kafka is at least readable without the urge to throw yourself from the rooftops...

[jedi]

I found Alice in Wonderland...truly bizaare. Maybe as a child,I couldn't care less so long as rabbits and caterpillars and cards entertain me. But I'm now a grown-up trying to stick to reason and logic. After the book, all can ask is....what?

Man...this is one book that needs some interpreting.

[sstaplet]

I would have to say the weirdest book i've ever read was Brave New World by Huxley. Expecially the opening with the little kids and stuff. I read it a few years ago and it's at the top of my weird list.

[Unbeliever]

I've recently read The Freakshow (http://www.amazon.com/Freakshow-Bryan-Smith/dp/0843958278), by Brian Smith, and I'm sure it's the wierdest book I've ever read, or ever expect to read. A book would have to be wierd on steroids to beat this one!

[PeterL]

After further reflection I realized that Of Grammatology by Derrida was, by far, the weirdest book that I have read. I strongly suspect that it was a joke by him.

[Charles Darnay]

House of Leaves. Don't remember who wrote it, but it was weird, fun, but weird.

[ejarg7]

Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. I know it's supposed to be about philosophy and all, but the ending is just, well, weird. I won't say anything more than that in case anyone is reading the book right now.

[Cherubino]

[QUOTE=CaptureLife;387132]
When I was younger, I read the book Lizard Music by Daniel Manus Pinkwater. I know it was fantasy, but still... Synopsis: a young boy stays up late watching tv. When it goes off the air (it's the 70s), strange lizards appear and play hypnotizing music. He goes on what appears to be a drug-induced adventure with a man who has a chicken for a pet.[QUOTE]

...I've been wondering what the name of that book was for the past decade or so. It's even stranger how these things just pop up.

[Annamariah]

I found Alice in Wonderland...truly bizaare. Maybe as a child,I couldn't care less so long as rabbits and caterpillars and cards entertain me. But I'm now a grown-up trying to stick to reason and logic. After the book, all can ask is....what?

Man...this is one book that needs some interpreting.
I just read it and I, too, found it quite weird :D Entertaining, though :lol:

[Unbeliever]

I've just remembered another very wierd book I read about 15 years ago - Giles Goat-boy (http://www.davidlouisedelman.com/barth/goatboy.cfm). Very well done, but wierd!

[Mark F.]

The Naked Lunch by William S Burroughs

So weird until the final chapter/postface that kind of ties the whole thing together.

[Haven]

This little aside is purely to expedite 'weirdness'...


Originally Posted by jedi
I found Alice in Wonderland...truly bizaare. Maybe as a child,I couldn't care less so long as rabbits and caterpillars and cards entertain me. But I'm now a grown-up trying to stick to reason and logic. After the book, all can ask is....what?
Man...this is one book that needs some interpreting


I just read it and I, too, found it quite weird :D Entertaining, though :lol:

Hi if you guys are interested the post 'Complete the Thought' on 'Games' is doing an Alice thing at the moment. Great fun!! Heads up, she's in Hades at the moment and Cerebus the 3-headed dog had just eaten a bit of one of her cakes and has shrunk to the size of a West Highland Terrier and she's about to do a deal with Charon... over a Bic lighter... Well,
might have moved on since I last looked. :D


The Naked Lunch by William S Burroughs

So weird until the final chapter/postface that kind of ties the whole thing
together.

Wasn't this the book that he wrote and just flung the finished pages over his head and then gathered them all together at the end in a kind of mish-mash. Believe so. Might also have been around the time that he and his wife, Jane played 'William Tell'...and he accidently shot her through the head with an arrow... Sadly, she did not survive.

[Mark F.]

I think he shot her in the face with a hand gun, actually. He was released after 13 days of jail.

The Naked Lunch was written by Burroughs in Tangier and edited by Kerouac and Ginsberg later on.

[Haven]

Heir's Pistol Kills His Wife; He Denies Playing Wm. Tell

Mexico City, Sept. 7 (AP)--William Seward Burroughs, 37, first admitted then denied today that he was playing William Tell when his gun killed his pretty, young wife during a drinking party last night. William S. Burroughs, c.1951
callmeburroughs.tripod.com/joan.htm

Maybe he did, maybe he didn't play Wm. Tell [extrapolating, arrow, Wm. Tell]... seems not substantiated, might have been a tabloid fabrication. Very sad. 13 days of jail... doesn't seem enough.

Re the flinging the pages over his shoulder as he wrote, trying to remember, if that was actually in the Naked Lunch? I think that it was, actually got a really good memory of it, even talked about it with others who had read the novel. He was doing meth amphetamine with of course heroin. Kerouac is my hero, haven't read that much Ginsberg, but sure they would have been supremo editors for even this challenge. Excellent genre piece. Really glad you mentioned it.

[CaptureLife]

...I've been wondering what the name of that book was for the past decade or so. It's even stranger how these things just pop up.

Glad I could help!

[Mark F.]

callmeburroughs.tripod.com/joan.htm

Maybe he did, maybe he didn't play Wm. Tell [extrapolating, arrow, Wm. Tell]... seems not substantiated, might have been a tabloid fabrication. Very sad. 13 days of jail... doesn't seem enough.

Re the flinging the pages over his shoulder as he wrote, trying to remember, if that was actually in the Naked Lunch? I think that it was, actually got a really good memory of it, even talked about it with others who had read the novel. He was doing meth amphetamine with of course heroin. Kerouac is my hero, haven't read that much Ginsberg, but sure they would have been supremo editors for even this challenge. Excellent genre piece. Really glad you mentioned it.

Yeah he was playing William Tell but with a hand gun. It happened in Mexico where he fled to avoid imprisonment for holding (heroin, benzedrine? I forget).

[Julian Koller]

I agree with others that Alice in Wonderland and the works Kafka and Joyce are indeed quite odd. I also think the passages of Anais Nin's diary entries dealing with her unusually close relationship with her father very outlandish as well. Even with such strangeness, these authors are able to construct the bizarre with wonderful prose.

Georges Bataille's work is quite bizarre as well

[AuntShecky]

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. It's a heavy tome indeed, including footnotes! It's set in the not-so-distance future when all of the chickens of contemporary society
come home to roost. I think that awful movie The Ring
ripped off one of the plot elements in Infinite Jest.

[PeterL]

callmeburroughs.tripod.com/joan.html

Maybe he did, maybe he didn't play Wm. Tell [extrapolating, arrow, Wm. Tell]... seems not substantiated, might have been a tabloid fabrication. Very sad. 13 days of jail... doesn't seem enough.

Re the flinging the pages over his shoulder as he wrote, trying to remember, if that was actually in the Naked Lunch? I think that it was, actually got a really good memory of it, even talked about it with others who had read the novel. He was doing meth amphetamine with of course heroin. Kerouac is my hero, haven't read that much Ginsberg, but sure they would have been supremo editors for even this challenge. Excellent genre piece. Really glad you mentioned it.

That story wasn't in Naked Lunch or in another of his novels, but it has appeared in different forms in biographies, and it was assested to by a number of people, which is why there was no legal action against him.

[Mortis Anarchy]

I recently just bought Naked Lunch...I haven't started it though :redface: House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski is pretty strange...good, but different.

[kemal]

the last man in the world

[plh]

The Dream Quest of Unknown Kaddath, by H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft is a former denizen of my adopted state, 'Lil Rhody. That is the weirdest damn thing I ever read. I don't know anyone else besides me that actually liked it, except my son, but he is a total weirdo like his old man.
-plh

[Theshizznigg]

The wierdest piece of literature so far would be the Cask of Amon Tillado by Poe. I don't necessarily like Poe, but I made the efforts to read it.

[PeterL]

The Dream Quest of Unknown Kaddath, by H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft is a former denizen of my adopted state, 'Lil Rhody. That is the weirdest damn thing I ever read. I don't know anyone else besides me that actually liked it, except my son, but he is a total weirdo like his old man.
-plh

If you read more of Lovecraft's work, you will find things that make seem as commonplace as it really is.

[emmsi_*tobyrox*]

A play rather than a book : Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett:D freaked me out...by its absurdness if that is a word!

[thechampion]

no. you have no conceptualization of wierd. i can't get over this guy. he freaks me out. this is a direct quote from "The Riddle of the Traveling Skull" by Harry Stephen Keeler. the chapter that this is out of is called "A Chinaman He Catch Himse'f a Light!":
It must be remembered that at the time I knew quite nothing, naturally, concerning Milo Payne, the mysterious Cockney talking Englishman with the long-beaked Sherlock-Holmesian cap; nor of the latter's "Barr-Bag" which was as like my own bag as one Milwaukee wienerwurst is like another; nor of Legga, the Human Spider, with her four legs and her six arms; nor of Ichabod Chang, exconvict, and son of Dong Chang; nor of the elusive poetess, Abigail Sprigge; nor of the Great Simon, with his 2163 pearl buttons; nor of - in short, I then knew quite nothing about anything or anybody involved in the affair of which I had now become a part, unless perchance it were my nemesis, Sophie Kratzenschneiderwumpel - or Suing Sophie!

its a mystery novel. yes, he is published

[Etienne]

The Temptation of Saint-Anthony by Flaubert

[Black Flag]

Ulysses by James Joyce. In the same vein, A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, technically the prequel to Ulysses. Dubliners was kind of strange, too.
Maybe they're not exactly "weird", but are most definately difficult to follow.
I'm not sure what Joyce was smoking.
Of course, if he had written Ulysses in a normal style, it might be pretty boring. A man wakes up, eats breakfast, goes to work, takes a lunch break, wanders around the streets of Dublin for a while, plays with himself on the beach (yeah, it's what you're thinking), and goes home. And those are the highlights as I remember them. It's been a few years since I've read it.

[Zelly]

To be honest... Peter Pan.

I liked it, but it was so strange.

[amalia1985]

"The Breast" by Philip Roth, we read it in the third year in the Modern American Literature class in my university. Really fun, but realy weird, at the same time...

[Dark Muse]

I thought the Son of the Circus, by Irving was pretty werid when I read it. It sticks out in my mind as the strangest thing I have ever read.

Also everything I have read by Tom Robbins has been completely bazzar but in a good way, I love his work, but it certaintly is strange.

[Etienne]

Oh I just remembered one book... La disparition by George Perec, the whole book (around 400 pages I believe) doesn't contain a single "e", and, in french, it's an even more common letter than in english. It gives the whole thing a very strange feeling, that's for sure.

Ferdydurke by Gombrowicz is also rather strange and so are many Boris Vian books.

[blackbird_9]

I thought Anthony Burgess's The Wanting Seed was pretty wierd. Acctually, it just made me feel more uncomfortable than anything.

[Idril]

I thought Anthony Burgess's The Wanting Seed was pretty wierd. Acctually, it just made me feel more uncomfortable than anything.

Oh, I'm reading that right now. I haven't gotten all that far yet but I'll certainly agree it's odd.

[DigitalLove]

It's not a book, but the short story Young Goodman Brown by Hawthorne comes the closest for me. It's very cryptic and leaves you with so many questions.

Here's the basic story - A young married man travels deep into the forest at night to join a secret satanic cult, or does he?

[aabbcc]

To be honest... Peter Pan.

I liked it, but it was so strange.
A lovely junky fairy-tale. I loved it when I was younger. :D He gives them "magic dust" which "makes them fly"... :lol:

To respond to the actual question myself, it was probably Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author or, no matter how stereotypical it might sound, Kafka's The Trial.
I vaguely recall some other weird books, some of which I read when I was a child, but I cannot remember anything concrete (characters, name of book or author), it is just excerpts and weird feeling I got.

[DeepTrance]

Kafka on the Shore Haruki Murakami

A close second would be

If on a Winter's Night a Traveller Italo Calvino

[docwill]

Falling Angel, definitely, with Shutter Island a close second. Both of them, you get to the end and think, what did I just read? Sort of the same effect as The Usual Suspects.

[1967Impala]

Steppenwolf had to be written when the author was on some sort of drugs...

[1967Impala]

Falling Angel, definitely, with Shutter Island a close second. Both of them, you get to the end and think, what did I just read? Sort of the same effect as The Usual Suspects.

I'm about to start Shutter Island.

[Etienne]

Steppenwolf had to be written when the author was on some sort of drugs...

Finished it a few days ago, I don't think it was so strange.

[Kafka's Crow]

A lovely junky fairy-tale. I loved it when I was younger. :D He gives them "magic dust" which "makes them fly"... :lol:

To respond to the actual question myself, it was probably Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author or, no matter how stereotypical it might sound, Kafka's The Trial.
I vaguely recall some other weird books, some of which I read when I was a child, but I cannot remember anything concrete (characters, name of book or author), it is just excerpts and weird feeling I got.

I found Metamorphosis and even The Castle weirder than The Trial. The weirdest book that I have ever read has to be Comte de Lautreamont's Songs of Maldoror:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Maldoror-Poems-Classics-Comte-Lautreamont/dp/0140443428/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199550462&sr=8-1

[ben.!]

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was a book I found rather weird.

We had to study it last year for Year 11 English. I liked it, however the fact it was written from the point of view of a suspected schizophrenic made some of the passages really strange.

[LadyW]

Miss America by Suzanne Phillips
Not "weird", just very distrubing...
Not one to read when you're ill.

[Tersely]

The weirdest book I've read so far was Alice in Wonderland. I think I had the basic idea and when I went to read the full out novel...as surprised. Good surprsied though.

[Kent Edwins]

I'm casting my vote for Ulysses, too. I can't believe I muddled through 700+ pages, most of the time with only a faint idea of what was going on. Still, the last section somehow made things well worth it. It all sort of came together in a weird way. I guess rereading it and knowing what was going on the whole time would be fun, right?

[poofyhead15]

for me, it's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I know it's a really popular book, but I'm more of a straightforward story kind of guy, so I was constantly trying to figure out if there was something I just wasn't getting. anyway, maybe i'll read it again sometime...

[kandaurov]

I take it that 'weird' can be meant in a good sense?

Every play and novel by Beckett I have read, every story by Kafka I have read, and "Crime and Punishment". I love all of these, especially "CaP". This last one had the weirdest scenes, really powerful stuff too. Petrovich's interrogation of Raskolnikov, in a sarcastic and almost hateful tone, is weird and sublime.

[superunknown]

The Naked Lunch

And Finnegan's Wake, although I never got through more than 5 pages.

[Ryduce]

A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro was very strange to me.

The atmosphere in that book was so eerie it was ridiculous.

Also any of the Chuck Palahniuk novels are quite strange.

[SirRaustusBear]

I gotta say anything by Richard Brautigan. In Watermelon Sugar is about a town where everything is made of Watermelon Sugar. Trout Fishing in America was quite strange as well as the title of the book is both a passtime and the name of a character.

[confusion]

A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines by Janna Levin

Ok, so it's not as weird as lovecraft, poe, or joyce...but it's the weirdest thing I've read that was written in the last ten years.

[shai]

Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse

i was going to come in here and write that one. so great.

[PoeticPassions]

Anything by Kafka, really...and Ulysses by James Joyce

[Lady Glynde]

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier. Definitely not as wierd as some books out there, but <sarcasm>as I have an odd, inexplicable attraction to books that are halfway normal</sarcasm> I thought it was pretty strange.

:)

[moose gurl]

House of Leaves by Danielewski. Every time "house" is printed, it's blue. It's about a guy who one day discovers his house is bigger on the inside than on the outside--literally. It gets pretty scary and strange. Go into a bookstore and flip through this book. It's hardly a traditional novel--text goes everywhere on the page, and sometimes you only read one line through the middle of the page, sometimes only one corner. Really and truly used the "novel" medium to it's fullest potential. Bizarre and enthralling.

[applepie]

I have to say one called Geek Love. It is one of the most bizarre books that I've ever read. It made me really uncomfortable, but I still couldn't stop reading. You know that car wreck that you just can't look away from? That is sort of what Geek Love is like. It is pretty well written, but the plot is disconcerting.

[HotKarl]

Djuna Barnes: Nightwood

[thebookdoc]

It may seem an odd choice, but Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais what came after him could hardly be called a movement as he already moved it.

[Kafka's Crow]

Djuna Barnes: Nightwood

I've been thinking about Nightwood a lot for a couple of days now. I read it for my Modern American Lit coursework eight years ago. Very weird book indeed.

[Ydfkdy]

Dave Berry Slept Here, a book that gives you history but it is wrong.My copy was stolen but in basically the guy say's if you are going to read history wrong then do it right. that is what type of book it is.

[pinkgurl321]

The weirdest book I ever read was "Caroline." Its cool but yet a little weird.

[impishmonkey]

The girl in the box by Ouida Sebestyen
It's about a girl who gets captured and thrown into a cement cellar and all she has are the clothes on her back, a type writer, bakery items, and an old jar of water.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Slaughter-House 5. What a trip.

[billhicks]

Try will self's "a crack rock the size of the ritz"
very strange
but it does exactly what it says on the can !

[Mockingbird_z]

i read Afterdark by Murakami.
I cant say it was the weirdest book ever, but it made me think a lot over the plot. still i must say i enjoyed the idea. =)

[crazyed]

Kafka On the Shore by Murakami. But Mysteries by Knut Hamsun is definitely a close second. Mysteries has a much more linear progression but was infinitely harder for me to understand.

[aeroport]

Melville's Pierre.
I might have mentioned it here before, actually; but I cannot complain enough about this outrageously bizarre book!

[ben.!]

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey.

I had to read this for year 11 English. I finished it and just thought: "Wow, that was wack."

Really enjoyed it though, however it was pretty hard to discern what was reality and what was Chief's delusions within the novel. :D

[Hank Stamper]

weird good or weird weird? for weird weird then Naked Lunch for weird good then Metamorphosis

[_Shannon_]

Ugh-- Love in the Ruins by Walker PErcy...my gosh I how I hated that book! It took some couple hundred pages to really have any idea what the heck was going on...

[Erichtho]

Moscow-Petushki by Wenedikt Jerofejew.

[Pyrrho]

Kafka on the Shore closely followed by Slaughterhouse 5. But still Kafka on the Shore. After I had finished it it was in my head for days because that was the first time ever that I could not even remotely say what deeper meaning there was. I wonder if there is an interpretation available. Because if there is, I would really like to have it.

[kelby_lake]

metamorphosis and basically all kafka's stuff. a horse that wants to become a lawyer?!

[cipherdecoy]

Mere Anarchy by Woody Allen, but I loved it very much though.

[kasie]

Time's Arrow by Martin Amis.

The story is told backwards, in the first person and ends with the narrator's birth. Strange.

[johann cruyff]

Some of the stranger books I've read:

The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
House of Leaves - Mark Danielewski
A Void - George Perec
The Story of the Eye - Georges Bataille

And,my favourite,Ugursuz by the Bosnian author Nedžad Ibrišimović.It's a pity this wasn't translated(at least as far as I know),it's a true masterpiece.

[Epimenides]

Jeu de Robin et Marion by Adam the Hunchback.

[kasie]

Ray in Reverse is like that as well.

Sounds like another one to avoid, then. :D

[Dharmabeat]

Naked Lunch, I could never get it.
I'll give it another try one day though.

[PabloQ]

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon and Gravity's Rainbow.
I'll second the vote for anything by Richard Brautigan although I haven't read it in years.
I'll also second much of John Barth's early work with Giles Goat-Boy at the top closely followed by Letters.
I'll put in a vote for A Confederacy of Dunces as well.

[Trystan]

'The Castle' - Franz Kafka. I enjoyed it though.

[Mugwump101]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was bizarre and eccentric if that's what you mean.

Also the writing style of Victor Hugo, I've never seen an author keep on writing on a subject for very long that isn't particularly relevant to the plot but somehow ties it to the plot at the end which is brilliant but weird! haha.

[Hank Stamper]

Naked Lunch, I could never get it.
I'll give it another try one day though.

I'm not sure anyone will ever get it!

[clumsy angelle]

Homeport by Nora Roberts

[Melmoth]

Probably Les Chants de Maldoror by Count de Lautréamont...

[John Goodman]

Naked Lunch. I read it recently and it was the most disgusting book I have ever read. I noticed the point that Borroughs was trying to make in some of the chapters (such as the one about the 'Island', the 'Sender', which stick out in my mind) but the rest of it just felt like rampant pedophelia, homosexuality and mutilation.

[Kafka's Crow]

Probably Les Chants de Maldoror by Count de Lautréamont...

That's what I thought, up until now, as I started reading George Bataille's The Story of the Eye yesterday. I wonder if weired or even weirdest come close to describing that book.

[integrity]

As I was reading through everyone's posts I was wondering if someone would mention A Confederacy of Dunces. It was the first book to come to mind. It was weird in a very disturbing way.

Same with She's Come Undone.

Actually, both books were weird in a BAD way. A Fool on The Hill was an odd book, too.

Others have mentioned Fear and Loathing; that was weird in a GOOD way. So was Alice in Wonderland.

The Master and Margarita (which I am reading now) is a bit weird, too, but it's a good read so far.

[LadyW]

Miss America - anyone read it?

[Dharmabeat]

Naked Lunch. I read it recently and it was the most disgusting book I have ever read. I noticed the point that Borroughs was trying to make in some of the chapters (such as the one about the 'Island', the 'Sender', which stick out in my mind) but the rest of it just felt like rampant pedophelia, homosexuality and mutilation.
I completely agree there. It really confused me, as I first picked up 'Junky' and thought it was quite a nice easy read albeit a tad on the gruesome side. So I picked up 'Naked Lunch', and it just seems so different - and about ten times more morbid than anything else I've ever read.

[kelby_lake]

The Trial
Les Enfants Terribles. Mad is Cocteau :) but very good!

[monad]

Don Quixote by Kathy Acker

[Kafka's Crow]

Don Quixote by Kathy Acker

Kathy was mad, absolutely mad. A punk in every sense of the word. I have a copy of The Empire of the Nonsense upstairs. I read some of it, weird writing indeed. I have a copy of Blood and Guts in High School as well. If you could find it anywhere, listen to Pussy, King of the Pirates, very,very different stuff:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pussy-King-Pirates-Featuring-Kathy/dp/B0000037O5/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1218159653&sr=8-4

[DeadAsDreams]

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

[Kafka's Crow]

As I was reading through everyone's posts I was wondering if someone would mention A Confederacy of Dunces. It was the first book to come to mind. It was weird in a very disturbing way.

Same with She's Come Undone.

Actually, both books were weird in a BAD way. A Fool on The Hill was an odd book, too.

Others have mentioned Fear and Loathing; that was weird in a GOOD way. So was Alice in Wonderland.

The Master and Margarita (which I am reading now) is a bit weird, too, but it's a good read so far.

I love A Confederacy of Dunces. It is dark, it is hilarious, it is sad but weired it is not. John Barth's The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailer is weired with two plots running parallel. A huge book and a weired one on top of that!

http://www.amazon.com/Last-Voyage-Somebody-Sailor-Barth/dp/0385422202

[monad]

Kathy was mad, absolutely mad. A punk in every sense of the word. I have a copy of The Empire of the Nonsense upstairs. I read some of it, weird writing indeed. I have a copy of Blood and Guts in High School as well. If you could find it anywhere, listen to Pussy, King of the Pirates, very,very different stuff:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pussy-King-Pirates-Featuring-Kathy/dp/B0000037O5/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1218159653&sr=8-4

Nice to see someone that recognizes her name, she's certainly got a unique style and refreshingly twisted perspective.

Funny, it seems like this hard-edged lesbian punk writer is mostly digested in the comfortable ivory towers of university postmodernist / lit theory courses (this is where I first encountered her work).

[Kafka's Crow]

Nice to see someone that recognizes her name, she's certainly got a unique style and refreshingly twisted perspective.

Funny, it seems like this hard-edged lesbian punk writer is mostly digested in the comfortable ivory towers of university postmodernist / lit theory courses (this is where I first encountered her work).

Well, that's where I discovered her back in 2000-2001. I first came across her name in Nicholas Zurbrugg's book The Parameters of Postmodernism. A rubbish book but still I managed to extract two good things out of it: Kathy Acker and John Cage.

[integrity]

I love A Confederacy of Dunces. It is dark, it is hilarious, it is sad but weired it is not.


Perhaps it wasn't the writing itself that was strange, but the main character was entirely offbeat and subhuman-ly bizarre. (And, if I may add, loathsome.)

[Jueno]

The five people you meet in heaven by Mitch Albom.
A friend of mine recommended it for me, but I just didn't get it!

[EricP]

"The 120 Days of Sodom" by Marquis de Sade

[DecemberSun]

Weirdest book?

I don't know if I'd call it weird, but 'The five people you meet in heaven' was very diferent as to what I had expected. I had read that some people thought of it as a future classic, but that I really can't see.

[Seabird111]

The Book's of Blood Volume One by Clive Barker is probably the strangest thing I've read.

I mean, bodies of citizens from two different towns in Yugoslavia forming two giant monsters!?!? Seriously...

[book_jones]

Hands down The Robber Bridegroom by Eudora Welty. Most strange books don't really surprise me. I wasn't surprised when Ulysses turned out to be weird. However, this one really surprised me. She wrote many strange stories, but none quite so much as this one.

I sure am dissapointed that everyone associates weirdness with drug use. It seems that a book written by someone on drugs or about someone on drugs usually isn't very weird because you expect unusual things to happen. I have much more respect for writers who pull their strange ideas from the real world. That makes a book much more interesting for me.

[cipherdecoy]

A Clockwork Orange maybe?

[Melmoth]

"The 120 Days of Sodom" by Marquis de Sade

Rather than weirdest... one of the 'Pornest'...:D

[kelby_lake]

"The 120 Days of Sodom" by Marquis de Sade

ha ha! how about grossest:sick:

[Tallon]

Woman of the Dunes by Kōbō Abe is weird, it's about an entomologist who is trapped in a house at the bottom of a sandpit by some locals and made to dig for sand to keep the house from caving in.

[TheFifthElement]

Woman of the Dunes by Kōbō Abe is weird, it's about an entomologist who is trapped in a house at the bottom of a sandpit by some locals and made to dig for sand to keep the house from caving in.

Also by Kobo Abe: The Kangaroo Notebook. A story about a man who finds radishes growing on his legs one day. Very, very strange.

[Tallon]

Yes i must seek more Abe, it was ages ago i read WITD.

[promtbr]

OK, interesting topic and I'll bite...(newbie here)...

The majority of works of literary fiction that I have read so far certainly could be described as "bizarre or eccentrlc". I read in a DFW interview that a creative writing teacher advised him that good writing should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable...

I second all those that mentioned Beckett, Kafka, Joyce etc as all being "weird". Breaking of old previous accepted traditional forms in any medium would probably be called that...

I agree that some works are weird with seeming goal to sell themselves or to be heard, as in "shock value"-ie. Weirdness for weirdness sake (could be a good thread topic for debate!)

Read any drama by Ionesco (major writer from the theater of the absurd school) will make Beckett seem like the Sunday Times...

I loved the "weirdness" of Pynchon, Brautigan and Barth. Barthelme's short stories are pretty out there!
I can't wait to try Murakami's books from what I have heard!

From reading this thread, I need to find the Third Policeman from O'brien and some works by Abe

[Janine]

Hmmm...define "weird." Hard to say, really....The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is wierd. So is A Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinsi...Kafka's "Metamorpohsis" is weird too...and anything by James Joyce...

Hi malwethien! "A Painted Bird" was one weird novel; I am with you on this one. I read it when I was in college along with "Steppenwolf" - I agree, that was pretty weird too, although I do like Hermann Hesse's other works very much. "Steppenwolf" was good, but strange and mostly based on dreams/fantasies, I believe. He probably was on drugs when he wrote it.
Yes, some of James work certainly is weird, at least to me. Some of Virginia Wolfe's later work is a bit strange, I think, such as "Orlando". I didn't read it but heard it was different and a bit weird.

This might not count because it is a short story - but 'The Yellow Wallpaper' is super strange but good. 'A Rose for Emily' is another strange short story but interesting.

[waryan]

I want some completely out-there concepts- what are some of the strangest books you have heard of or read yourself?

Thanks as always!

[Josef K]

The Bible

[Quilp]

LOL! I'm with you on that....:thumbs_up

[Tallon]

This will probably get joined with the other thread like this, i recommended Kobo Abe's Woman in the Dunes. Abe is generally bizzare.

[Etienne]

What do you mean by bizarre?

For example you can have something completely twisted like Apolinnaire's Eleven Thousand Rods or something rather crazy like Perec's Disparition (a novel with no letter "e"). Gombrowicz's Ferdydurke is quite crazy as well, Boris Vian's Écume des jours, Beckett in general, Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, or Broch Death of Virgil, Lautreamont's Maldoror, Caroll's Alice in Wonderland (why not?), Borges too could fit that category often, Raymond Queneau's Exercises of Style, etc.

But maybe being more precise in what you're looking for would help...

Check out the Oulipo, a group of writers which might interest you (Perec and Queneau previously mentionned were members of that group, and so was Calvino).

[JBI]

Any of the middle to late works of Samuel Beckett, and Absurdity in general.

[waryan]

Thanks everyone- it's funny because I was originally going to write "Bizzare in the vein of Abe's work, as I am a fan." I suppose I am looking for books that deviate from being defined as a certain type of literature, books that you have read that discuss things you don't ever read of elsewhere. I suppose I don't know what I am looking for exactly, just some different stuff so I appreciate the replies I have gotten so far, as I will check this all out.

[Logos]

If you can get your hands on it, Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America (http://www.brautigan.net/trout.html) (1967) :D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trout_Fishing_in_America

--

[waryan]

Thanks, for a while I tried to get ahold of that, I need to try a bit harder.

I suppose I am bored with literature and am looking for something so different that it might re-inspire me as to what writing can accomplish?

I like the idea of finding more books like Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, Abe's Kangaroo Notebook or Dante's Divine Comedy.

[TheFifthElement]

Well The Kangaroo Notebook is pretty out there!

Have you ever read anything by Haruki Murakami? If you like more obscure works I'd recommend Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World which is pretty surreal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard-Boiled_Wonderland_and_the_End_of_the_World

And if you like Joyce then I guess you don't mind wordy prose. Might be worth checking out something by Angela Carter, perhaps Heroes and Villains http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/27/specials/carter-villains.html

or The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Infernal_Desire_Machines_of_Doctor_Hoffman

Richard Brautigan is a good recommendation too. I've read In Watermelon Sugar and Trout Fishing in America quite recently. I prefered Watermelon Sugar personally. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Watermelon_Sugar

What about Time's Arrow by Martin Amis? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time's_Arrow_(novel)

Good luck with your search, and if you find anything interesting on the way let us know!

[Ashurbanipal]

Why not read House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. It is a very bizarre book.
Naked Lunch is always a classic option for anyone wanting bizarre and odd.

[waryan]

Thanks everyone, these are some great finds- Also I have Wind-Up Bird chronicles by Murikami and I start it but then something always gets in the way- and its funny because I was trying to decide between that one and Hard-Boiled when in the store, but I'll check out Chronicles and see where it takes me.

Thx again

[SirRaustusBear]

I second Trout Fishing in America and recommend Brautigan's novel In Watermelon Sugar as well. People live in a town where most everything is made of watermelon sugar and the sun is a different color every day. Wednesday is black silent sun day in which there is no sound.

[stlukesguild]

Check out Joyce's "spiritual" father-figure, Lawrence Sterne. Fernando Pessoa blurs fiction and poetry. Julio Cortazar's Hopscotch, Augusto Monterroso's Complete Works and other Stories, Gerard de Nerval's Selected Writings, Anne Carson's Red and Plainwater, Donald Barthleme's stories may all take you in the right direction.

[Niamh]

I've said it before and i'll say it again.
The Third Policeman by flann O' Brien. By far the weirdest book i've ever read.

[kelby_lake]

The Balcony by Jean Genet.

More than a bit disturbing.

[islandclimber]

Yeah Finnegan's Wake is definitely bizarre and if you don't care whether you understand it completely, it is an amazing read to just read right through the first time.. the second time though, you may want to get a companion volume explaining it, and spend months going through it, as the companion volume is generally longer than the book if it is a good one lol...


for disturbing bizarre (not for the faint of heart).. well there is a good list here...

The Marquis de Sade-- 120 days of Sodom
Georges Bataille-- story of the eye
Octave Mirbeau-- the torture garden
Donoso -- The Obscene Bird of Night
Lautreamont-- Maldoror

I don't know how I managed to finish a few of these, but just thinking about what I read in them makes me feel sick...

for not so disturbing, yet still somewhat bizarre,

Beckett
some Kafka
Nabokov's --- Invitation to a Beheading
Calvino
Jean Genet-- The Balcony
much of Borges


Etienne's list is quite good..

[Jozanny]

I've said it before and i'll say it again.
The Third Policeman by flann O' Brien. By far the weirdest book i've ever read.

And I will agree with Niamh again that The Third Policeman defies the more typical Menippean forms we have come to treat as classics, like Gulliver's Travels, which it bears some affinity to, but I do not think it is *spaced out* literature as such. Its coy playfulness has its own kind of odd coherence.

If I had to choose something bizarre, it would not be Tristram Shandy either, as luke suggests. Sterne is one of a kind, but what he actually does in Shandy, is deconstruct the novel's traditional framework. It is not freaky so much as delayed climax and frustration, a story which unravels itself.

My pick, oddly enough, would be Clive Barker's speculative fiction. Not because it is gross, or graphic, so much as strange, and something not entirely understood by me. He is not a tiresome panderer the way more commercial authors like King or Rice can be, but he isn't altogether easy to pin down, and as a reader I felt uneasy with the themes he seemed to be pushing.

I don't generally read works which are too weird, but some years ago I made the mistake of picking up a Charlee Jacob paperback, and if you like punk horror, she can probably turn your stomach. She isn't much of an original, actually, but disgusting, yes.

[JBI]

Try Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King; that work uses blends of post-modernism and traditional Native American techniques to a bizarre, yet highly original effect.

[pgwodehousefan]

Der Sandmann (forgot the author) Clockwork Orange

[SleepyWitch]

Der Sandmann (forgot the author) Clockwork Orange

E.T. A. Hoffmann (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T.A._Hoffmann)

[bounty]

it's been awhile but i remember the douglas adam's hitchhiker books being pretty out there. i could be wrong. i am confident however that kafka's metamorphosis was a doozie!

[Etienne]

I'm adding Raymond Roussel books. I'm almost done with Impressions from Africa (nothing to do with a travel book, by the way), and that is very weird.

[DeadAsDreams]

Any book from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe series.

[polgara]

The Gormenghast Trilogy - Titus Groan, Gormenghast, Titus Alone - by Mervyn Peake.

[optimisticnad]

'bizarre' hey - how about Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville, it's a short story so you can read it one sitting - probably intensify the 'bizarre' experience. Do you mean 'bizarre' in the Absurdist sense?

[blp]

Yet another opportunity to recommend Kathy Acker, especially Blood and Guts in Highschool and Great Expectations, brilliant, unique, hilarious books both and dear to my heart. Perhaps one day someone here will actually take up one of these recommendations and read one of them.

Acker wrote without rewrites and professed herself uninterested in character or narrative, but said, 'I had an interest in copying'. The hype (partly her own) had her as a plagiarist, but there's very little verbatim copying in her books, more a series of, often deceptively simple, descriptions of works by everyone from Catullus to Hawthorne, woven, with apparent recklessness, into disjointed tales of women in vaguely punky, artistic urban milieus, usually wildly frustrated by everything from dominant political systems to lovelessness to what was supposed to constitute the acceptable place of the intellectual in society. Anomalies are everywhere: Jimmy Carter turns up in a New York punk club and picks up Janey, the heroine of Blood and Guts, beginning an abusive relationship with her. Someone purporting to be Erica Jong appears suddenly and delivers a frantic monologue ('My name is Erica Jong. I'm tearing up my clothes. Goodnight.') Janey is kidnapped by a Persian slavetrader who loves Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre and locks her in a room with nothing but The Scarlet Letter and a pencil.


Hi Etienne. I was surprised your first post left out Roussel, given your other choices. His book Locus Solus is also deeply weird.

A few anecdotes about Roussel: he only wrote Impressions of Africa and Locus Solus to draw attention to his first novel, which he considered his masterpiece. During the writing of it, he felt himself possessed by a sort of brilliant inspiration he called la gloire (the glory) and believed it to cause him to emanate such a bright light that he had to write during the day with the blinds of his windows down so as to save people passing in the street from being blinded. A guy I know who's a big fan of Roussel has read this book and he says it isn't any good at all.

In addition to his novels, Roussel wrote a book of short prose poems with a similar title to Impressions of Africa, each one following a rigid structure incorporating a series of bracketted information within other bracketted information. These kinds of formal experiment were one reason why he was important to the Oulipo writers.

A huge inspiration to surrealist figures such as Duchamp, Roussel was once asked what he thought of the movement and replied that he found them 'un peut obscur' (a bit obscure). This from a man who's books largely consisted of descriptions of strange, impossible machines.

In a similar vein, also look up Alfred Jarry's Ubu plays.

[Bitterfly]

Octave Mirbeau-- the torture garden
.

One of my faves!!
I have just thought of another bizarre collection: stories by Maupassant that are among the weirdest I've ever read and that aren't well-known at all, even among francophones. In fact, I have yet to meet someone else who's read them :( . I think they are all published together, but am not sure of the name of the collection - maybe Contes fantastiques.
And you've got Hoffmann's tales as well, some of which could be said to be bizarre, or at least uncanny (Freud spoke about them a lot). I loved them all, especially the Opinions of Murr the Cat. So funny!!

[Vintage34]

Three very different, bizarre books:

Motherless Brooklyn, Jonathan Lethem: A young man with Tourette's Syndrome, working for a private detective agency.

Sway, Zachary Lazar: The underside of the summer of love. Story runs through the 1960's.

Divisidero, Michael Ondaatje: (author of "The English Patient")
I just finished this book yesterday. I hope someone else reads it, so they can explain the ending to me?

[weltanschauung]

The Balcony by Jean Genet.

More than a bit disturbing.

man, jean genet...
yuck.

on topic:
gravity's rainbow- thomas pynchon \m/

[Etienne]

Hi Etienne. I was surprised your first post left out Roussel, given your other choices. His book Locus Solus is also deeply weird.

That's because I've just finished Impressions of Africa - my first book by Roussel.

EDIT: Oh I was under the impression that I had put Flaubert's Temptation of St-Anthony in my first post, seems like I didn't. That's a good one for the topic.

[blp]

That's because I've just finished Impressions of Africa - my first book by Roussel.


Sorry, I didn't word that very well. Just meant it made sense when you finally did mention him.

[Bitterfly]

Another thread made me think of the following book:
Le rivage des Syrtes, by Julien Gracq.
I think it deserves to be called bizarre... it's bewitchingly beautiful, but nothing ever happens. Like a poetic Waiting for Godot.

[Guinivere]

Maybe you could try Vellum (The Book of all Hours) by Hal Duncan. It certainly is strange. He just published the second one and it's called Ink. Imagine a bizzarre mixture of sci-fi, fantasy, road trip and stream of conciousness. I found it quite fascinating.

[kandaurov]

You mean bizarre as in hilariously absurd? http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8926/Kharms/Incidences.html This is priceless stuff. Check out also "The Diary of a Mad Man", by Gogol, funniest thing I've ever read. And like JBI said, Beckett seems to be your man. The Triology, Murphy, any of his plays, you name it.

I guess Ulysses can be called bizarre. Try Gertrude Stein if you're into playful-sounding automatic writing.

As for something more conventional, maybe D. H. Lawrence's Women in Love. Not really bizarre, I know, but the dialogues are everything but normal, so...

If you can read German, Jandl seems to be the obvious choice: http://poetry.mystiek.net/jandl.htm

Hope this'll help you!

[Trystan]

(Has this not been mentioned yet?)

Naked Lunch - William Burroughs (actually - any of his cut-ups). Not particularly easy or conventional reading even for "hands-down bizarre", but I found it worthwile. It's both hilarious and repulsive.

[kandaurov]

Oh, oh, and Portnoy's Complaint, by Philip Roth. Scatological and sexually bizarre. Just like Trystan's recommendation: both hilarious and repulsive. I'd only clarify that there's a causal relation: it's because it's so repulsive that it's so hilarious.

[Karen_Leslie]

Since Haruki Murakami has already been mentioned, how about Ryu Murakami? Coin Locker Babies is one of the most disturbing, potentially stomach-turning books I've ever read. I'm not even sure I liked it, I just had to keep reading it in an "OMG is this really happening?" sort of way.

Personally I also found Gunter Grass' The Tin Drum to be very strange, but I don't know how bizarre it actually is-- I think it just freaked me out personally because I really was not expecting it. It was extremely memorable though.

[Chrysanthus]

The title says it all, I want to be disturbed, affected and mezmerized by something mind-bendingly insane, evil, violent, bloody and twisted...something stylishly done and intelligently assembled.

Suggestions?

[sixsmith]

Cormac McCarthy's 'Blood Meridian' is rather savage and certainly fulfills the style criteria.

[Veva]

Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

[johann cruyff]

I hear American Psycho (Bret Easton Ellis) has what you're looking for, although I must confess that I still haven't read it.

[lupe]

The Wasp Factory of Iain Banks is exactly what you are looking for - and it's brilliant!

[LitNetIsGreat]

The title says it all, I want to be disturbed, affected and mezmerized by something mind-bendingly insane, evil, violent, bloody and twisted...something stylishly done and intelligently assembled.

Suggestions?

Get a job in school.:lol:

King Lear? Hamlet? Just finished The Monk by Matthew Lewis that fits most of the above.

[_Shannon_]

Anything by Jim Thompson. And you might also want to give Faulkner's Sanctuary a try. And even Native Son by Richard Wright.

[aBIGsheep]

Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

[Thespian1975]

Stephen King - any of his early stuff. The Stand is disgustingly good.

[Sins of Freck]

As above, but try Steven King's 'From a Buick 8'. A fantastic tale from start to finish.

[Scheherazade]

Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

The Wasp Factory of Iain Banks is exactly what you are looking for - and it's brilliant!I will second the above two!


I hear American Psycho (Bret Easton Ellis) has what you're looking for, although I must confess that I still haven't read it.I have been wanting to read this literally for years now. Maybe we should form a group here and read it together next month? :)

[Emil Miller]

The title says it all, I want to be disturbed, affected and mezmerized by something mind-bendingly insane, evil, violent, bloody and twisted...something stylishly done and intelligently assembled.

Suggestions?

Winnie the Pooh by A.A.Milne

[lupe]

Two more magnificent novels you will certainly enjoy:

Enduring Love - Ian McEwan
Clara y la penumbra 2001 (The Art of Murder 2004) - Jose Carlos Somoza

[Pecksie]

'The very rich hours of Count von Stauffenberg' by Paul West
'The cement garden' by Ian McEwan
'Triomf' by Marlene van Niekerk

[miyagisan]

I hear American Psycho (Bret Easton Ellis) has what you're looking for, although I must confess that I still haven't read it.

I've read it and yes, it is indeed. Glamorama is also.

[kelby_lake]

Lolita

[semi-fly]

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Uncle Silas: A Tale of Bartram-Haugh by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin

If those don't suit your taste you could always try The Bible, rumor has it there is some really scary stuff in it.

[Zee.]

Lolita - it's good, but I have a feeling it wont be suiting to the book his description wants.

Try, The Raw Shark Texts and House of Leaves


I hear American Psycho (Bret Easton Ellis) has what you're looking for, although I must confess that I still haven't read it.


Gorey.

But disturbing? not so much. Not my kind of disturbing anyway.

[vsopvs]

The Day Of Locust by Nathanael West

[DeadAsDreams]

The Novella "Hallucigenia" by Laird Barron

[kandaurov]

Both Women in Love, by D. H. Lawrence and Portnoy's Complaint, by Philip Roth could have the original post as synopsis
Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground is pretty spiteful and disturbing
The Call of the Wild, by Jack London
And methinks you'd get a kick out of some parts of Ulysses, like "Calypso" and "Nausicaa".

[amanda_isabel]

I read something about Death and the Compass a while back. I haven't read the book but the review sounds good.

[JBI]

Bit of a stretch on this one, but Therese Raquin,
and, of course, much of Atwood, especially Alias Grace.

[Hank Stamper]

another vote for wasp factory and american psycho..

i hear cows by matthew stokoe is supposed to be completely twisted and disgusting but i confess i have not read it myself because it is out of print and i have been unable to find a copy anywhere

haunted by chuck palahniuk is worth reading too - if only for the short story 'guts', which is suitably disgusting! (there is a clue in the title!)

[Infinitefox]

Mortal Fear by Greg Iles is pretty twisted.

[Dr. Hill]

Crime.
And.
Pun.
Ish.
Ment.

[Zee.]

Disturbing. Disturbing. Disturbing. Disturbing. Can't quite put your finger on why it makes you feel so displaced.
House of Leaves.

[Dori]

Crime.
And.
Pun.
Ish.
Ment.

My thoughts exactly.

[GX4146]

Ginger Man by i forget what's his name

[kelby_lake]

I can think of plays like that...

[bailo]

I just read The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe and it was both the most twisted, dark, and insane book I've read in years and one of the best. Really really good and really demented.

[Hank Stamper]

Ginger Man by i forget what's his name

jp donleavy...

[GX4146]

jp donleavy...

yep thanks

[Mag Master 21]

I hear American Psycho (Bret Easton Ellis) has what you're looking for, although I must confess that I still haven't read it.

Drop what you're reading now and pick this up...

It is genius.

[Chrysanthus]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

I've decided to go with these as they appeal to me the most.

Notes from the Underground, Dostoyevsky.
Therese Raquin, Émile Zola.
The Art of Murder, José Carlos Somoza.
Uncle Silas, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.

[mono]

Crime.
And.
Pun.
Ish.
Ment.
Hear, hear! Somewhat gorey, but very psychologically disturbing! :nod:
This thread has had a lot of good suggestions; I would further recommend The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty (quite possibly the most unsettling thing I have ever read, ironically written by a devout Jesuit), 'Titus Andronicus' by William Shakespeare (yes, even the Bard can whip up some crazy plots!), almost anything by Chuck Palahniuk or H.P. Lovecraft, and Diary of a Drug Fiend by Aleister Crowley.

I almost forgot to mention Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs - a must read for the deep, dark, twisted, violent insanity literature fan. ;)

[Mag Master 21]

I still don't think anyone can match Ellis's insanity... The other recommendations I've seen mentioned don't even come close.

[DisPater]

Elfriede Jelinek - Die Klavierspielerin (The Piano Teacher)

[Bitterfly]

Oh yes, she's disturbing enough! I've read Lust, as well as another one by her, and her writing is often shocking stuff. I wonder whether she isn't a little bit disturbed, actually.

[Mariamosis]

Howard P. Lovecraft.

Although I have barely begun "The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories", I hear that it is pretty intense.