Disturbing books.

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.

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.

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

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Originally Posted by blackbird_9

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

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

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?

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Originally Posted by Zelly

To be honest... Peter Pan.

I liked it, but it was so strange.

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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.

Kafka on the Shore Haruki Murakami

A close second would be

If on a Winter's Night a Traveller Italo Calvino

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.

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

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Originally Posted by 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.

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I'm about to start Shutter Island.

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Originally Posted by 1967Impala

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

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

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Originally Posted by Anastasija

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.

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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-Poe...9550462&sr=8-1

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.

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

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.