Obscure reading suggestions

Alright! You all have been very helpful in the past, and I actually strayed away from here because I got so many good reading suggestions, and needless to say, they kept me busy for quite a while.
I don't know how to accurately describe what i'm looking for, but will give it a try.

I'm very interested in the lives of writers..especially those who were a bit offbeat, or suffered from mental illness..though something a bit more rich than "the bell jar".
I'm not a big fan of sci-fi, or horror..
but moreso books that are a bit more realistic or deal with depressing, love lost, pain, madness.

I'm a little bit more interested in things that are a bit older, more than recent authors.
I'm looking for the hidden treasures.

Hope this helps,
and I hope you may help me.

Gerard de Nerval- Selected Writings... especially Aurelia.

Thomas de Quincey- Confessions of an English Opium Eater

If you're interested in American Literature in the first half of the
twentieth century, you might want to take a look at F. Scott Fitzgerald. His novels are extremely evocative of the culture of the time (called "The Roaring Twenties") but if you read between the lines of his novels -- especially The Great Gatsby -- you will see a comprehensive look at the social structure of America. Some, if not all the themes that Fitzgerald brings up are quite acute at the present time, namely the disparity between the classes. This is a subject that intrigued and bothered Fitzgerald both artistically and emotionally. Setting aside the much-discussed relationship between Scott and his wife (evidently Zelda spent years in treatment for mental illness), and even ignoring the alcoholism which plagued them both, the reader will STILL see psychological conflict, not only among the members of various economic classes but also within Fitzgerald himself. Just as his male protagonists struggle with questions: am I good enough? do I measure up? do I have what it takes to be successful? -- so does Fitzgerald himself.

Exploring this topic -- Fitzgerald's life reflected in his fiction -- may prove interesting and exciting to you. His prose, while elegant and beautiful, is not at all inaccessible and the stories move along nicely. You won't be bored.

I see that you specifically asked for an "obscure" author, but if you read Fitzgerald, I believe you'll find out something that you've never known or thought about before.

Maupassant, Le Horlà, semi-autobiographical if my memory serves me, and definitely mad!!

I love Stephen Zweig's biographies. He did some of authors: Balzac, Erasmus, Nietzsche (mad), Verhaeren. Even if what he says about them is to be taken with a pinch of salt, his style is worth reading (and his own autobiography, The World of Yesterday, is really wonderful).

Funny, I didn't like The Bell jar either. It disappointed me very much.

Try The Third Policeman by Flann O' Brien. Thats obscure.

King Lear? :)

Sorry its just the "depressing, love lost, pain, madness" part.

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James Boswell's "Life of Samuel Johnson"?

Huysmans's Against the Grain is one that immediately comes to mind.

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Originally Posted by capek

Huysmans's Against the Grain is one that immediately comes to mind.

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Extremely weird. Just what I was about to post. :|

Blood and Guts in Highschool by Kathy Acker. Her Great Expectations is superb too. There's an old Picador paperback edition of Blood and Guts that contains them both, probably still available on Amazon, second-hand.

Summer Rain by Marguerite Duras.

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Originally Posted by Niamh

Try The Third Policeman by Flann O' Brien. Thats obscure.

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I am currently reading The Third Policeman, and although I dunno if it would intrigue Leo, I will echo Niamh by adding that this is one of the weirdest dystopian fictions I have ever laid eyes on.

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Originally Posted by Jozanny

I am currently reading The Third Policeman, and although I dunno if it would intrigue Leo, I will echo Niamh by adding that this is one of the weirdest dystopian fictions I have ever laid eyes on.

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It is by far one of the weirdest books i have ever read.

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Originally Posted by AuntShecky

If you're interested in American Literature in the first half of the
twentieth century, you might want to take a look at F. Scott Fitzgerald. His novels are extremely evocative of the culture of the time (called "The Roaring Twenties") but if you read between the lines of his novels -- especially The Great Gatsby -- you will see a comprehensive look at the social structure of America

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That's exactly what I was going to suggest. It was different from any other book I've read.
If you like the despair/madness/lost love, go for Tennessee Williams' plays. People don't really read plays- they only bother to read them if they happen to be doing the production- but they're very rich in those kind of emotions.

If you want an interesting writer, read Long Day's Journey into Night. It's autobiographical, and there are only 4 characters- the father and two sons are alcoholics and the mother is a morphine addict. It's amazing.

If you want madness, read some Charles Bukowski. Ham On Rye and Factotum are both intensely disturbing.

I'd recommend Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami.
The plot's got my head twisted on some bits but it will definitely keep you up at night.
:)

Yes, Nikolai Gogol, with his weird stories.

I love a lot of these suggestions.. I am a huge Bukowski fan, and The Great Gatsby is one amazing book.
I am very interested in reading nerval

id recommend avarice house by julian green. and venus in furs . and oroonoko by aphra behn.:crash::)

I feel like I'm barging into someone else's territory.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald's This side of paradise, the one trait he did capture the best was the gossamer kingdom of "upper class". Vocab word (2 points).

For my own suggest, I think it unorthadox, but Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson.
Innocent philosophy alongside things we all want to know, great moments of child mentality and absurdity, and good humor (caution: though it can get a little crude and basic).

Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo
Next Episode by Hubert Aquin
Men in the Sun by Kanafani
Petersburg Tales by Gogol
Justine by de Sade
The Songs of Maldoror by Lautreamont
Cruel Tales by Villiers de l'Isle-Adam
Short Stories by Poe
The Temptation of Saint-Anthony by Flaubert

Are you looking for poetry as well?

I'm reading something that somewhat matches a bit of what you seem to be looking for ...

Escritores e Espiões ("Writers and Spies"), by a Spanish guy, Fernando Martinez Lainez.

It brings little biographies of many writers who were spies ... (Don't have it right here now, I'm reading it at work, so it's there.) (&, Anyway, you'll probably finish before me, if I ever make it, for I'm as well in the middle of other five or six books, so ...)

I don't know if there's translation to English already. There's a Brasilian edition, in Portuguese. I don't dare reading Spanish. (Long story.)


librarius
:crash:

I read a part about Marlowe, and am in the end of another about John LeCarré ... (I didn' know J. LC. to have been a real spy! ...) And there was another writer, in the middle, a Spanish-Italian one, that I didn't know, but whose biography was the most interesting, up till now. I'm curious about the biographical essay on Miguel Cervantes Saavedra, and there's at least one more whom I know, in the list of seven or eight writers ...

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino

Excellent suggestions:

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Originally Posted by toni

I'd recommend Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami.
The plot's got my head twisted on some bits but it will definitely keep you up at night.
:)

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Originally Posted by blp

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino

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Originally Posted by blp

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino

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Liked the part I did read but I couldn't read the whole thing

Antonin Artaud! I'd forgotten about him but he was completely crazy. I've only read The theatre and its double, and his translation into French of Lewis's The Monk, but both were wonderful.

Poetry as well. Yes, Antonin Artaud is just the type of person i'm looking for.

You may wish to try Sinclair Ross's As for Me and My House. I don't know how readily available it is outside of Canada, but the Novel is easily available here. Though not dealing with the life of a mad writer, it deals strangely with the life of a prairie wife, and her husband, in the great depression, and their struggles as artists with themselves, the world around them, and the people around them.

Also, Canadian literature in general seems to be about struggling artists up to until 1980 or so, when it really goes in an opposite direction. you may wish, if you can get a hold of it in the library, to look into that thematic chapter in Atwood's criticism on Canadian literature, Survival, which describes the struggling artist, and survival as the two central points in Canadian literature.

That being said, this is just for more obscure examples. The above are more general, and far more international, as the struggles in those books for the most part are rooted in the artists themselves, rather than the artist in relation to the landscape.

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Originally Posted by librarius_qui

I read a part about Marlowe, and am in the end of another about John LeCarré ... (I didn' know J. LC. to have been a real spy! ...) And there was another writer, in the middle, a Spanish-Italian one, that I didn't know, but whose biography was the most interesting, up till now. I'm curious about the biographical essay on Miguel Cervantes Saavedra, and there's at least one more whom I know, in the list of seven or eight writers ...

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I also wasn`t aware that that JLC was a spy, although he did spend some time in West Germany working for the British government at our embassy in Bonn during the Cold War. But perhaps the book you have mentioned has W.S.Maugham as one of its subjects. During World War 1 he was a secret agent spying for Britain in Switzerland; which being neutral was a hotbed of enemy agents from all countries engaged in the conflict. His semi-autobiographical novel Ashenden is vividly realistic and probably the best book ever written on the subject of espionage.

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Originally Posted by insidiousmonk

If you want madness, read some Charles Bukowski. Ham On Rye and Factotum are both intensely disturbing.

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Drop Bukowski, Burroughs captures real madness i think. Naked Lunch is a ride you wont soon forget.