Novels that alter your mental state

There are plenty of works that incorporate the psychological aspect of human behavior as a dominant theme, but what I'm wondering is have any of you read something that made you question you sanity? A work that after you put it down you seem to develop a tormenting fear of your own thoughts. I don't think I'm throughly insane, however after reading The Blind Owl by Hedayat I am questioning things a bit more. So like I said I'm curious to see if any of you guys know what I'm talking about and if so what book evoked those thoughts and what aspect of the book influenced this sort of thinking?

After reading "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman I seriously had to question patriarchal notions of the female role- particularly those of wife and mother. As a mother, it actually made me question my attitude to maternal "instinct".

Crime and Punishment was excellent but really bothered me, because I have a similar "if I can think it I can do it" outlook on life... and while I would never do something like Raskolnikov it did make me question what I was capable of at the time.

I know that killing oneself is forbidden in religions, but after reading Lord Jim I didn't understand why he should have thrown himself into the sea and die with the people who were onboard the ship.

Novels do not influence my thinking. I love to read the classics, but they do not influence my life decisions.

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Originally Posted by Katy North

Crime and Punishment was excellent but really bothered me, because I have a similar "if I can think it I can do it" outlook on life... and while I would never do something like Raskolnikov it did make me question what I was capable of at the time.

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I felt the same when I read it. I couldn't put it down because I felt that I owed it total devotion.

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Originally Posted by NisreenS

I know that killing oneself is forbidden in religions, but after reading Lord Jim I didn't understand why he should have thrown himself into the sea and die with the people who were onboard the ship.

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Because Conrad wrote it.

"American Psycho" by Bret Easton Ellis. I loved it, however I must not praise it anymore in order to punish it for turning me the way I am. (see signature)

I can totally why The Yellow Wallpaper would make you feel that, her frantic narrative style really does make start thinking in a frantic way and I loved Crime and Punishment, it's my favorite piece of literature, it had a very similar effect on me as well.

Anything by Dostoyevsky. I've said it before and I'll say it again, he really knows how to get into the mind of a reader. Whilst reading Crime and Punishment, I began having dreams that I was Raskilnikov and that I was killing a pawnbroker :eek:

I might say Naked Lunch by William Burroughs. I felt revolted by it the first time I read it. And angry. Later on I found I had to go back to it and realised how good the writing was and how funny it was at times. But it was the follow-up, The Soft Machine, that really made me feel nuts because that was where Burroughs started using the cut-up technique.

I know it is a biography and not a novel per se, but Into the Wild rocked me at my core.

Existential literature is always very though provoking I find. Dostoesvky first and foremost, then Nausea by Sartre and The Stranger by Camus.

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Originally Posted by Katy North

Crime and Punishment was excellent but really bothered me, because I have a similar "if I can think it I can do it" outlook on life... and while I would never do something like Raskolnikov it did make me question what I was capable of at the time.

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^ What I was going to say. Only Dostoyevsky comes to my mind.

Anything by Borges.

I agree: anything by Dostoyevsky (especially Notes from the Underground).
And Proust as well.

Best regards

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Originally Posted by wokeem

Existential literature is always very though provoking I find. Dostoesvky first and foremost, then Nausea by Sartre and The Stranger by Camus.

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I totally agree with The Stranger and Crime. They were amazing!

The brothers Karamazov is one of the books that inspired me beyond doubts and this book comes up with a new philosophy. Of course there are other great novels, and war and peace is such a book I bet can transform a person. But I have never completed it though I have made a few attempts. Another book I wanted to read, maybe that would have changed me is Ulysses but I find this too backbreaking and as such I could never had the patience to complete the book. Tolstoy' s Resurrection has indeed changed me a bit. But no writers' book changed my mental state the way Dostoevsky did. Of course it is the philosophy of the book that would change us and all novels have no philosophy. Dostoevsky is mindboggling and after every reading I find myself transformed or he would mold my mindset immediately.

It was 1983 when I read Pirandello's One, No one and One Hundred Thousand and I have not recovered yet; Ballard's novels work on a different ground but they produce a similar long-term effect on your mental state, then I agree with everything you have written about the power of Dostoevsky. As for recent books I'd like to mention Coetzee's Disgrace - my nickname here is David Lurie for a reason - and McEwan's Amsterdam.

The book that really got me almost insane telling myself i wasnt insane was "A Beautiful Mind" by Sylvia Nasar. Its a biography of the famous mathematician John Nash who suffered from schizophrenia. I read the book a long time ago but I still fear to pick it up again.

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Originally Posted by JulieH

Anything by Borges.

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Borges, particularly in "The Library of Babel" led me to question the notion of what makes a text coherent and what doesn't. His description of men sitting in dark corners of the library throwing dice in order to imitate "the gods" and determine the order of the letters instead of simply writing themselves had a particularly powerful irony for me.

Shakespeare, in almost every work, continuously undermines almost every social relationship available to him. He questions the nature of government, the relationship between master and servant, parent and child, two friends, and lovers, without providing any sort of definitive answer regarding anything.

I forgot about Pirandello's 1, 0 and 100.000, but to me indeed the book was disturbing. Same with Dostojevski's several novels.
Also striking to me at the time of reading: Ellis' Glamorama.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

I love to see the mention of Dostoevsky so much in this thread. Crime & Punishment was definitely a book that made me question my own psychological health. I found it scary how seemingly logical Raskolnikov makes his actions.

Another book which made me question myself was Iris Murdoch's Under the Net. I felt too many similarities with the novel's protagonist, Jake, in that I rationalise everything and attempt to apply theory almost everywhere.

Naked Lunch made me pretty sick when I read it, although I was only 15 at the time. I need to give it another read now that I'm older, to fully appreciate or denounce Burrough's writing style.

Sometimes the works of Shakespeare, but even moreso the book Cosmos by Witold Gombrowicz was the only novel that I read that had a very noticeable effect on my thought-process... also Gombrowicz's Pornografia to a lesser extent.
I think also if you read a first person narrative many many times and isolate yourself with it, it should have that effect.

In Amelie Nothomb's "Metaphysique des tubes" there was one storyline how during the war lots of people jumped off the rock (made a mass suicide) in the fear of death. This paradox really crashed my brain for a while.

Once I have put the book away 'cause I just couldn't read any more. It was a novel by one Estonian author, where the guy acted really violently and sick with his girlfriend.

When younger I used to read a lot of freaky books, but got some overdose or smth. Now I'm trying to avoid violent and psychologically too disturbing texts.

Female characters with strong presences and dark disturbances always make me feel erratic and self-sabotaging. Anna Karenina, or--another cheer for Dostoevsky--Nastasya Filippovna from The Idiot are the strongest who come to mind. Emma Bovary also left me in a grave shaken fear of my faults for weeks after reading Madame Bovary. I'm reading Sally Cline's biography of Zelda Fitzgerald and I also find it a shaking experience.

Conversely with The Idiot though, Prince Myshkin has a tendency to make me feel like I am stepping into a cool, calm, gentle pool. The antidote to Nastasya! (Although she proves to alter his mental state as well in the end!)

After seeing The Nun's Story with Audrey Hepburn, I experienced such a fantastic alter to my mental state that I purchased the (now out-of-print) novel by Kathryn Hulme--I'm going to start reading it this weekend and am hoping it has the same consuming effect. After Zelda Fitzgerald, I could stand to slip into the mental hold of someone more self-contained! whew

Probably the book that influenced me the most- since it was the first i read in highschool without having to do it for school- was a collection of H.P.Lovecraft's stories.
What impressed me was that i felt fear. I never thought that a string of words could cause such an emotion on me. Instantly, that same night, i decided i wanted to be a writer, and wrote my first story, in 3 hours :)
I still remember the plot of that story too, perhaps i will re-write it now, more than 13 years later...

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Originally Posted by ThousandthIsle

Female characters with strong presences and dark disturbances always make me feel erratic and self-sabotaging. Anna Karenina, or--another cheer for Dostoevsky--Nastasya Filippovna from The Idiot are the strongest who come to mind. Emma Bovary also left me in a grave shaken fear of my faults for weeks after reading Madame Bovary. I'm reading Sally Cline's biography of Zelda Fitzgerald and I also find it a shaking experience.

Conversely with The Idiot though, Prince Myshkin has a tendency to make me feel like I am stepping into a cool, calm, gentle pool. The antidote to Nastasya! (Although she proves to alter his mental state as well in the end!)

After seeing The Nun's Story with Audrey Hepburn, I experienced such a fantastic alter to my mental state that I purchased the (now out-of-print) novel by Kathryn Hulme--I'm going to start reading it this weekend and am hoping it has the same consuming effect. After Zelda Fitzgerald, I could stand to slip into the mental hold of someone more self-contained! whew

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I'm a fan of those types of female characters myself. I don't know if you've read the Yellow Wall Paper but I think you might like it.

Sartre's Nausea- now that is a truly terrifying novel and the best description of a breakdown I know. In essence he is describing an altered or mystical state of consciousness from the perspective of a deeply depressed man- the mystical experience gone wrong.