Disturbing Books

[Millane]

i have been reading a collection of Australian Short Stories and there was one that i think was really disturbed and went a bit over the top it is called Seeing - Susan Johnson and although it is probly not a book that the young people should read it is a story that people will love or hate... Basically it is just a girl that is at a beach noticing things about the people around her. she is with her boyfriend. anyway she sees a young girl about 8 running around naked and i can see this as shocking and still a bit off... then she is lieing down with her b/f and anyways i thought it went to far beyond a bit of shock and went into disgust...
has anyone read it? or have you read a book/story that you think went a bit far and was disturbing?

[Miranda]

The most disturbing book I've read is The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter. Its all the sick versions of classic fairytales (and its an A2 level set text) the subject matter wouldn't be at all suitable for this site though so if you want to know more read it. Mx

[durin's bane]

Once Upon a Potty. I've never SEEN ANYONE draw so much poo in my life. And show certain body parts...yuck. I'm scarred.

[Starr Polish]

A Clockwork Orange was disturbing. Very much so.

[Elf.Freak]

i found 'The Horse Whisperer' a bit too *discriptive* at one point **shudder**

[Millane]

Can't say ive actually been bothered to read any of those books and now that they fall into Seeing catagory dont think i want to..
ohhh god i cant get that crap outta my head

[Ellison]

Lord of the Flies is disturbing... talks all about man's inherent evil. Yuck.

[galadriel]

Well, I *like* the disturbing books I've read, so these are really recommendations

-Griffin and Sabine. This is a very cool book; it's a correspondance between two fictional characters. You get to read their actual postcards and letters. The letters are even in little envelopes, and the postcards are covered with artwork. The storyline is very interesting and definitely creepy as you get to the end.

-The Tale of the Body Thief. Really all Anne Rice books, but especially this one. Most of this book is actually pretty light compared to some of her other books, but there's this one character, Gretchen, who's a nut.

[Admiral Ackbar]

Starfish by Peter Watts was interesting, though it is a 'heavy' read and I do not reccommend it to anyone who is offended easily. Great book, and a wonderful departure from the norm, but I warn again, not for kids. Not even for preteens or sensitive teens/adults.

[galadriel]

Ooh, I remembered another one: for ultimate disturbingness, read Go Ask Alice. It's the actual diary of an anonymous teenage drug user. You will cry. I promise.

And, of course, there's always Grimm's Fairy Tales. One of my favorites, The Willful Child, is the story of a little kid who didn't do what her mother told her to. Because of this, she fell ill and died. However, even once she was buried, she wouldn't behave. She kept reaching out of the grave. Finally, her mother hit her dead daughter's hand with a stick, and the little girl rested.

[Aralyn]

Probably the most disturbing one I've read was about a lady who wants to get back at all the rapists in the past couple of years and the stuff she does to them Ugh. It was pretty bad.

[Coney]

Ooh, I remembered another one: for ultimate disturbingness, read Go Ask Alice. It's the actual diary of an anonymous teenage drug user. You will cry. I promise.

Yeah, I've read that. It was both horrifying and moving.

On a similar vein Trainspotting and Maribou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh......hell, practically anything by Irvine Welsh.

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks.

Naked Lunch by William S Burroughs.

A Brave New World by Aldus Huxley.

Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell.

If This is a Man by Primo Levi.

I found all of those pretty much disturbing for one reason or other......I'll post more when I remember 'em.

[galadriel]

I have a new one: "As I Lay Dying" by William Faulkner. Perhaps not so much disturbing as just plain weird. But that's stream-of-consciousness for you. "My mother is a fish", a single sentence to which an entire chapter is devoted, is my English class's new favorite quote.

[Starr Polish]

Originally posted by Coney
A Brave New World by Aldus Huxley.

I started reading this today. I'm halfway done, and I'm not sure if I want to keep reading.

[Celebriel]

I was recently disturbed by "Lord of the Flies". *Shudder* It makes you think.

You either love it or hate it, I loved it.



- Celebriel

[johnnyrod]

True, some of Iain Banks' stuff is pretty graphic. I agree about Trainspotting and A Clockwork Orange (there is an argument thread about this here somewhere, n'est ce pas Katya?), they're pretty strong stuff. I didn't see a big deal with Brave New World though. The whole outlook is so laced with anti-American cynicism that you can't take it that seriously.

[Coney]

Originally posted by johnnyrod
True, some of Iain Banks' stuff is pretty graphic. I agree about Trainspotting and A Clockwork Orange (there is an argument thread about this here somewhere, n'est ce pas Katya?), they're pretty strong stuff. I didn't see a big deal with Brave New World though. The whole outlook is so laced with anti-American cynicism that you can't take it that seriously.

I found Brave New World to be disturbing in the same vein that I found 1984 a little disturbing........Both Orwell and Huxley took ideas we see as preposterous and made them seem "normal".

[wahine]

Two reasons why I found these books disturbing; either for the idea's, or the aftermath.

On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life By Charles Darwin. Where Evolution was derived from.

Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

And finally Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants some muslim al-qaeda freak-job.

Says how to get forged documents, transportation, how-to kidnap and assassinate, a much much more kids. It was chaptered.

Ohh, I thought The Jungle by Upton Sinclair was hilarious!!

[galadriel]

Originally posted by wahine
Ohh, I thought The Jungle by Upton Sinclair was hilarious!!

Wasn't it, though? I love his anthropomorphic description of the pigs that were about to be slaughtered - how trusting they were, and how special and dignified, and how undeserving of their sudden fate, and how, "was one to believe that there was nowhere a god of hogs, to whom this hog-personality was precious, to whom those hog-squeals and agonies had a meaning? Who would take this hog into his arms and comfort him, reward him for his work well done, and show him the meaning of his sacrifice?"

[IronParrot]

Some of the titles already named - Lord of the Flies, Brave New World, 1984 are indeed disturbing if you look at how they portray human nature, in each respective "society" in those books. And I'd say that's key to the success of those novels as literary works - horrifying the reader into rethinking the pros and cons of where we stand today.

Mein Kampf of course can't go unnamed in a thread like this, simply because of how seriously it takes its view of the world (especially re: racial issues, Jews being the filth of the planet, etc.) I've only read extracts of it, so I can't comment on the entire work, but I'm not sure I should ever even bother with that trash.

There's also a big issue in Canada right now regarding whether or not booksellers should carry the book about Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka (who raped and killed two girls on videotape about ten years ago... major news item at the time).