/lit/ - Literature

It took me a while to get a copy of this, no bookstores seem to stock it and I initially thought it was due to the provocative title (albeit, it wouldn't have been seen as provocative at its time of publishing). I began to read it and I just felt very uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong, it's beautifully written and I don't necessarily think it's a racist book, but some of the depictions of black people would certainly cause controversy if this was published today. Good collection of short stories but should be understandable why it would make someone uncomfortable. Wouldn't read it in public/10.

I tried to sit on a copy of war and peace and it wasnt comfortable

Memes aside, it's a genuinely disturbing book. It's not just the direct violence either, but the ambiguity regarding the Judge, his origins and the devastation he especially leaves behind.

>>9363405
Probably Hogg but even then it has its profane artistic qualities.

the bit with the kitten in Mishima's The Sailor who Fell From Grace with the Sea

Hubert Selby Jr and William Burroughs always make me uncomfortable, their books feel so grimey and grubby. Great works but what they strive for isnt ever pretty obv.

Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier, although it won't have the same impact on other people reading it, unless if your grandfather was a coal miner in working class England or if you grew up in a town that still suffers from Thatcher's shutting of the coal mines.

>>9363405

Book of Disquiet and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock tbqh, because they hit close enough to home.

its like because i got a boner when i read it whenever so if i read it on the bus people would point out my dick because im sorry how about fuck you why dont you try reading this without gettin harder than diamond hah no didnt think it was possible huh fuckface

>>9363420
I know this feel.

>>9363405

Malte Laurids Brigge by Rilke

>>9363434
How so for Prufrock?

I dislike much of holocaust fiction for the poronographic, unsubtle way it tends to represent the atrocities. Although there's a discussion to be had there

>>9363410
T. Super pleb

You shouldn't care if someone has negative opinions on you for reading a fucking book

>>9363415
The dancing bear and it's child trainer fucked me up very badly.

>>9363749
I meant *its

Reading it I get that feeling that I imagine religious people get when they read the Bible and it kind of defeats the purpose of reading Nietzsche

>>9363415
Purchasing the puppies just to drown them was fucking cold. Also the implication that the judge raped and murdered the kid in the end just haunts me.

>>9363420
Why, what happens? I thought mishima was chill

>>9363736
Althoug true in most cases, i wish anyone the best of luck reading this in a public place

>come into this thread
>expect to see mindfuck books and extreme horror books
>everyone is uncomfortable reading these relatively calm books

Are you all just ultra sensitive babies or something like what the fuck?

The Conspiracy Against The Human Race has been the only thing i've ever read that legitimately made me uncomfortable

i have lots of worse-than/d/ tier fetishes so extreme content doesn't really get to me

>>9364890
Different things affect different people anon.

Sort of related, I had what I guess you would call a paranoid breakdown a couple years ago.
I am reading Gravity's Rainbow now, and was prepared to stop if I got uncomfortable, but I think it's actually made me feel better about some situations I was getting paranoid about.
Kinda weird.

>>9363442
Moldbug was better
T. Christian

The bisexual threesome in Glamorama made me uncomfortable. Combination of repressing some bicurious tendencies makes all gay shit uncomfortable for me and that he's just not a great writer, so the whole scene was just weird.
>dude, turn over and let me see that pink butthole.
^more or less an exact quote

>>9366102
I haven't read glamorama, but I generally like the way Ellis handles gay shit. It's just there, with no ceremony, and not in the way other things have casual gay shit in them and it's like the nonchalance is there to be praised as progress.
Just feels genuine.

>>9363736
>almost the year of our lord 2018
>not trying to avoid being yelled at by tumblrinas in public
>can't just wait to read
>reading Conrad

>>9363415
No it's not. It's so over the top it's like that Scrotie McBoogerballs book in South Park.

>>9363415
Just read the first 3 chapters today.
I'm hoping it's as violent as they say, if I could slug through the border trilogy, I can get around this way more easily

>>9363604
>Although there's a discussion to be had there
About what?

>>9363793
I always thought that is funny how he tries so hard to disprove the existence of God and dedicated many years of his life writing about being an atheist

>>9366102
>Not letting your bi tendencies play out

It's great when you let yourself go and enjoy both in their unique way

>>9363604
Gass?

Reading Crime and Punishment for the first time tore me apart...

>>9366222
source pls before delete

>>9366259
I kinda wish I had, but if I did I would rip my dick off by masturbating like a madman

>>9366275

>>9366297
whooooo the fuck is this

>>9366338
Kalindra Chan

>>9366075
Might be because Pynchon treats paranoia as something everyone does, on at least some level, at some severity or another, directed towards some pattern of meanings or other. One of my favourite lines from GR went something like: "If there's something comforting about paranoia -- religious, if you want -- then there's also anti-paranoia; where nothing seems connected to anything, a condition no one can bear for long."

One of Pynchon's main thematic allegories is that everyone practices paranoia to some degree. The scientist finds meanings and patterns in existence. So does the politician. So does the student, so does the teacher. As well as the philosopher. The artist does especially (see: Oedipa Maas). If you didn't practice at least some degree of paranoia, or pattern finding, then you'd be a total nihilist, in the meaninglessness of which, you wouldn't be able to sustain yourself. You'd scatter. Break down. Just like Slothrop did when he became figuratively scattered across the Zone.

>>9364890
You don't need extreme shock value to make a reader uncomfortable. In fact, when I read a book relying solely on shock value, I find it a bit juvenile.

Lolita will make you uncomfortable, either because of the empathy and rationalisation expressed regarding paedophiles - gradually convincing the reader to also be empathetic towards the protagonist - or because you got a boner while reading it.

>>9364925
what are these fetishes, anon

haha dude i wont judge

>>9363415
reddit: the book

>>9366189
> it's so over the top

I don't think you've read the book. The violence is an accurate portrayal of the conflicts during the time period it is set, anon.

>>9366202
The pacing of Blood Meridian trips up a lot of people, but as long as you're aware it's not just pages after pages of violence then you'll probably enjoy it.

Pretty good Holocaust novel, but I found it horribly uncomfortable to read. The entire story is told backward, so literally every description is in reverse. People gag a half-digested bolus up from their guts and then lick it into the shape of a chunk of food and put it on their plates. Then after the meal, they put the food in the oven, and then in the fridge, as raw ingredients. To drink wine, you regurgitate it into a glass and then put it back in the bottle. Letters arrive spontaneously out of the fire, and after they are read, they're sealed into an envelope and put in the mailbox for the mailman to take away.

It gets dizzying. I started having trouble adjusting to normal-time reality after reading this book for hours.

My diary desu

>>9367267
Shut up bitch r*ddit would probably hate it

>>9367322
That sounds fascinating.

>>9366222
>>9366297
Mentally ill faggot.

Reading Maus after watching Shoah let me see The Holocaust in details that weren't taught to us in school.

>>9366213
HE NEVER DID ANY OF THIS KILL YOURSELF

>>9367428
Don't forget If This Is a Man by Primo Levi

Anything by Joyce Carol Oates or Margret Atwood.
Even when Oates is being a bitchy old white woman she's creepy as all fuck.

>>9367428
Shoah should be mandatory viewing for history classes in schools but that film gets too real that I don't think students would manage.

>>9364925
Worse than /d/ tier... so.. furry?

>>9367267
Didn't Read It: The Post

>>9367267

Try harder

>>9367647
no, i'm mostly talking about death related stuff (snuff, erotic cannibalism, deadly erotic asphyxiation, and so on and so forth)

>>9367516
I've not read it, my man. How is it?

Cormac McCarthy's Outer Dark (how the woman who searches for her inbred baby is left in desperation and what happens to said baby nearly made me cry)

Arthur Miller's The Crucible (the fate of Giles Corey)

Ryu Murakami's In the Miso Soup (when the ear is cut off and shoved into a vagina made me wince)

Miles Davis pawning off his friends clothes for cash so he could have another hit of heroin in his autobiography.

Popular television series aside, The King in Yellow really is spooky, weird and cerebral.

The highly detailed description of the nose job in V. stayed with me for a while.

>>9367530
Mysteries of Winterthurn is pretty good though

>>9368324
>Miles Davis pawning off his friends clothes for cash so he could have another hit of heroin in his autobiography.
insane book. it's been awhile since I've read it, but I remember there being a part where he dropped all the "motherfucking this, motherfucking that" and just had a short reflection on all the friends and fellow musicians that were lost to drugs over the years. fucked me up especially from seeing a lot of heroin abuse firsthand.

Peter Sotos reminded me that there are still things that can make me uncomfortable even after spending years on 4chan.

>>9367530
>Joyce Carol Oates
any recommendations in particular? always wanted to give her a look but there's too much.

>>9368366
>>9368353

>>9368374
yeah just saw that. thanks

>>9364734
Go read it and find out. It's a pretty short book but it's very powerful. It reminds me of some of those French modernist short films where the story doesn't matter so much as it is a canvas for a few powerful and memorable moments to be painted by Mishima.

>>9366213
Not once did Nietzsche claim to be an atheist.

>>9367322
>Read Martin Amis' first book "The Rachel Papers"
>Was uncomfortable with all the boners it gave me

I'm not going to make it

>>9368432
Seriously, while reading it I kept thinking, "where have you been all my life," in regards to Mishima's writing style.

>>9367322

The most disturbing part of that novel is when he calls his first wife a "chimpanzee" as a term of affection.

>>9366493
Good post

>>9368324
>In the Miso Soup

I noticed it at the library when I was picking up something by a different Murakami. Your description intrigues me. I think I'll go check this one out.

>>9368687
>>9366493
>>9366075
I never read anything by Pynchon and this made me even more eager to begin, I did watch Inherent Vice though, where do I start senpaitachi?

>>9369064
Start with The Crying of Lot 49

It's the best intro to Pynchon

>>9368351
Yeah, I agree with you.

>>9369098
Thank you, this is a stupid question easily answered by reading Pynchon but what is it about him that makes people hold him in such high esteem? It's rare to see anyone criticize him even on /lit/

>>9367267
Anon: the faggot

>>9364734
I gather you have never read Mishima? Regarding that the ending of The Golden Pavillion gave a mix of feeling, while feeling like the actions pertretrated by the character were a moment of literary genius, it striked me how real his train of thought (and I don't mean the actual burning of the temple in real life, but the way an obssesion with something we regard as pure can twist a man).

>There are some truly sublime passages so far
>40 pages in
>not a masterpiece
So, you're retarded?

>>9368324
>Arthur Miller's The Crucible
I want to read that but heard some editions make weird editing choices. Am I being fucked with or is there a certain copy I should look for?

>>9367428
>>9367516
>>9367583
>le holokek was real

when will this meme end

>>9363405
Sartres' Nausea made feel hopeless. Filled me with the kinda despair you only feel at a crossroads in your life or with some massive failure of self, like dropping out of college.

>>9369165
Got 'em

>>9367428
Maus was great; throughout elementary, high school and some uni we went into detail about the holocaust, so I thought I knew all there was to know.

A few months after reading it I got to visit Auschwitz; nothing could have prepared me for that experience. Touring the chambers, and where they sleep was crippling. But what scared me the most were the other tourist, literally people laughing, smiling, taking photos of everything, letting their kids run around to jump and swing from things. It was that day I became a hardened misanthrope.

>>9364890
Mindfuckery and extreme horror are moving tactics to surprise the plebiscite. True scare and disturbance is in daily and simple things.

>>9364734
>I thought mishima was chill
If Mishima had been born today in the United States, there's a 100% chance that he would have been a school shooter.

>>9363736
This isn't just unrealistic, it's fucking delusional.

"Just bee yourself" morals are fucking cancer. The people who make it in life are the ones who pay attention to how they come across to others. And following the standards of society at large limits moral degeneracy. It's a slippery slope from "I don't care what anybody thinks about me!" to "I'm a trans-black Microsoft-Word-gendered gay cucumber with six 3-inch imaginary penises and a vagina for a mouth!"

>>9369609
Society as a whole is degenerating and advancing these causes.

Being moral and socially conservative today is being opposed to the current society.

>>9363736
Let's be honest here, people are more willing to get offended by the slightest thing and will openly vocalize their displeasure. Anything with a modicum of racism/sexism/whatsayyouism will provoke mongs to last out.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsj7YPnPLDo

>>9363405
Ulysses. The cuck shit was too distracting and the ending which suggested that Molly was pregnant was too much for me

>>9369609
>people who make it in life
this is the point at which your comment became worthless
or maybe it happened when you used the term "fucking cancer"

>>9369227
>tries to call someone retarded while posting in the wrong thread
oh. oh no

>>9369227
Who are you even talking to

>>9369293
I honestly just picked up the Penguin modern classics edition. It felt very cohesive, that one should be OK

>>9364890
Discomfort is at its most effective when it is relatable to an everyday routine. Discomfort isn't just edgy kid shit,faggot.

>>9363415
Agreed. Honestly not sure why people on /lit/ hate this book so much, i personally loved it

>>9368280
It's the most scientific description of life in a concentration camp you will find, straight from the survivor's pen.

It also has a "sequel", The Truce, much more adventurous, telling his journey back home.

>>9369861
Ok.

>>9369064
Crying of Lot 49
V.
Mason & Dixon
Gravity's Rainbow

Then the rest, if you feel like it

>>9369504
If your experience is true then that's rather shocking, but kids are usually stupid and they don't tend to know any better, I know I wouldn't have at that age. But yeah, Maus was a shock to the system: I wasn't aware of the grittier details regarding it and I suppose that highlights an almost censorship of the darker details the Holocaust has. I can understand why but I feel like people should realise the details of what the survivors - and those who didn't survive - went through. I remember the initial shock of my parents when I told them what was in that book - in school you here about the breaking of families; the gas chambers; the starvation and forced labour. You don't tend to hear about living in excrement, clambouring over corpses to reach a toilet or that some jews were held in a higher regard than others if they could offer services outside of forced labour (barbers, cobblers, teachers, etc). It makes sense in hindsight but in school I never would have realised that a clean pair of shoes and a scrap of bread could be a form of currency.

>>9369675
how does "gee, bobo" not sound like "jiggaboo" holy shit

like, that's funny but someone should've done a second reading of the script before it was filmed

>>9370841
Thanks anon, I'll have to find a copy

>>9366493
I believe the term you are edgily avoiding is "Faith."

>>9363420
this because i remember the group of kids at school like that, was always terrified they would shoot it up one day

>>9369322
> not feeling totally righteous after reading Nausea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=904b9ahpGow

>>9368338
Been meaning to read this for a while.

>>9368324
> Miles Davis

wish more people read his book here. He has so many fascinating stories to tell, and he makes it sound like recording a full band in a studio is the most fun ever. Plus, he's full of wisdom he's earned from experiencing and doing dumb shit throughout life. He also has a great way of using the word motherfucker.

>>9369124

He could be have been the next Faulkner and he chooses to write highbrow Loony Tunes cartoons.

There's really no one else like him. Never has a writer seemed so simultaneously stupid and enlightened in all of literature.

>>9363405
I Have No Mouth and I must Scream

>>9371962
Hey man, even the enlightened intellectual needs to laugh sometimes. I think we all laugh at our own jokes from time to time.

>>9372014
I know, but he gambled his career on a very erudite sense of humor, which I respect massively. He's probably a really cool guy in real life

>>9366181
This and Notes from Underground go hand in hand imo as a great duo of discomfort

I remember reading an essay from a book compiling essays - it focused on post war japanese cinema - and it was written by the original author of the Barefoot Gen manga. He had stated that after surviving the bombing of Hiroshima, the Japanese citizens of other cities and districts built up an intolerance, a discrimination against people who suffered through the bombings, coming up with their own slurs and stereotypes to use against people who had suffered. That made me feel pretty sick to read how quickly some people can turn against their own kind really. Japan's kind of messed up.

>>9371988
For such a short story, Harlan Ellison managed to create some genuine misanthropy.

I love the short story but the video game felt more fulfilling and substantial.

>>9371962
>>9372014
>>9372050
It's the exact reason why I keep coming back to Pynchon. I'll be challenged and frustrated, but y'know, it's probably going to be the most transcendental dick joke I've ever read.

>>9372446
what book is this kind anon

>>9372507

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Atomic-Bomb-Japanese-Cinema-Critical/dp/0786479124/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492021613&sr=8-1&keywords=the+atomic+bomb+in+japanese+cinema

It might be out of print to be honest. I had to pick it up for my dissertation and I found it fascinating and useful. Essays range from Kurosawa's perspective on war shown in his film I Live In Fear, Godzilla essays galore, mostly discussing that it's a visual representation of the devastation of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, essays about Shohei Imamura's Black Rain, i think there's some essays about America's occupation in Japan, etc. Pretty useful if you're interested in cinema history or modern Japanese history.

I don't use it much now as my dissertation was submitted last year but I sometimes pick it up after watching one of the films the essays discuss and read through it. Film dork, btw.

>>9363405
The Gulag Archipelago

>>9372530
I need to pick that up sometime.

>>9363420
This, but also the moments where the little kid watches his mom get fucked through a hole in the wall. That's uncomfortable stuff right there, yet it's quite believable as kids that age are curious and you just know some kids lacking in empathy and understanding would get somewhat "excited" by a family member having sex. Mishima really manages to uncover something uncomfortable with most of his works and it shows he really understands the human condition.

>>9363405
>Please share books that made you uncomfortable.