/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.12650630]

What book makes you feel uneasy? Or paranoid? Or makes you have anxiety? Or makes makes you feel dread?

[Anonymous No.12650634]

>>12650630
Culture of Critique

[Anonymous No.12650646]

my diary desu

[Anonymous No.12650691]

>>12650634
Based
>>12650646
Cringe

[Anonymous No.12650703]

>>12650691
tiddies

[Anonymous No.12651318]

[Anonymous No.12651503]

Anything with overbearing judgmental perfectionist characters.

[Anonymous No.12651518]

>>12650630
I always feel paranoid, as if someone who strongly dislikes me is waiting in ambush for me to screw up in public, and call me out, and put me on display to the world as an evil being. I've always been kind of paranoid, but I think the nature of social networking combined with the growing culture of "call outs" (#MeToo, etc) has made my issue infinitely worse.

[Anonymous No.12651527]

Pic related is pretty much Dread: the Novel

[Anonymous No.12651554]

>>12651518
Thanks for sharing

[Anonymous No.12651569]

>>12651554
You're welcome. Also, as an actual answer to the OP question, Thomas Pynchon's works generally carry with them a deep paranoia. The Crying of Lot 49, his shortest novel, definitely has an air of being watched.

[Anonymous No.12651629]

>>12651569
I have read that one but thank you. I'm looking more for books that feel like something bad is going to happen to you or something is pursuing you. Like the woman the main character sees out the window in The Yellow Wallpaper. Just crawling around outside the house. Or in House of Leaves where it talks about how some sort of bad thing is coming for
the person reading the words on the page at that moment. Or HP Lovecraft where the man steals a necklace or something and then some other worldly hound comes after him. In one of Ligotti's short stories a man and his wife talk about how they live next to a prison/psych ward and they really foreshadow that some bad shit is going to go down by the end of the short story. It really sets off my anxiety and makes reading more exciting

[Anonymous No.12652206]

>>12651629
>I'm looking more for books that feel like something bad is going to happen to you or something is pursuing you

Cormac McCarthy

[Anonymous No.12652214]

>>12650630
The question of if I have free will

[Anonymous No.12652227]

anything by hegel

[Anonymous No.12652235]

Keats' poem "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" makes me genuinely unsettled, in a way no other poem has.

[Anonymous No.12652253]

[Anonymous No.12652335]

Only got it for real with this one story posted on the web once. At one point, the main characters little brother was being threatened with blackmail by a pedophile crazy cat lady and I could hear wooshing noises as my heart was beating in full adrenaline rush. As amateurish as the writing overall was, it really hammered home anxiety and desperation with vicious force.

Otherwise, actual horror stories don't affect me at all except possibly make me gag a little if there's gagging-based body horror of some sort.

[Anonymous No.12652400]

>>12650630

[Anonymous No.12653621]

Thanks for suggestions

[Anonymous No.12653633]

No meme, House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

[Anonymous No.12653670]

>>12650630
Absolutely anything by Pinter, man was ahead of his time

[Anonymous No.12653704]

Amphetamine, meth or paste phet doesn't matter they make me feel exactly like that on the "rush" which is always unpleasant
I can't enjoy that crap properly, but fuck doesn't it make me half productive like if I can focus before I pund my day away

Comedowns feel nice mind, this sums it up better than I ever could can't love this song enough
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2x-zdAaogc

[Anonymous No.12653782]

>>12653704
?

[Anonymous No.12653820]

>>12653782
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GMZGdyzGWo

[Anonymous No.12653823]

>>12653820
Sounds like gay edgy bullshit

[Anonymous No.12653860]

>>12651527
At first I laughed, but the more I think about it, the more I agree with (you)

[Anonymous No.12653870]

Thomas Harris' descriptions of Mason Verger were the worst things I'd heard of prior to pizz4g4t3, really a tremendous author, a real naturist at describing serial killers like the same as colors and patterning of a feather

[Anonymous No.12653872]

>>12650630
The Third Policeman

[Anonymous No.12653887]

>>12653823
You have no sense of humour, why are you here?
I will never understand the autism that must have brought you here but you should leave
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01NTSHHSWnk

This website exists for patricians and men of pure taste, you dog breath shit head fucker fuck off or I will kick your cunt in

[Anonymous No.12653894]

>>12653887
>on /lit/
>posts gay BDSM club music
Hmm

[Anonymous No.12653914]

>>12653894
And? How else am I supposed to clear out this high level faggotry if I can't physically force you to piss in your own mouth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lty5dzlqpI
I improvise, I'm dynamic, You need to learn how to fuck off from a pro dynomo-faggot befoare you start sucking on superglue tubes

[Anonymous No.12654070]

[Anonymous No.12654439]

Authority, the sequel to Annihilation.

Not entirely sure why, but something about having to deal with the banality of shadowy government organizations built around a bubble of magical science bullshit was giving me anxiety pains in my sides until I had to stop. I want to finish it just so I can have the satisfaction of completing it, but knowing the author I doubt I'll get an answer to anything.

[Anonymous No.12654472]

>>12650630
I felt intense nausea reading Les Chants de Maldoror on several occasions during my second reading (in French, unlike the first, which was in translation) of it

[Anonymous No.12654479]

>>12654439
>a team of 4 women scientists work together

I'm not into magical sci-fi

[Anonymous No.12654576]

Some Robert Aickman stories. 'The Same Dog' in particular comes to mind.

[Anonymous No.12654589]

>>12654472
Based Maldoror poster.

[Anonymous No.12654637]

>>12654576
This is very good so far and pretty much what I'm looking for

[Anonymous No.12655502]

>>12653872
Is it actually good or just post modern literal nonsense?

[Anonymous No.12655514]

>>12654479
Authority is about a guy

[Anonymous No.12655546]

>>12655514
If the first book is that dumb the 2nd isn't going to be better

[Anonymous No.12655575]

>>12651318
How tall is she? And who is she? She's short af but has some really good proportions.

[Anonymous No.12655593]

>>12655575
Yanagawa Nanami, 150cm
Don't get any weird sexual ideas about her, though.
I'd make some actual proper webms but I'm just about to go to bed.

[Anonymous No.12655686]

Gonna get ripped to shreds for this, but I thought Stephen King's It left me feeling open to the possibility of malevolent supernatural beings in a way nothing else really has. I "don't believe in ghosts", but putting the book down at 2AM and thinking "Okay, time to turn out the light" and feeling a slight bit of hesitation is something I hadn't felt from any other book.

[Anonymous No.12655716]

>>12655686
Id like to read that one but It seems like a bloated alcohol and coke fueled automatic writing novel rather than a carefully crafted one. Like Blood Meridian was long when I read it but everything was planned and careful and deliberate whereas King’s writings a lot of the time are hit and miss so sometimes you get a good novel, Like Pet Semetary, or you just get liquor and coke fueled nonsense. I don’t really want to make that commitment if most of the book is going to be shit or of little value

[Anonymous No.12656342]

>>12651629
The Wasp Factory just gives a sick, uneasy feeling. It's like how I felt when I watched Gummo. Couldn't finish it

[Anonymous No.12656604]

The Castle isn't very pleasant.

[Anonymous No.12656610]

>>12655593
>Don't get any weird sexual ideas about her, though.
I already have and you can't stop me

[Anonymous No.12656631]

>>12656604
This. Also Amerika and literally everything else he wrote.

[Anonymous No.12656636]

[Anonymous No.12656650]

>>12651518
>I've always been kind of paranoid, but I think the nature of social networking combined with the growing culture of "call outs" (#MeToo, etc) has made my issue infinitely worse.
i feel this brother
im too afraid to be myself cuz the stakes seem so high

[Anonymous No.12656686]

The Magus will fuck you up. You’ll never trust a woman again.

[Anonymous No.12658198]

>>12655716
I enjoyed it as one enjoys candy or fireworks. (Ba-dum-tsss.)

[Anonymous No.12658359]

2666

[Anonymous No.12658406]

>>12652400
Kek’d and check’d

[Anonymous No.12658474]

>>12650630
Anything Ligotti

[Anonymous No.12658853]

>>12653633
Seconded, desu. Don't look up anything about it, just give it a shot.

[Anonymous No.12659686]

>>12654439
The trilogy isn’t worth completing. Wish I could have my time back.

The entire trilogy could’ve been a fun 250-300 page book, but it becomes clear that Vandermeer just wanted to write a trilogy just to say he wrote a trilogy. The way he elongates the books is aggravating.

[Anonymous No.12660002]

Ishi in Two Worlds. Biography of the last Yahi Indian. It's disturbing because he's such a nice guy despite knowing that he's it; there are no more Yahi.

Also, having worked in a prison, The Hate Factory. Nonfictional account of prison uprising in AZ. They did bad things.

[Anonymous No.12660139]

>>12658853
I already read but thank you

[Anonymous No.12660495]

>>12658474
A lot of his writing seems to be "too scary to describe to you" lovecraft bullshit

[Anonymous No.12660496]

>>12650630
Buzzati's "The Tartar Steppe" mind-fucked me to extreme paranoia, due to parallels with my own life.
Two other inducers-of-uneasiness were "The Castle" by Kafka, "The Seven Who Were Hanged" by Andreyev.

[Anonymous No.12660507]

Any advanced math book. I love mathematics and I've been studying this shit for years, but I kinda grew exasperated of parsing walls of gibberish text to make its sense out. To me literature is a warm and confy alternative.

[Anonymous No.12660515]

>>12660507
Imagine jacking yourself off this hard

[Anonymous No.12660525]

Crime and Punishment

[Anonymous No.12660839]

Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian
Don DeLillo - Libra
Malcolm Lowry - Under the Volcano
Jerzy Kosinski - The Painted Bird

[Anonymous No.12661352]

The worst book I read in this regard was Maeve Brennan, the Springs of Affection. It's super simple: married couple with two kids in conservative supercatholic Ireland where divorce is pretty much no option. Their marriage is disappointing and bleak but not hateful and there's no fights, it's all covert. It's a series of short stories about the same people, just snapshots of life, mostly seen from the point of view of the mother. She is desperate to reach her husband but too docile/spineless to actually get angry or confront him with anything, instead continuing to try to earn his love by being the perfect wife. The husband, in the rare pieces from his point of view, feels suffocated by her and the huge weight of guilt that surrounds every thought of her.

The stories are very simple, nothing dramatic happens in most of them, but reading them feels like having your soul rained upon for hours on end. The woman's hope is so desperate and silently persistent, and the worst thing is even though she does nothing wrong as the reader you start to loathe her for her lack of self respect, for trying so hard for someone who gives her nothing to work with. You want to feel for her but it gets harder and harder. She's like a dog trying to lick the foot that kicks her.

Then there's a story about where their marriage chilled, when she lost her first baby and her husband is trying really hard to console her and feel like they're on the same wavelength, and she cannot stand to even be reminded of his presence because she feels she needs 100% of her energy to guide the soul of her dead baby to Heaven. It is really quietly sad.

Also a lot of Roald Dahl's stories focus on these feelings. A lot are about spouses that either are or are on their way to becoming abusive and the feeling of being trapped is incredibly strongly conveyed in some of them. I vividly remember a story of a woman terrorized by her husband (mentally) who's looking forward so much to spending a weekend with her daughter and grandchildren abroad. She is so so afraid that her husband is going to fuck it up for her just because he can, and there's a very long scene where she's gently trying to get him to hurry up and bring her to the airport while he calmly insists that no darling, they have plenty of time. The psychological chokehold he has on her is done so well. Makes you wonder what he lived through himself.

[Anonymous No.12661373]

>>12661352
Uh just call a cab

[Anonymous No.12661378]

>>12651518
Glad to know I am not the only one who feels like that.

[Anonymous No.12661414]

>>12661373
He was in a wheelchair, he wasn't going to drive her himself, he was going to get her a cab. The thing is that she was afraid to show her fear that he was going to try to fuck it up for her because that would make him feel that power rush and make it more likely the sadistic urge to twist the knife would come up so she's trying to play it cool while also trying to get her way.

[Anonymous No.12661418]

>>12661414
She doesn't know how to use a phone herself?

[Anonymous No.12661423]

>>12661418
Dude just read the story, it is much more subtle than me paraphrasing it. He has a lot of power over her and she's afraid of him. She is hoping that he's just trying to make her feel his power and will let her go with a scare. She is afraid that if she pushes it he'll explode and she can forget about it. Already he is mentioning she seems anxious and perhaps this is not the best time to travel if she's so on edge. Maybe she even suggests doing it herself and he insists that god no, he's still her husband and gentleman enough to do it for her right, he's only going to finish her tea and then it'll happen. I don't remember it in that detail. But when you read it it's quite obvious why she feels trapped.

[Anonymous No.12661425]

>>12650630
Hunger (Hamsun)
The Castle (Kafka)

but I don't think another book will ever make me feel as uneasy as Pale Fire did. I mean... fuck. It's hard to even talk about. Why would anyone write a protagonist like that? How did I make it through to the end?

[Anonymous No.12661432]

>>12661418
>>12661423
Forgot about this detail but I'm pretty sure she was usually his caretaker too (him having medical issues) so it would've been easy for him to pull the "welp, I don't feel good with you leaving for a couple of days after all" if he wants to punish her so she's trying not to provoke him into that.

[Anonymous No.12661443]

>>12661432
>>12661423
>>12661414
>>12661352
Sounds like whiny white women nonsense

[Anonymous No.12661447]

>>12661443
Being married to someone who's essentially bullying you day in day out is quite effective at spoiling your life though.

[Anonymous No.12662020]

>>12660839
Blood Meridian doesn't exactly cause anxiety or dread and doesn't really have a feeling of foreboding. Pretty much everywhere they go the rape and murder everyone so there's not really a feeling of "Oh what terrible things are going to happen?" Not really any surprises. I think the most anxiety inducing part was when The Judge was pursuing The Kid and The Kid was hiding somewhere and The Judge was nearby and he just had to hope and pray he didn't get found. Sort of a different situation since it was personal rather than wanton destruction.

[Anonymous No.12662308]

>>12662020
It's almost like different people react in different ways to different things.

[Anonymous No.12662320]

>>12662308
Thank you for your contribution

[Anonymous No.12662336]

>>12662320
No problem.

[Anonymous No.12662409]

>>12650630
I found Dark Matter by Michelle Paver incredibly unsettling, but that's been it. My anxiety, dread, paranoia, and unease are usually kept safely blanketed by a hefty daily dose of ativan which is actually fot epilepsy but has that one convenient side effect.

[Anonymous No.12662432]

>>12650630

[Anonymous No.12662559]

>>12655502
It's actually good. It's nonsensical at times but nowhere near as hard to follow as At-Swim-Two-Birds.