Has a book ever thrown you into a crisis?

[Anonymous No.14125748]

Has a book ever thrown you into a crisis? I have always been moved by books. Especially by Anna Karenina and Brideshead Revisited. But until recently I had never read a book that had a profound effect on my life. A few weeks ago I began reading The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq. Some biographical details of the two protagonists, Michel and Bruno, triggered what I can only describe as a psychological episode. Certain parallels between these characters and my own life were revelatory to me, and helped explain social issues I've experienced since childhood. What I learned about myself prompted a two-day panic attack that I am only now coming down from.

Any similar experiences?

[Anonymous No.14125793]

Books seem to pull me out of crises, rather than the opposite. Don Quijote for example really helped me in putting some things in perspective, mainly around the purpose of the artist, which is something I struggle with.
I remember that in reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being, I felt very distressed about Tomas's relationship with women, mainly because I couldn't tell wether that distress came from conflict with my values or from jealousy.

[Anonymous No.14125881]

>>14125748
Illuminatus! was a trip, but I was also doing a lot of drugs back then.

[Anonymous No.14126033]

>>14125748
Ligotti's Conspiracy fucked me up three years ago and I haevn't recovered completely from that.
>its fiction hurr durr
No shit motherfucker. The problem is, he is right in the end if you want to believe him, of course

[Anonymous No.14126043]

No, you giant pussy.

[Anonymous No.14126055]

I like to be corny and say everything I've read has changed me, but the only case where that's palpably true is with the poem Strange Meeting by Wilfred Owen. Without fear of overstatement I can say it disturbed me, and continues to whenever I think about it. From the time when I grasped its true meaning and scope, I can identify many choices I have made which I would have made differently if I didn't have that guy moaning at me from the grave.
I'm a lot more political-minded than I used to be because of it, and I resent that.

[Anonymous No.14126065]

>>14126055
I should add that it was really just the last domino in a whole chain of material from that era which I'd read prior, including Chesterton and Orwell, which set me up for the mindfuck. By itself it can be taken for just another war poem.

[Anonymous No.14126078]

>>14125748
Unironically 1984

Made me reconsider about relativism

[Anonymous No.14126082]

a closing reading of Zarathustra and Capital fucked me up pretty good. Before I was really depressed, and I realized that I needed some kind of purpose in life if I wanted it to be worth living, and simultaneously that dedicating myself to wage/salary labour wasn't going to be it.

I also realized that I don't have the social mobility to actually become some upper class owner of capital who just collects returns on investments to live. So I felt extremely lost in life, and had to find some things to dedicate myself to else I fell into the abyss.

[Anonymous No.14126125]

>>14126055
>>14126065
What is the true meaning and scope that so disturbs you? Is it not just a typical anti-war poem?

[Anonymous No.14126133]

>>14126078
Same here.

[Anonymous No.14126292]

The great writer for incels to enjoy

[Anonymous No.14126322]

No, because I'm not a fragile little flower.

[Anonymous No.14126339]

A Little Life. I so deeply related to Jude because, like him, I'm a bit faggy and also dealt with my atrocious self worth through cutting and self harm. My brain actually co-opted his mood and demeanor and I brought myself down into an incredibly deep depressive spiral.

[Anonymous No.14126523]

>>14125748
Some of Rilke's poems because I realized I could never be a writer. I just can't sacrifice that much, but without writing, I am nothing

[Anonymous No.14126545]

>>14125748
Beyond Good and Evil kicked out from under me the Stoic virtue ethics that I was using as a crutch after losing my christianity

[Anonymous No.14126659]

>>14126078
based post

[Anonymous No.14126674]

The Denial of Death did something similar to me way back in 2011 or 2012 or whenever it was when I read it. Then I followed it up by reading something like Existential Psychotherapy by Irvin D. Yalom and in some sense I was never the same since. My perspective on both books as changed as I've moved through time. I love them though for showing the impact literature can have. My experience was somewhat negative, but ultimately mind-expanding. Like you, not many books with a similar impact have come along ever since, but as one ages one reads more and grows in experience so one is perhaps less taken aback by these intellectual assaults on one's brain. Around 2018 I also read some political books and books regarding the "absolute state of Western civilization" (pol-tier stuff) that also completed re-wired my thinking.

[Anonymous No.14126677]

Not much, but The Picture of Dorian Gray changed the way I perceived beauty and narcissism (and made me embrace it). It has that corny ending, but probably it was an addendum to appease censorship.

[Anonymous No.14126688]

>>14125748
Wanted to kill myself after reading the tunnel by gass.

[Anonymous No.14126787]

>>14126125
Also curious. Give us your hot take anon

[Anonymous No.14127029]

I tried notes from underground when I was sixteen and precocious and being exposed to that kind of nega-enlightenment kicked my ass back to Harry Potter for a while. I think those ideas without the ability to rationalise them leads to nihilism, or the sixteen year old version thereof.

[Anonymous No.14127153]

>>14125748
Experienced the same thing from Les Particules

[Anonymous No.14127155]

>>14126659
Even better, that made me consider Catholicism again

[Anonymous No.14127158]

I became a Christian after I read Resurrection by Tolstoy

[Anonymous No.14127160]

>>14125793
>mainly around the purpose of the artist, which is something I struggle with.
So how did the book give you another perspective?

[Anonymous No.14127386]

The aesthetic part of Kierkegaard's Either/Or made my lovelife better

[Anonymous No.14127395]

>>14126078
In what way?

[Anonymous No.14127407]

>>14126545
Same

[Anonymous No.14128646]

>>14127155
debased post

[Anonymous No.14128731]

>>14125748
i read the elementary particles while i was homeless; it was saturday morning in a park along the river and after i had turned the last page i felt like walking off a bridge

[Anonymous No.14128743]

>>14125748
Probably a dumb one but for me it was The Will to Power

[Anonymous No.14128957]

>>14125748
I can say pretty much the same about Atomised. And the tone the author puts at the end is kinda melancholic, as if he had given up on the human race altogether. But on the upside, the book made me stop masturbating, for every time I opened a porn site I remembered Bruno's condition and my lust vanished.

[Anonymous No.14128975]

houellebecq is so cringe 2015+
but not surprised the american here suck it up, like kaczynski and similar pseudos

[Anonymous No.14128983]

>>14125748
>>>
Not a book but Kafka's the Judgement gave me a mini panic attack at the end, so fucking anxiety inducing and still to this day it bothers me, I can go on and on but I just rather not talk about it.

[Anonymous No.14129075]

>>14125748
that book also distressed me a lot. i started enjoying reading it, but as the characters grew, and i learnt about the guy and his relationship with the girl it got so depressing i had to drop it the last thing i remember reading is her getting fucked by some chad after the main guy rejects her emotionally

maybe i should try reading it again

[Anonymous No.14129082]

>>14126688
Why?

[Anonymous No.14129083]

>>14128975
>eww shut up incels, you're cringe!

[Anonymous No.14129093]

>>14125793
This is actually really interesting; I experienced the exact same thing reading Kundera.

[Anonymous No.14129246]

>>14125748
Crime and Punishment