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/lit/ - Literature

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2617553 No.2617553 [Reply] [Original]

/lit/ can any of you name me some books you've found genuinely unsettling? Ideally books that you've found unsettling for reasons other than violence - I'm not talking about things akin to Blood Meridian.

I've tried looking for some sci-fi horror books, but I've come back rather disappointed, nothing seems noteworthy at all.

>> No.2617554

>>2617553
Did you try Lovecraft? The Rats in the Walls?

>> No.2617557

>>2617554

I've already read Lovecraft, I own a beautiful collection.

I've tried most of the people that come to mind in general, that's why I came asking you guys.

>> No.2617569

>scifi horror
The Maelstrom trilogy, by Peter Watts. Features corporations implanting false memories of child abuse in people so they work better in high-stress environments, activists giving well-meaning people their free will back, and the ensuing trainwrecks.

>> No.2617625

if you want something genuinely frightening and unsettling you might try a dail newspaper ...

>> No.2617637

Clive Barker?

>> No.2617642
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2617642

This.
Though I've seen how Atlas Shrug was rather... influential.

>> No.2617646

Ubik by Philip K. Dick is a good one.

>> No.2618284
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2618284

If you're American, this. If not, you'll just be like "ha ha silly America, of COURSE you're the shittiest country in the world."

inb4 "hipter liberl faggot"

>> No.2618334

>>2618284
interesting, downloading now. thanks for the rec.

>> No.2618352

Read a couple hours worth of Peter Sotos and you'll probably feel uncomfortable. It's not good writing, but it is fucked up.

>> No.2618382

Although it might seem a little cliched, I have always had trouble reading Kafka's Metamorphosis. It's not so much the fact that Gregor turns into a bug that bothers me; rather, it's the reaction of his family to his predicament. They're not really horrified or even disgusted. Instead, they're embarrassed and ashamed, which, to me at least, is infinitely worse.

>> No.2618441
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2618441

This book.

>> No.2618511

Listen to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxZpEFJhO6k

If that's the sort of thing you're looking for, then try Thomas Ligotti.

>> No.2618525

1984 bruh

highschool nigga

>> No.2618691

>>2618511
0_o that recording... goddamn

>> No.2618717

>>2618441

"Sideshow, and Other Stories" is one of my favorite short stories. It's genuinely unsettling in ways I can't verbalize. Ligotti's got a penchant for being verbose, though. Not entirely enthusiastic about his tendency to write like Lovecraft or Poe.

>> No.2618849

Years of Rage Joseph Suglia

>> No.2618908

The ending to Enders Game was just disturbing on a deeper level than violence because it was just how he was so used more than anything.

>> No.2618913
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2618913

>> No.2618926

A short story by Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? came to mind. In fact, a number of Joyce Carol Oates novels have this effect.
Houellebecq's kind of unsettling, too. Whatever was a disturbing short novel, just because of how strange but also familiar the protagonist was. It was like a miniature portrait of a contemporary fascist.

>> No.2618942

>>2618926
That Joyce Carol Oates is based off of a Bob Dylan Song "It's All Over Now Baby Blue"

Really amplifies the message

>> No.2618954

>>2618908
Yes, here there is a civilization with FTL communications, and they are using a kid to fight. To fight. With spaceships and guns. With FTL.

Why haven't they rewritten existence with this acausal technology so that they are a godlike hivemind that has always and will always exist, surpassing time? Because the writer is character driven and says fuck physics, fuck consistency, lets get magical in this bitch, magical realism. Fundamental information transfer limits? That's an illusion, we don't need it cause this spaceship runs on narrativium, but pretend its real even when the characters don't, just so the readers can relate to space sociopath magic and hard men making hard decisions, totally unnecessary decisions.

/sigh. at least he had the dignity to avoid calling it hard SF, but Ender's Game belongs in the fantastic journey column.

>> No.2618961

>>2618908

I read Ender's Game in 3rd grade and never really understood the implications of it all.

As I got older, my hatred for Scott Card's writing style grew while my shock at the ending also grew. So it's like, the author gets shittier as I learn all the shitty things he keeps doing, while his masterpiece turned out to be a lot better than I initially thought.

>> No.2618980

>>2618954

It turns out all of our scientific knowledge was a ruse secretly given to us by the Buggers to distract us, and none if it was actually applicable outside of the solar system or whatever. Either way, piss off. It's just a book about a kid who's tricked into being Space Hitler. That's it.

>> No.2618993

Kafka, though well-known and already mentioned, is great for this. One could make a drinking game by taking a shot every time one feels strangely uncomfortable while reading his work.

The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea is violent, but much of it is implied. So what you feel unnerving you isn't the description of the act, but the sociopathy of the characters.

Other than Blood Meridian, much of Cormac McCarthy's work is unrelentingly dark and disturbing. After I finished No Country For Old Men the first time, I just laid in bed in a depressed funk for a couple hours.

Waiting For Godot has the same sort of surrealistic nightmare logic that plays into what makes Kafka so unsettling. Ostensibly, the play is a comedy, but you only laugh so you don't cry.

Though >>2618525 may have been trolling, depending on how big you are into politics and how dear you hold civil and political rights, dystopian fiction can be downright horrifying. This made even worse when you consider that most dystopian fiction is based in reality. 1984, Brave New World, We - hell, even The Master and Margarita and Harrison Bergeron - they can all be pretty scary to someone with the right mindset,

I haven't read them myself, but I often hear that the Story of the Eye and I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream are both pretty disturbing.

Hope this helps.

>> No.2619018

>>2618954
Implying the plot needed anything more than remote technology.

>> No.2619040

>>2619018
you could do that with magic. or psychic kids flying predator drones, whatever. It's just hard for me to relate to an internally inconsistent universe, that feels like bad characterisation to me. maybe it would come off better wrapped in a less transgressive setting, like a traditional mythopoeic fantasy.

>> No.2619266

Pet Semetary is disturbing, depressing, and unsettling