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/lit/ - Literature

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4817508 No.4817508[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

I'm looking for some dark/depressing/disturbing books, was hoping /lit/ would be able to help me out.

I'll paste a couple ones I'm looking at getting.

Also i'll paste a few that i've read incase anyone else is looking.

Pic related "Under the skin" by Michael Faber

>> No.4817518

Personal Days by Ed Park is a very unlikely dark/depressing book.

>> No.4817532
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4817532

I haven't gotten the chance to read anything by Jose Saramago but I've seen a lot of good reviews on his work.

"The Double"- Jose Saramago

>> No.4817565
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4817565

I've read this one and it's pretty fucked up. A real story told by the writer himself as he describes his time as an embedded journalist in Bosnia. He copes with the tragedies that unfold in front of him along with various addictions he has. There's actually two books he's written on this but I haven't gotten around to reading the second.

"My War Gone By, I Miss It So" - Anthony Loyd

>> No.4817604

>>4817518
Sounds interesting! I really liked office space, seems like a bit of a dark spin on that maybe?

Have you read anything by Michael Faber or Jose Saramago?

>> No.4817676

shameless bump

>> No.4817721

american psycho and diary by chuck palahniuk fucked me up

>> No.4817731

>>4817721

unfortunately I really couldn't get into american psycho way too much description on everything, i get that it was the point and everything but it really just took me out of the element.

chuck palahniuk is allright his stuff is a bit touch and go with me really

>> No.4817737

>>4817731

>is a bit touch and go with me

what does this mean?

heard it before, you can sorta tell from context but ive never quite understood exactly

>> No.4817739

Try anything by Ligotti

>> No.4817809

A thread about books, not about trolling some ideology? On /lit/???? yay

Some "depressing" books I recently enjoyed:

- Hard Rain Falling, it's kind of a noir book, yet not about PIs, just a couple of poor people who try to change their lifes but ultimately fail.
- They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, a very short book, all about how life is ultimately useless and senseless, set during a marathon dance contest
- The Notebook (from Agota Kristof), twins in a Communist village during WW2 try to survive, by any means necessary. Has two follow-up books which I enjoyed less, but you can usually get all 3 together in one book.
- The Painted Bird, a fiction book set in a Eastern European country during WW2, it's murder, rape, torture all the time.
- Random Acts Of Senseless Violence - in some kind of future quasi-anarchist USA, a young (former middle-class) girl tries to survive by joining a street gang.

>> No.4817811

>The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things

I couldn't finish that book.

>> No.4817816

>>4817809
Forgot one:

Shake Hands With The Devil, from Romeo Dallaire. He was the leader of the UN forces during the Rwandan genocide, the book is all about his failure. Very brutal/honest/depressing/true.

>> No.4817898
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4817898

Why not check the wiki?

There's an entire section for depressing literature.

>> No.4817906

>>4817898
Awesome reminder, thanks anon!

Also, Stoner rocks.

>> No.4817907
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4817907

This really fucked with me the first time I read it.

>> No.4817931

>>4817811
Is that a good or bad thing?

>> No.4819364

Interest bump

>> No.4819398
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4819398

Most disturbing book you'll ever read.

>> No.4819457

>>4819398

i just tried finding this book and it seems really hard to find? Especially an english translated version.

>> No.4819781

>>4817931
I suppose it's a good thing. It's very disturbing.

>> No.4820145

>>4817898
Someone add Ligotti in there.

>> No.4820182

>>4819398
what's it about?

>> No.4820206

>>4820182
I too would like to know, i can't find much about it. I might just suck at the internet though...

>> No.4820446

>>4817604
I'm actually currently reading Under The Skin in preparation for the movie (prob going to see it Wednesday). I've not read Saramago but what little I read of Blindness didn't really turn me on.

>> No.4820480
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4820480

Pretty much anything by J.M. Coetzee. Some particularly dark ones are:

Dusklands
Waiting for the Barbarians
Elizabeth Costello
Disgrace
Pic Related

He's a great author, severely underrated on /lit/ except for the odd Disgrace thread

>> No.4820484
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4820484

The Moon in the Gutter by David Goodis

More depressing than disturbing.

>> No.4820627

Anything by Peter Sotos or Dennis Cooper. Category: disturbing

>> No.4820668

I found it depressing when Andrei died in War and Peace.

>> No.4820682

>>4817508

Is that the knowledge from which the film is based?

I watched the film recently; it was pretty good.

>> No.4820854

>>4817508
>no one posting Hogg

from wikipedia
Hogg is a novel by Samuel R. Delany, often described as pornographic.[1] It was written in San Francisco in 1969 and completed just days before the Stonewall Riots in New York City. A further draft was completed in 1973 in London. At the time it was written, no one would publish it due to its graphic and copious descriptions of murder, homosexuality, child molestation, incest, coprophilia, coprophagia, urolagnia, anal-oral contact, necrophilia and rape

>> No.4820894

>>4819457
It seems like there is an English translation from 92: http://www.amazon.com/FARABEUF-World-Literature-Translation-Incledon/dp/0824004590
Of course, no offers. Even on ebay there are only Spanish copies.
>This most innovative of novels is about an instant. While, in the Rue de l'Odeon, Dr. Farabeuf executes an erotic-chirurgical rite, the couple (one couple) remember the moment of execution by torture of a Chinese man in 1901, immortalized in a photograph. Farabeuf's lover assumes herself as the tortured Chinese (who is also Christ), making torture the equivalent of ardent love: the fusion of extreme pain and extreme pleasure.
"What??!!" you'll ask yourself. Don't worry, in this experimental novel the plot is only a vehicle for "pure" literature: a game with words, in an extremely sophisticated fashion. This book is a constant mirror-game of identities, places and times, but in the end it's not more than the "chronicle of an instant": the moment identities merge and ends meet.
This novel is extremely intelligently written, told in a time at the same time isolated from its course but recurring. Everything develops around the moment in which "she" runs to the window and as she passes her foot hits the leg of the iron table over which Dr. Farabeuf has the tools to execute his erotic-chirurgical rite. Filled with multiple solutions, this consummate literary trick is a clinical, almost scientific elaboration with words. Only for real lovers of serious (not necessarily boring) literature. PS: and it shows that Mexican literature is not only "magical realism" or bananas with pineapples.

That's about all I can find...

>> No.4820928
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4820928

>> No.4821454

The Necrophiliac by Gabrielle Wittkop sounds interesting. I can't find anywhere to download it though.

>> No.4821758

Steps, Something Happened, Death on the Installment Plan, MIss Lonelyhearts

>> No.4821765

I thought Miss Lonelyhearts was just going to be the story of a downtrodden man, but it was way worse.

>"I'm Havelock Ellis..."

>> No.4821773
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4821773

Not all at once depressing, but definitely jarring in that you get lost in the community of the storytellers

>> No.4821788

>>4817898
last exit to brooklyn is pretty fucked up

>>4817532
Saramago's Blindness depressed the fuck out of me

>>4820854
thanks i'll have to check this out

>> No.4821911
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4821911

There is a disturbing lack of Houellebecq in the thread.

>> No.4821973

All of Ray Banks' "Callum Innes" books.

Watch as a man slowly destroys his life by refusing to submit. Great times had by all!

>> No.4821976
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4821976

Oh boy, oh boy.

This is a treat for you.

>> No.4821991

>>4821976
I didn't want to read the book past the part in which the main character sets up the elaborate execution of his son, father and surrogate father and gets ashamed for almost trying to save them, rather cheering at their corpses with Nero.

>> No.4822056
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4822056

>> No.4822062
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4822062

Not disturbing but definitely fills the other two categories.

>> No.4822073
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4822073

>>4822056
This.

>> No.4822086
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4822086

>> No.4822100

>>4822086
This is a unexpectedly great book.

>You know enough to know how you feel is senseless, but you don't know enough to know why

>> No.4822190

>>4820682
yep
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_Skin_(novel)#Film

>> No.4822212

>>4822100
I started out disliking Jack and wanting to get to the next Billy section because I was sick of being in Jack's head, but by the end I was heartbroken for Jack too.

>> No.4822218

>>4822212
So right! You expect he's just that musclehead who exists for punching, but then his thoughts take over in the latter part and you realize he's just trapped in the cage, as well... And he knows it.

>> No.4824510

>>4817532
reading that at the moment, it actually is pretty hilarious

>> No.4824935

>>4824510
Hilarious? really? I didn't really think the book would be after watching the movie. Did you see the movie? Is it completely different?

>> No.4824957

>>4820894
This sounds very interesting, how is there not an English version? Uhm...

>> No.4825867
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4825867

>>4820894
It refers to this image of a chinese man condemned to die by the ling chi (death by slow slicing) execution.

>> No.4826202

>>4825867
Jesus christ...

That's not going to leave my mind for a while.

>> No.4826214

>>4824935
seen the movie before started to read the book and it deffinitely feels completely different in terms of tone and let me tell you i really had to laugh out loud but by that i don't mean it is funny perse but just the way he describes his action in such an ridiculous detailed and somehow cynical way is just glorious

>> No.4826261

>>4825867
death by slow slicing.

they say it's one of the worst ways to go...

>> No.4827804
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4827804

>>4817508
Lens by Georg Büchner deals with depression and shizophrenia

>> No.4827953

Read The Maimed by Hermann Ungar.

Fits in with all those categories.

>> No.4827970

All The Pretty Horses/Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy. Starts off seemingly innocent and ends up being the most depressing and hopeless book I've read so far. Just gets more bleak and tragic as the trilogy progresses

>> No.4828010

>>4825867

thats a woman

>> No.4828043

>>4828010
Looks like a man to me

>>4820894
Seems really interesting, too bad there is no PDF I can find...

>> No.4828378

The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littel

>> No.4828424

>>4821911

amen brother.

I moved to france and was looking through the books at just a regular old carrefour and they had his whole bibliography there next to normal shit like harry potter.

What if someone just bought that for shits and giggles, damn my nigger

>> No.4828445

>>4828424
>Houellebecq
He seems like he writes hot and heavy stuff. Where to start with him?

>> No.4828461

Please recommend some books for someone who enjoyed 'No Longer Human'. Not necessarily Japanese books, of course.

>> No.4828559

>>4828461
book of disquiet
emil cioran
michel houellebecq

>> No.4829148

>>4828445
I'm wondering the same thing

>> No.4829156
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4829156

read this bro-p

>> No.4829375

The Blind Owl

>> No.4829377

>>4829375

meant to reply to >>4828461

but I guess it works for the thread in general too

>> No.4829667
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4829667

>>4817508
This book is pretty goddamned depressing.

Fuck Chechens man

>> No.4830654

>>4829667

nice this looks promising

>> No.4830659

>>4829667

would read/10

>> No.4830678

>>4829667
What, why fuck Chechens? Those dudes are legit. They did some terrible shit to preserve themselves under Russia's constant onslaught, but I have hope for their redemption

>> No.4830683

>>4830678

chechens are scrubbers circa 1990

before that maybe they weren't cunts

>> No.4830702

>>4830683
Can you further explain, add anything besides that? I'm curious. I know they run a lot of dark shit to fund "resistence" effort