Darkest books you've read?

[SolemnBoy]

Summer is coming up and I'm actually quite happy and excited! As always when that happens I get the thirst for really morbid and twisted literature. I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations for that sort of thing?

Oh and we're not having darkness as the only required trait, mind you. General quality is of course needed as well. I mean, Marquis De Sade might be slightly too paedophilic in some regards (although if he ever did anything good, please let me know) so I'd prefer to skip the likes of him. Anything else though, dark, pagan, depressing, extreme, haunting, demented, twisted, whatever; come at me with all you've got! The darker the better.

[Lilitu]

Scenes from village life, Amos Oz.

Secret City, Vivienne Plumb

These are really good books, good for turning a bright summer into something disturbing and looming.

Also have you read Blindness by José Saramago?

[SolemnBoy]

Scenes from village life, Amos Oz.

Secret City, Vivienne Plumb

These are really good books, good for turning a bright summer into something disturbing and looming.

Also have you read Blindness by José Saramago?

Actually I haven't read any of those but I'm looking them up right now!

[OrphanPip]

The Story of the Eye by Georges Batailles
The Immoralist by Andre Gide
Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis

I've come up with this list using a pretty loose definition of dark and perverted though haha.

Edit: Saramago was a great author.

[partisan]

The pilo family circus
mr. B. Gone

(Both exellent, dark and original)

Mr B. Gone goes all sorts of places, including hell.

The pilo family circus is just INSANE! (Clown/plant-love) say no more.

[SolemnBoy]

The Story of the Eye by Georges Batailles
The Immoralist by Andre Gide
Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis

I've come up with this list using a pretty loose definition of dark and perverted though haha.

Edit: Saramago was a great author.

I read and disliked American Psycho although that was at least 6 years ago so perhaps it deserves another chance. The Story of the Eye has been on my "to read" list for a long time along with Naked Lunch. I'll add the other titles to the research list as well!

Oh and I never said anything about perversion so that's probably fine?

[OrphanPip]

I read and disliked American Psycho although that was at least 6 years ago so perhaps it deserves another chance. The Story of the Eye has been on my "to read" list for a long time along with Naked Lunch. I'll add the other titles to the research list as well!

Oh and I never said anything about perversion so that's probably fine?

Haha, my bad I just got up, I think my mind translated twisted to perverted because of its nearness to Sade. But it doesn't effect my list very much. I tried to include a lot of LGBT themed works. Genet's Our Lady of the Flowers might be useful too. Mann and Gide are probably the least morbid and dark of the list, though they involve sexual obsession.

Edit: It's occurred to me that you might like Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, it's not too dark but I think you'd enjoy the use of supernatural elements in a satirical sendup of Communist Russia.

[SolemnBoy]

Haha, my bad I just got up, I think my mind translated twisted to perverted because of its nearness to Sade. But it doesn't effect my list very much. I tried to include a lot of LGBT themed works. Genet's Our Lady of the Flowers might be useful too. Mann and Gide are probably the least morbid and dark of the list, though they involve sexual obsession.

Edit: It's occurred to me that you might like Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, it's not too dark but I think you'd enjoy the use of supernatural elements in a satirical sendup of Communist Russia.

I actually own that one! Just haven't gotten around to reading it. It'll definitely happen one day but right now I need more cathartic stuff

[SolemnBoy]

Just wondering though, if you search for extreme content alone, is there such a thing as a book more excessive and repulsive than the 120 days of Sodom?

I've only read half of it, not because it was too much, but because it seemed rather pointless. I feel kind of bad for admitting it, but I would be very curious to read something "worse" just to push the boundaries.

[OrphanPip]

Well there's a scene with eggs in Story of the Eye and an obsession with bodily fluids not usually considered sexual that many people consider to rival Sodom. However, I find Sodom more crude, partly because it was unfinished and unrefined by Sade and shows the mark of his madness at the time, unlike Justine which is a more coherent erotic novel.

There's probably some Japanese ero-guro out there that would make Sade blanch.