Let's make a new Dark/Disturbing chart!

There is no limit to the amount of works on the chart, and people in the previous thread have said that Blood Meridian is a better choice than Child of God. If you think they should both be on there, let me know.
If more people want Lolita to be gone because of the lack of dark/disturbing-ness in comparison to the other works, then I will definitely remove it.

Is anyone up for adding something by Litgotti?

>There is no limit to the amount of works on the chart

Why? a larger chart would be distracting ,hard to follow and would lack of objectiviness

>people in the previous thread have said that Blood Meridian is a better choice than Child of God.

How are those two works even comparable?

>If more people want Lolita to be gone because of the lack of dark/disturbing-ness in comparison to the other works, then I will definitely remove it.

Lolita is dark enough to be on the chart, the thing is that since is considered a entry level literature and a bunch of people have already read it or at least know about it Lolita wouldn't add nothing to the chart

Also if you want to reinvent the chart you should add subcategories, like "sex,rape" "murder" "mental ill" or something like that

sweating blood focuses exclusively on life during wartime, disagreeable tales on provincial living. it is taken for granted that war is horrifying, perhaps the deeper horror lies in the quiet knowledge of the mutilations of the spirit, be they concealed by weaving or proudly displayed as embroidery upon the fabric of polite society

When the Tao is present in the universe,
The horses haul manure.
When the Tao is absent from the universe,
War horses are bred outside the city.

tao te ching 46

as for confucius and lou barlow, incomprehensible deulsions of eloquent, artistic profundity further disharmony, extended desperation facilitates abnegation relegating exuberance, in other words, are you so sad you don't even know how miserable you are? pick your head up. in the presence of substance let yourself grasp it, don't trouble yourself with the details of a void, there's nothing there. you can bathe in a clear pool, you won't get clean rolling in a muddy hole.

I would not add anything by Ligotti, because his works are more straight/traditional horror, and I'm trying not to add those kind of books since they are already in regular horror charts. And Conspiracy is more leaning towards non-fiction.

I agree with a larger chart being more difficult to follow.
In the original chart, there was only one of every author, and people said that BM is darker and more disturbing than CoG, and therefore should be representing McCarthy. (I'm not saying it should be like that, I'm saying that the majority said that.) I have not read any of his works, so I'm (like most of the time) dependent on feedback from other people.

Adding categories might be a good idea. I was originally thinking of adding the level of extremeness of each novel (mild, medium and extreme or something of the sorts, I haven't paid it much thought). I'm just thinking that with your categories, you'd have to add little symbols to each book, since you can't group books together because of overlap. It might become too cluttered, I don't know yet. Need to figure out which books are going to make it in before I start thinking about the layout of the chart.

Where does my diary fit on this list?

You should add both of McCarthy works, just forgot about the one per autor rule.

This is a Dark and disturbing literature chart not a Sissy everyday adventures chart

add hunger by knut hamsun, fits the bill

I definitely think Sarah Kane should stay, but we could replace Blasted with Phaedra's Love if you want to update it.

I probably will add both, depending what other people think.

Can you explain why?

Dude above already added this, but I would like to second the addition of Kristof's Notebook trilogy. Also, Outer Dark is way more effed up than Child of God.

Why do you think Phaedra's Love should be on the list? Do you think it's better than Cleansed?

I'll add the Notebook trilogy! Also, you're the first person to talk about Outer Dark. Can you tell me more about it?

Well you marked it as Blue to be replaced by another work of the same people, so that's why I brought up the suggestion. It's also a little bit less known than Cleansed so I think more exposure would benefit it and its definitely dark and disturbing, dealing with incest, suicide, torture, death.

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it's about an isolated man, wasting away from hunger and madness, alienating those around him, fascinated by the decay of his being, shrouded in death, living a waking nightmare

I will add it to the 'one person' list!

Have you read Osvaldo Lamborghini? I think it'd fit well in the list. If you haven't read El Fiord, or any of his short stories.

Other Huysman user. Yeah enjoyed La Bas greatly, he's a good writer, his books are comfy I suppose. Party that's because the plots move slowly and much of his novels are extended discussions or extended descriptions, there is no tension from pacing that would agitate the reader, everything is given enough time to be contemplated.

Regards to Satanism, it depends on what your views of Satanism were coming in. I thought it put the case well for a through (if manic) anti-theism that gives Satanism its philosophical due rather than caricaturing them as cartoon evil or insane or lead astray by excess passions. The Satanists of La Bas (and hence of real Catholic life) are theological anti-theists motivated by an intellectual hatred of a God they believe exists but has failed and lied, and who they reject. They're not edgy athiests, they're theists who oppose and hate God. They abuse God on his own terms, the ex-preist who tattoos icons on the soles of his feet so he can stomp upon the face of God with every step, the continued performance of the Eucharist so they can imprison God in their bread and wine and abuse him to prove their mastery over God and his impotence, and so on. Within the Catholic framework it was a far more serious and through Satanism, an intentional barrage of sacrilege, that is more spiritually serious than the relative petty crimes of cartoon satanists or ordinary criminals; crimes against God being worse than crimes against people.

The purpose of Satanism is to alienate people from a God they beleive exists and loves them, and to get them to spurn that love with contempt. The Satanists who hold erotic black mass orgies amongst the Catholic faithful accomplish that better than a baron who rapes and murders kids hidden away in his castle with a few retainers, so for mind the modern Satanists are more of a serious spiritual threat than Giles.

Thanks for the recommend will check it out.

The Nazi and the Barber is fucking crazy. Read that for a course on satire, very depressing and dark.

Hunger does not belong on the chart. It is not dark or disturbing in the way that the others are.The novel is primarily about the lengths to which a young writer will go in order to continue pursuing their craft. Much of it focuses on the protagonist's descent into delirium and odd behaviour as a result of starvation. There is no serious violence or transgression in this book. The descriptions of the protagonist's emaciation are tame in comparison to the works listed; the 'odd behaviour' is often just his violation of social etiquette through begging and desperation; and it pales in overall bleakness compared to works like Celine. None of it compares to what could be found on most works in the chart.

As another user pointed out in the previous thread, Down There would be a more appropriate Huysmans work to include on the chart.

My experience with the occult inclusive of the Satanic is spare, would perhaps be all but nonexistent had I not read this book. I did however understand while reading it that Satanism is an in-house, exclusive phenomenon but at the same time it also seemed (at least to me) so marginal, so falsely grandiose and ultimately insincere that after the Madam de Chantelouve episode early on, so realistic in the context of the fantastical subject matter that I did find it almost comical (if only by contrast) that I failed to accept Satanism in general as a practice dreadfully upsetting if not absolutely perplexing to members of the Roman church. My own religious antecedents are perhaps to blame for this- Quaker and Episcopal- the latter being close (liturgically) but the former as iconoclastic as any denomination that reckons itself Christian. To a Quaker there can be no desecration of stuffs, with the exception of course of the body, soul and mind- but that's it. This perspective renders what the Satanists are/were doing as ludicrous, beneath contempt, a mere opportunity for a thoroughly unattractive groupfuck, just mindlessly (and therefore falsely) self-serving stupidity, but no more. To one of my persuasion God cannot be touched.
I can see now (however) that the example of Jesus Christ himself could be used to show (and rather easily) that this is not now nor has ever been the case. Strangely God's love equates to Him putting Himself voluntarily at [our] mercy..
It's valuable therefore to get a sense of your perspective. Thanks. From the standpoint of Roman Catholicism this is an upsetting novel, especially if it is believed that the author presents solid arguments for Satanism's viability.

I'm not the best when it comes to rape. are there any books on this list that don't pertain to any sort of non-consenting, forced sex?

Does anyone have a pdf, epub, mobi, (anything) of Peter Sotos' "Selfish, Little?"

I couldn't find his work in English, has it been translated?

The Nazi and the Barber will be added to the list! The first user to recommend him will be really happy about that, he was pushing the book a lot lol, probably for a good reason.

It sound like Hunger belongs more in the depressing literature chart than on this one. Thanks for the explanation!
What do you mean with "Down There would be a more appropriate Huysmans work"? More appropriate than what? And Down There already is on the first chart, but there is some dispute over how disturbing it is and if it belongs there.

If I remember correctly, The Wasp Factory does not have any non-consenting sexual acts, though my memory is bad and I might be wrong. Can other people help user out?

I am unable to find anything for Selfish, Little, but I do have links for his earlier work: Tick, Lazy, Index, Tool, Special, and Pure 1-3. I posted it in the previous thread, but I can repost it here if people are interested.
I also have links to Eden Eden Eden, Tomb for 500.000 Soldiers [not on the list], and The Eyes. Some of them are really hard to find a physical copy of.
It might be good to have a list with links at some point, so everyone can access those works.

Pls repost the links user

Sotos:
docdroid.net/cDxVCiW/peter-sotos-tick.pdf
docdroid.net/yuHWWFA/peter-sotos-lazy.pdf
docdroid.net/cpggjJh/peter-sotos-index.pdf
docdroid.net/5Xk013O/peter-sotos-tool.pdf
docdroid.net/oaFU7nw/peter-sotos-special.pdf
docdroid.net/DHGGIYF/pure-1.pdf
docdroid.net/bA1H5Qx/pure-2.pdf
docdroid.net/xGCF3ZB/pure-3-vol1.pdf
docdroid.net/ksgyAmm/pure-3-vol2.pdf

Eden Eden Eden:
dokumen.tips/documents/pierre-guyotat-eden-eden-eden.html

Tomb for 500.000:
mega.nz/#!64xW1ZZC!c7nA-iY-R7-5VM6zhrwI4Z99DN0nOE3Qy99Fpw-zMgM

The Eyes:
mega.nz/#!CdAghAJC!lluxTktukp8qT8N5dHdi9UdX69I3D0SZt1iGs6TG_Nc

If other people have more links for hard to find works (especially translations), please post them!

The Girl Nex Door is very disturbing not for being very explicit but because it is very easy to get into the story that is just about kids having fun (at first) but at the end you can feel the rage that goes through the protagonist head. Personally, I couldn't finish this book. After someone else here said they couldn't finish the book because of how angry it made him, I gave it a try too, and also quit. I made it longer than that user, but still. This comes from someone that has fini read Hogg, justine, 120 days, el obsceno..., frisk, babyfucker, goblins from auschwitz etc. I think the book should go in the list.

>inbetween sentences, let a tiny bit of the very disturbing truth slip through
just finished the book and while this is true these truths are never outright "holy shit, oh fuck!" but instead stuff like
>every night crying
>the dreadful thing about dying is that you are completely on your own
it was never graphic

Hey, OP. I'm this poster. I'd rcommend Ass Goblins From Auschwitz. Definitely missing there.
An exerpt:
Frost lines my rectum by the time the roll call guard reaches us. I hold my breath and bite my tongue as a fat finger carves a swastika into the scar tissue of my left butt cheek.

The finger rockets up my dark zero. I bite deeper into my tongue. I seal my lips together, fighting the pain, ignoring the finger, and trying my best to remember that I am lucky because I am alive.

and you misread the passage, the finger did not go up one person's ass, but two. The protagonist are a conjoined twin.

>Jack Ketchum - The Girl Next Door
>Dennis Cooper - Frisk
>Alain Robbe-Grillet - A Sentimental Novel
Those definitely should be on the list. They're quite heavy in the content, and the atmosphere is one of definite darkness during the whole thing. I haven't read anything else of Cooper, but both Ketchum and Robbe Grillet are great recomendations of not so mainstream known for the interested in dark stuff.

Please add this very dark, disturbing 21st century work:
Arthur S. Halsey Jr., The Dreamreapers

Thanks for the info, I'll make The Girl Next Door green! That sounds like one of the more intense books on the list.

I understand where you're coming from. I'll give it some time to think about whether I want to remove it or not. If other people have an opinion on Lolita, please let me know!

Hey again, I'll put Ass Goblins Of Auschwitz on the 'one person' list. One question about it: it's bizarro literature, isn't it too over the top to make it disturbing, but instead makes it humorous?

Thank you! I'll confirm all three of them.

Can you tell more about it?

Yeah, AGofA borders on the humorous, but some of the parts are still revolting. I agree it should have more support to go into the list.

One more important thing I forgot to mention: works should be available in English to be on the chart!
These are the current standings:

>Books that are going to be added:
Shakespeare - Macbeth
Marquis de Sade - 120 Days of Sodom
Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian
Sarah Kane - Cleansed
William S Burroughs - Naked Lunch
Poppy Z Brite - Exquisite Corpse
Chuck Palahniuk - Haunted
Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita
Evan Connel - Diary of a Rapist
Gabrielle Wittkop - Necrophiliac
Pier Paolo Pasolini - Petrolio
Mo Hayder - Pig Island
Artaud - Heliogabalus
John Ridley - The Drift
Leon Bloy - Sweating Blood
Agota Kristof - The Notebook Trilogy
Edgar Hillsenrath - The Nazi and the Barber

>Books on the list no one has talked about (in depth): should they stay or do they have to go, and why?
Louis Aragon - Irene's Cunt
Hubert Selby Jr. - Last Exit to Brooklyn
Elfirede Jelinek - The Piano Teacher
Slavenka Draculic - The Taste of a Man
J T LeRoy - The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things
Joyce Carol Oates - Rape: A Love Story
Natsuo Kirino - Grotesque

>Books that are recommended to be added to the list, but only by one person: should they be added, or not, and why?
Kathy Acker - Blood and Guts in High School
John Hawkes - Second Skin / The Lime Twig
Joseph Heller - Something Happened
Sorokin - The Day of Oprichnik
Jachym Topol - The Devil's Workshop
Nikanor Teratologen - Assisted Living
V C Andrews - Flowers in the Attic
Kenzaburo Oe - Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness
Charles Maclean - The Watcher
Steven Barber - Caligula: Divine Carnage
Frederick Exley - A Fan's Notes
Andrea Dworkin - Mercy
Kate Millet - The Basement
Blaise Cendrars - Moravagine
Cameron Pierce - Ass Goblins of Auschwitz

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Add Rimbaud's A Season in Hell.

Can you tell more about it, and why it should be on the list?

I'd replace Lolita with Mouchette.

Tell me more about Mouchette! Why is it better than Lolita for this chart?

I haven't read Frisk, but Dennis Cooper's "The Sluts" may be more appropriate to the nature of the chart. It utilizes the epistolary form in a modern sense; the narrative is told through snuff fetishist forum posts, through letters from prostitutes to johns begging for money, through escort reviews. it is the story of a school of homosexual sadistic predators hunting for a supposedly ideal lay, who, through the course of events, is enslaved, has his legs broken, is repeatedly raped, has his testicles sliced out and is forced to swallow them, culminating in death and a suicide. The only disqualifier would be that it is deliberately left unclear whether the prostitute ever existed, or whether his legendary existence was concocted by a group of sadistic pathological liars for their own amusement, much like the creepypastas of yore.

Mouchette is an alone, poor preteen girl with uncaring parents. People are bullying her, abusing her. So lonely, in despair always. Then someone is raping her, in the end commits suicide. Some of the same themes as Lolita but a little darker.

I will add The Sluts in the 'one person' list, and add that it is to replace Frisk. I haven't read either of those works, so I hope others are able to compare the two.

I will add George Bernanos - Mouchette to the 'one person' list as well. Someone else said that Tiger Tiger would be better than Lolita as well, and I'd just like to say that there is not just one spot in the chart for a Lolita-like story.

As someone that has recently gotten back into reading and enjoys some more dark literature, what would be a good book to start with ?

What are some of the dark literature you've enjoyed, and how extreme would you like the book to be?

>What are some of the dark literature you've enjoyed, and how extreme would you like the book to be?
Honestly most of the 'dark' literature would be stuff along the lines of Lovecrafts stuff. I love the helplessness of the main characters when they finally piece together what is happening although something with a little more modern prose would be easier to read.

If you want something that's a bit like Lovecraft, I would suggest some of Ligotti's work, even though I'm removing it from this chart. I enjoyed Lovercraft a lot myself, and Songs of a Dead Dreamer + Grimscribe are somewhat in the same lane. It's more dark than disturbing most of the times, Ligotti is really good at creating dark, otherworldly atmospheres.
If you want to go to more disturbing territory, I can definitely recommend The Wasp Factory. I haven't read many of the books on here, so I cannot recommend more, but these two are not bad at all.

>If you want something that's a bit like Lovecraft, I would suggest some of Ligotti's work, even though I'm removing it from this chart. I enjoyed Lovercraft a lot myself, and Songs of a Dead Dreamer + Grimscribe are somewhat in the same lane. It's more dark than disturbing most of the times, Ligotti is really good at creating dark, otherworldly atmospheres.
That sounds like a look that I look for in a story.

>If you want to go to more disturbing territory, I can definitely recommend The Wasp Factory. I haven't read many of the books on here, so I cannot recommend more, but these two are not bad at all.
I was actually looking at that one because I liked the cover.
Are you somewhere in my room user

as you self noticed Ass Goblins Of Auschwitz is bizarro lit that makes 14 yo boys giggle and church ladies offended. there is no place for it on this guide.

wintergirls by laurie halse anderson tackles the themes of anorexia and depression pretty head on and should be added to this chart

>Anything YA
>Anything by Laurie Halse Anderson
No

No. Marya Hornbacher's "Wasted" would not qualify for this list because it's nonfiction and it isn't disturbing enough, and wintergirls is nowhere near that level of quality.

Why shouldn't nonfiction be added? Seems an arbitrary and ignorant decision. There's plenty of transgressive nonfiction that could be added, like Bataille's writings. Hell, even Maldoror is already there and that's poetry.

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Because there are infinitely many historical atrocities and crimes against humanity to expound upon, user. It would become a list of books about war crimes, not a collection of literature. However, if you're interested in making that sort of list, I would try starting a thread on /his/ about it.

historical atrocities and crimes against humanity, like holocaust? funny story about that...

What the below user said. There are already so many pieces of fiction that I want to include, and I don't want the new chart to be too cluttered, let alone opening an entire new category of literature to be added as well.

>king leopold's ghost
history of the belgian rape of the congo
>machete season
interviews with the genocidaires of rwanda, interspersed with survivor testimony
>imperial reckoning
the suppression of the revolts in kenya against the british
>the nazi doctors
a step by step explanation of how doctors were convinced to abandon the hippocratic oath under the nazis, touches on mengele, etc

that's just off the top of my head, user.

So can someone fill me in on what's up with this? Is it just a meme?

Remember to lurk for two years before posting.

It's someone trying to make people read their book by spamming it everywhere. Don't pay attention to it.

bump

Ah, so you are one of those people who thinks that nonfiction isn't literature? Got it, I now know I'm speaking with an idiot.

Then be more selective but with a broader scope. Stop using such vague tags as "dark" and "disturbing" when the original list was all about transgressive literature (despite its title of "dark and disturbing"). Seriously, I can't fathom how you people think fiction and nonfiction are so distinct that you can't include both in one chart, especially one about transgressive literature. If you really can't be more selective, then stop trying to include every book any user suggests. I understand you are trying to open the threads for discussion, and that's great, but it doesn't help with the matter of selection and building of a chart.

You obviously haven't noticed that Maldoror, A Modest Proposal and Selfish, Little are all nonfiction books but were still included in the original list. If you think only history books about the Holocaust and such fit the bill for dark and disturbing literature, then you are thinking too narrowly.

mad because the janitor pruned your stupid posts, aren't you.
>there's no difference between fiction and nonfiction
fiction is limited only by the power of imagination, and can depict demons, whereas nonfiction is limited by facts. they are totally different, especially when it comes to genuinely disturbing reading. nonfiction is horrifying because it's true. fiction is horrifying for very different reasons. I went to the trouble of listing some nonfiction for you so you could start a thread on /his/, tailored specifically to the interests of someone who loves reading about the genuinely dark and disturbing. you have nothing to complain about. leave.

maldoror is poetry, a modest proposal is satire, and "selfish, little" appears to be a semifictional confessional novel of a sadistic character, not a work of gonzo journalism? I haven't actually read "selfish, little", so I'll have to defer to someone who has

You are confusing me for someone else. Don't project your own anxieties unto me.

Where did I say that there weren't any differences between fiction and nonfiction? Are you suggesting that we cannot talk about essays and poetry in Yea Forums because they aren't "fiction"? Or that those genres cannot be "dark and disturbing" because they are "limited by facts"? I suggest you stop talking about topics you clearly know nothing about instead of embarrassing yourself here.

>listing some nonfiction for you
Where? Are you alright, user? You may be hallucinating. Or perhaps you are just plain dumb. In any case, if OP insists on not including other genres other than narrative (because in the end you have no final say on the making of the chart), then he should just name the chart "Dark and disturbing fiction" and finally settle the scope of the chart.

>poetry
Not fiction
>Satire
A satirical essay. Not fiction.
>semifictional confessional novel
A blend of genres including the lyrical essay and some gonzo journalism too. Not entirely fictional.
My point is that the original chart included more works outside the realm of fiction, so it doesn't make much sense to exclude them on the grounds that "uuuuh they are like, nonfiction? read about war cuz it totally happened my dude xddd".

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You're missing out on some juicy reading about torture methods in detainment camps, user. There is also nothing to stop you from proposing that a work of journalism or nonfiction be entered on its literary merits. Other people, naturally, reserve the right to disagree with you.

I would actually pay money for this version with foreword and bio in the beginning.

Gotta say, OP, I admire your dedication to this.
So I'm wondering is this new chart gonna be the same layout, look similar, or be redesigned?

Just stick to long poems and novels, we will be here all day with decide to add non fiction.

I don’t really think Ligotti belongs in this list. While he’s dark, the rest of this list is more ‘transgressive lit’ than just all sorts of dark and disturbing, and Ligotti just doesn’t have the kind of explicit violence and sex that defines all the other books on the list. I’d say he’s a bit too subtle for this list in particular.

Is there any stories in particular you’d argue for? The closest I can think of is The Frolic, but it doesn’t lean into the pedophillia like a lot of other books here.

I read Last Exit to Brooklyn recently, and I'm torn about keeping it on the list. Its essentially a blunt look at the lives of a collection of Brooklynites partly based on the authors experience living in Brooklyn. Overall its not massively disturbing, however there are two to three sections which are severe enough that could mean it deserves inclusion. These sections deal with gang rape, violence, and domestic abuse by a closeted homosexual. The last chapter is also somewhat disturbing in the bleakness of some of the lives it describes. On balance I'd say it should be there, but I'm open to hearing other opinions.

anyone got a link to this?

Dark can mean a lot of things though and isn't very descriptive on its own.
I found stuff that Lovecraft wrote pretty dark at times, as well as some other books that might not directly fit into a 'dark' description like 1984 or the ending of roadside picknick.

First of all, thank you! I honestly have no clue where I suddenly got the ambition to make a new chart, but so far it's not going too badly.
It's most likely going to be redesigned. I'll also have to find a way to make a nice chart, since I have no idea myself how to make one. Can anyone help me out with this?

I'm actually surprised no one has talked about this before you, I'd expect more people to have read either Last Exit to Brooklyn or Requiem for a Dream, but I guess it's not as popular.
Either way, the book doesn't have to be extreme to be included, as long as it's still very dark. I'll make it orange for now, and would like to hear more people as well.

Girl Next Door still not in the "to be added" list

I didn't add it to the 'to be added' list because it's already on the old chart, where I made it green (meaning the same thing, that it's going to be added).

imagine calling someone an idiot and then writing this. how have you not killed yourself out of shame?

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Key:
Green - Books that stay
Blue - Books being replaced by another by the same author
Orange - Books on which it's undecided
Red - Books that will be removed
Nothing - This book has not been talked about, so I have almost no information on it

Some people have said that Lolita should not be on the list, and since I myself am the only one voting in favour of it, I'll remove it.

People have talked about adding both Blood Meridian and Child of God. What is your opinion on this? Does adding both add enough variety to warrant McCarthy having two books on the chart? Are they different enough?

Should Last Exit to Brooklyn stay?

I would like all books on the list to be at least slightly available to people who want to read them, and I have a problem with Selfish, Little: I cannot find a digital copy anywhere, and physically it's basically unavailable. Would it be a good choice to change it to Proxy (a collection of Tool, Index, Special, Lazy, and Tick, all of which I have a link to)? I also have the links to Pure 1-3, but I've heard his first work isn't as good as his later.

These are the current standings. Still a lot of books that are undecided, but we have 42 confirmed books (although some can be gone if enough people vote against it), 7 books on the list that haven't been talked about, and 16 books recommended by a single person.

>Books that are going to be added:
Shakespeare - Macbeth
Marquis de Sade - 120 Days of Sodom
Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian
Sarah Kane - Cleansed
William S Burroughs - Naked Lunch
Poppy Z Brite - Exquisite Corpse
Chuck Palahniuk - Haunted
Evan Connel - Diary of a Rapist
Gabrielle Wittkop - Necrophiliac
Pier Paolo Pasolini - Petrolio
Mo Hayder - Pig Island
Artaud - Heliogabalus
John Ridley - The Drift
Leon Bloy - Sweating Blood
Agota Kristof - The Notebook Trilogy
Edgar Hillsenrath - The Nazi and the Barber

>Books on the list no one has talked about (in depth): should they stay or do they have to go, and why?
Louis Aragon - Irene's Cunt
Hubert Selby Jr. - Last Exit to Brooklyn
Elfirede Jelinek - The Piano Teacher
Slavenka Draculic - The Taste of a Man
J T LeRoy - The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things
Joyce Carol Oates - Rape: A Love Story
Natsuo Kirino - Grotesque

>Books that are recommended to be added to the list, but only by one person: should they be added, or not, and why?
Kathy Acker - Blood and Guts in High School
John Hawkes - Second Skin / The Lime Twig
Joseph Heller - Something Happened
Sorokin - The Day of Oprichnik
Jachym Topol - The Devil's Workshop
Nikanor Teratologen - Assisted Living
Kenzaburo Oe - Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness
Charles Maclean - The Watcher
Steven Barber - Caligula: Divine Carnage
Frederick Exley - A Fan's Notes
Andrea Dworkin - Mercy
Kate Millet - The Basement
Blaise Cendrars - Moravagine
Dennis Cooper - The Sluts [to replace Frisk]
George Bernanos - Mouchette

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I'm bad at both speaking and English, so forgive me.
It's a relatively short poem in prose, full of surreal imagery. When you read it, it feels like you are having a fever dream. It's quite dark and disturbing, so I guess it would be at it's place in this chart. Here are a few passages:

>I summoned executioners to bite their gun-butts as I died. I summoned plagues, to stifle myself with sand and blood. Misfortune was my god. I stretched out in the mud. I dried myself in the breezes of crime. And I played some fine tricks on madness. And spring brought me the dreadful laugh of the idiot.

>I have swallowed a famous gulp of poison – Thrice blessed be the thought that came to me! – My guts are burning. The venom’s violence wracks my limbs; deforms me, fells me. I’m dying of thirst; I’m stifling, unable to cry out. It’s hell, the everlasting torment! See how the flames rise up! I’m burning in the proper manner. Well then, demon!

>From the same desert, in the same night, always my weary eyes wake to the star of silver, always, without troubling the Kings of life, the three mages, heart, soul, and mind. When shall we go beyond the shores and mountains, to hail the birth of fresh toil; fresh wisdom, the rout of tyrants and demons, the end of superstition, to adore – as newcomers – Christmas on earth!

>Autumn. Our ship towering in the motionless fog turns towards the port of poverty, the enormous city with a sky that’s flecked with fire and mud. Ah! The rotting rags; the bread soaked with rain, the drunkenness, the thousand loves that have crucified me! She’ll never have done then, this ghoulish queen of millions of souls and corpses who will be judged! I see my skin ravaged again by mud and pestilence, worms filling my hair and my armpits, and bigger worms in my heart, stretched out among ageless unknowns, without feeling...I might have died there...

Don't worry, and I'll definitely add it to the 'one person' list!

i’m seconding Mouchette

Thank you, I'l add it!

Here's a better .pdf of Tomb for 500.000 soldiers:
docdroid.net/dyliYr6/tomb-for-500000-soldiers.pdf

That's a good scan, thanks!

"Frisk" is a must, by far the best work of Dennis Cooper.

Another user has suggested The Sluts to replace Frisk, but you think Frisk should definitely be the one to be featured on the list, right? Then I'll remove The Sluts from the 'one person' list.

Cool. I really enjoyed The Sluts but if Frisk is better I'll read that too

Bump

Has anyone read I will spit on your graves by Boris Vian / Vernon Sullivan? I found it really good and disturbing enough but I don't wanna add another book to the 'one person talked about it' list. Just wondering. The protagonist is a black guy with white skin (so he's black legally speaking, because of one of his ancestors), and his brother got killed because he was black, so the guy (who has the strength and big dick of a true black man) takes advantage of his light skin to gain confidence from white people, then rape and kill them. It features violence and sex scenes involving children, but the reason why it's still disturbing today is probably because you're made to sympathize with a black man killing whiteys. Obviously the novel first drew attention because of its shock value and also because people would wonder who the actual author was (Vian was famous but he claimed to have only translated the book). Anyway, just wondering, let's not add it to any list, does anyone else enjoyed it?

I may start reading Jelinek or Cendrars, you're doing a good job op and collecting several opinions will make the chart trustworthy.

Thank you! I'm trying my best to create a chart that as many people agree with, and one that is as complete as possible. If you've read either of those, let me know what you think of it!
I'm planning on keeping this (and future threads) alive until I have enough information, and there are still too many question marks right now.

I think Rape: A Love Story by Joyce Carol Oates should be replaced with Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates.

Another person in the previous thread has mentioned Zombie, but didn't say much about it. Can you tell more about it? I'll probably replace it, but I'd like to know why.

Has nobody argued against Macbeth yet? I get that you want a bit of Bard action in there, but that shit is mostly hilarious fun. All this lol I was a caesarian and gloopy blood everywhere stuff is the oldschool theatrical equivalent of a slasher flick, not actual darkness.

I asked this in the previous thread:
"Talking about Shakespeare, we are discussing that because Titus Andronicus was on the first chart. If we ignore that, do we feel like either Titus or Macbeth should be on this list, compared to the other works on here? Rather than looking at 'what is Shakespeare's most disturbing work', 'is Shakespeare's work dark/disturbing enough to be on this list?'"
I got one reply saying that we should have Macbeth if there is an obligatory Shakespeare-spot, but nothing else. I've asked a number of times, since I'm having doubts about it myself as well, so if you say that it should go then I completely agree with you, and remove it.

The fuck are you talking about, mate. I'm the dude that argued for it, and I think Macbeth was the original psychological horror. I don't know what gimmicky shit your high school did but have you ever actually seen a professional performance of it? It's not 'hilarious fun'. Maybe Titus is.

yeah this

I will keep Macbeth on the list, then. If more people disagree with it I will remove it, but for now it's a pretty solid stay if two people are in favour of it. If there are more arguments for or against it, please say so!

bump

Key:
Green - Books that stay
Blue - Books being replaced by another by the same author
Orange - Books on which it's undecided
Red - Books that will be removed
Nothing - This book has not been talked about, so I have almost no information on it

Should Last Exit to Brooklyn stay?

I would like all books on the list to be at least slightly available to people who want to read them, and I have a problem with Selfish, Little: I cannot find a digital copy anywhere, and physically it's basically unavailable. Would it be a good choice to change it to Proxy (a collection of Tool, Index, Special, Lazy, and Tick, all of which I have a link to)? I also have the links to Pure 1-3, but I've heard his first work isn't as good as his later.

I also don't know how to make a chart. Can someone help me with this?

>Books that are going to be added:
[replacements]
Shakespeare - Macbeth
Marquis de Sade - 120 Days of Sodom
Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian
Sarah Kane - Cleansed
Joyce Carol Oates - Zombie
[new entries]
William S Burroughs - Naked Lunch
Poppy Z Brite - Exquisite Corpse
Chuck Palahniuk - Haunted
Evan Connel - Diary of a Rapist
Gabrielle Wittkop - Necrophiliac
Pier Paolo Pasolini - Petrolio
Mo Hayder - Pig Island
Artaud - Heliogabalus
John Ridley - The Drift
Leon Bloy - Sweating Blood
Agota Kristof - The Notebook Trilogy
Edgar Hillsenrath - The Nazi and the Barber
George Bernanos - Mouchette

>Books on the list no one has talked about (in depth): should they stay or do they have to go, and why?
Louis Aragon - Irene's Cunt
Hubert Selby Jr. - Last Exit to Brooklyn
Elfirede Jelinek - The Piano Teacher
Slavenka Draculic - The Taste of a Man
J T LeRoy - The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things
Natsuo Kirino - Grotesque

>Books that are recommended to be added to the list, but only by one person: should they be added, or not, and why?
Kathy Acker - Blood and Guts in High School
John Hawkes - Second Skin / The Lime Twig
Joseph Heller - Something Happened
Sorokin - The Day of Oprichnik
Jachym Topol - The Devil's Workshop
Nikanor Teratologen - Assisted Living
Kenzaburo Oe - Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness
Charles Maclean - The Watcher
Steven Barber - Caligula: Divine Carnage
Frederick Exley - A Fan's Notes
Andrea Dworkin - Mercy
Kate Millet - The Basement
Blaise Cendrars - Moravagine
Arthur Rimbaud - A Season in Hell

Attached: Chart Improvements 10.png (1000x4019, 3.37M)

>This is a Dark and disturbing literature chart not a Sissy everyday adventures chart
>:O

Bump

reading Moravagine right now, I find it a little tedious but I guess the best parts are yet to come

a lot of anons know about Sorokin, Kenzaburo Oe, John Hawkes, Joseph Heller... even A Season in Hell which is short enough. Share your opinions anons

Let me know if you think it should be on the list when you finish it!

Not many people are replying, and there are still a lot of books I need to have more opinions on. If you're reading this and have read one of the books on the list, let me know what you think!

I've seen it performed various ways, and of course that includes actors who want to show their credentials by giving the most hand-wringing performance of the guilt-related speeches possible and directors who desperately try to give e.g. the witches or everything MacDuff-related gravitas. But I think that comes more from the Shakespeare-as-serious-business pretensions of pro actors than from the text itself, which is ludicrous and enjoyable.

Hey everyone! After messing around with Word and Paint to see if I could make a chart, I managed to make a draft of the current standings!

I tried to use an easy to read font, and to use covers that are the most popular/in use right now, so it will match with what you will find in stores.

Please let me know what you think so far, any commentary is appreciated!

Attached: Dark and Disturbing Literature Chart.jpg (2220x2052, 1.17M)

>irene's cunt

Grimhaven by Charles Willeford, the grimmest novel I've ever read.

I say Titus over Macbeth

Can you tell a bit about it?

Why do you prefer Titus Andronicus?

Grimhaven is an unpublished novel in a series of 5 books about a detective called Hoke Moseley. Whilst he's a good detective, life keeps throwing him lemons. He struggles through in the 5 published novels. Grimhaven was the second one Willeford wrote and his publisher sent it back saying, No, we just can't publish this book.

This is an online review: - I've had a copy of Charles Willeford's unpublished novel Grimhaven for a while now, but I just got around to reading it recently. It is, without a doubt, one of the biggest Fuck You's that anyone has ever committed to print. It's easy to see why it never made it into proper circulation, and that is a shame. Aside from The Burnt Orange Heresy, it's probably Willeford's most harrowing work, and it has what can only be described as the most twisted happy endings in the history of literature.

I've yet to read The Burnt Orange Heresy but the previous grimmest book I'd ever read was also by Willeford, Cockfighter. The sequence where he tests a rooster from the same clutch of roosters to see if the rest will be game will remain with me forever, and not in a good way.

I've been looking at it myself, and it looks like the book is practically unavailable. If I'm going to put a book on the list, I want people to be able to read it, and it seems like that is a big problem. Also, I'd like to know why it's dark/disturbing enough, because I could not find any details on if and how it's a disturbing book.

I also somehow forgot to add Sotos to the draft chart, so I'm going to add Proxy, since there are pdf's available of that one.

What is the best dark/disturbing book? Loved Blood Meridian, liked Cows but found the prose pretty average, wasp factory was good, really enjoyed american psycho and in the miso soup was ok, on par with cows

I think it depends on what quality you want to rate. best written, darkest (which is a vague concept), most disturbing (which depends on who is reading it)?

best written

My guess would be one of the books that is praised a lot and also on this list, e.g. American Psycho, Blood Meridian, Death on the Installment Plan, or The Tunnel. This is just a guess, since I haven't read any of these books yet, but from the comments about these books which I have received in the past 2 weeks those books were praised the most (even though there were also a number of people who found American Psycho to be too long and/or boring).

i would say quite a lot of the old testament is dark and disturbing. (i'm not disparaging/fedora tipping, i liked those parts)

also, some HP Lovecraft maybe?

Add unica zurn's dark spring.

This. Completely fucked book.

But is it disturbing enough for this list?

No straight horror, see the top post.

Can you tell me more, and explain how it is dark/disturbing?

Slightly edited the draft chart, with the current standings:

>Books on the list no one has talked about (in depth): should they stay or do they have to go, and why?
Louis Aragon - Irene's Cunt
Hubert Selby Jr. - Last Exit to Brooklyn
Elfirede Jelinek - The Piano Teacher
Slavenka Draculic - The Taste of a Man
J T LeRoy - The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things
Natsuo Kirino - Grotesque

>Books that are recommended to be added to the list, but only by one person: should they be added, or not, and why?
Kathy Acker - Blood and Guts in High School
John Hawkes - Second Skin / The Lime Twig
Joseph Heller - Something Happened
Sorokin - The Day of Oprichnik
Jachym Topol - The Devil's Workshop
Nikanor Teratologen - Assisted Living
Kenzaburo Oe - Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness
Charles Maclean - The Watcher
Steven Barber - Caligula: Divine Carnage
Frederick Exley - A Fan's Notes
Andrea Dworkin - Mercy
Kate Millet - The Basement
Blaise Cendrars - Moravagine
Arthur Rimbaud - A Season in Hell

Attached: Dark and Disturbing Literature Chart.jpg (2220x2052, 1.18M)

Then you're reading it wrong.

Kind of surprised no one has talked about Last Exit to Brooklyn since Selby is quite an influential figure in transgressive fiction. It's divided into a handful of vignettes focused on people on the fringes of New York's lower classes - transvestites, prostitutes, union strikers nearing the end of their tether, and portrays emotional and physical cruelty in a brutal and matter of fact manner. There's certain parts that could definitely still be upsetting and/or shocking and it's also a document of how fucked up New York could be back in the day.

That said, I think his second novel, The Room, basically goes beyond the pale and is far more disturbing.

Do you have a pdf or something? It's not on Libgen or bookz and the books is mad expensive.

also do people really find Death on the Installment Plan disturbing? I'm not trying to be edgy or anything, but it's legitimately the funniest book I've ever read. I was fucking cracking up reading it roughly from the point in which it transitions to Ferdinand's childhood all the way to the end.

Chart should look darker for the theme and maybe be arranged by some order. The last one was chronologically arranged.

Someone in the previous thread was also talking about that, I'll add The Room to replace Last Exit to Brooklyn.

In the last thread, someone said the exact same thing, but said that if someone can make such bleak situations hilarious, it should stay on the list. I myself have some question marks with Céline's work on this list. I've only read Journey to the End of the Night, did you find Death on the Installment Plan disturbing? Because if it's about the same as Journey, I'm inclined to remove it.

Thanks for the feedback! I was thinking of not making it black, to make it stand out from the previous list, what do you guys think?
And what should it be sorted by? I did the draft randomly on purpose, so it wouldn't annoy me if I needed to add one more book or something.
Should I also add markers? Like 'rape, torture, pedophilia', etc? Or something like grading from mild to extreme?

>Should I also add markers?
It would be cool but maybe a pain in the ass unless someone here has read every book and can fairly decide which disturbing aspect is most predominant or which book is more 'extreme'. I liked the chronological idea, but then you'd be imitating. Only other thing I can think of is by author names.

You're right, you'd have to compare every book on the chart and that's way too much work.
No matter which order it's going to be, it'll be purely for aesthetics either way.

Bump, I would like more input on the draft chart and the book choices!

You do realize that exquisite corpse counts as horror writer. I would honestly just combine the old and new list, and remove the horror novels.

>You do realize that exquisite corpse counts as horror writer

i had a brain fart. I meant to say horror novel.

I didn't know that it was straight horror.

not that user and haven't read titus yet, but I don't think Macbeth should be on the list from what another user ( ) called it as psychological horror. Some of the acts do have some unsettling parts "out damn spot","lady Macbeth is dead", the sword ghost? for light examples but these don't come across as very disturbing compared to other books in the chart. The whole play comes across as too much of "will we get caught? do they know? were they right?" The only other work to compare Macbeth to would be Julius Caesar in terms of regret. Thats my brainlet take on the titus macbeth argument. These have been the best threads on lit for a while.

Key:
Green - Books that stay
Blue - Books being replaced by another by the same author
Orange - Books on which it's undecided
Red - Books that will be removed
Nothing - This book has not been talked about, so I have almost no information on it

Hey, as far as I know only one person recommended it, and I've seen someone else talk about it in the thread where the original chart was made.Other than that, no one has mentioned it, but I will definitely remove it if no one has objections. (Unless it is particularly disturbing in such a way that it HAS to be on the list or something like that.)

After hearing so many discussions about Shakespeare, and going back and forth between 'it might be good enough for this list' and 'it should not be on here', I'm now deciding to remove any Shakespeare play from this list. They might be the first ones, they might be dark, but they are nowhere near as dark as other works on this chart.
(And thank you!)

Question: should Death on the Install Plan stay? I'm inclined to remove it, since it is dark but not really disturbing.

>Books that are going to be added:
[replacements]
Marquis de Sade - 120 Days of Sodom
Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian
Sarah Kane - Cleansed
Joyce Carol Oates - Zombie
Hubert Selby Jr. - The Room
[new entries]
William S Burroughs - Naked Lunch
Chuck Palahniuk - Haunted
Evan Connel - Diary of a Rapist
Gabrielle Wittkop - Necrophiliac
Pier Paolo Pasolini - Petrolio
Mo Hayder - Pig Island
Artaud - Heliogabalus
John Ridley - The Drift
Leon Bloy - Sweating Blood
Agota Kristof - The Notebook Trilogy
Edgar Hillsenrath - The Nazi and the Barber
George Bernanos - Mouchette

>Books on the list no one has talked about (in depth): should they stay or do they have to go, and why?
Louis Aragon - Irene's Cunt
Elfirede Jelinek - The Piano Teacher
Slavenka Draculic - The Taste of a Man
J T LeRoy - The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things
Natsuo Kirino - Grotesque

>Books that are recommended to be added to the list, but only by one person: should they be added, or not, and why?
Kathy Acker - Blood and Guts in High School
John Hawkes - Second Skin / The Lime Twig
Joseph Heller - Something Happened
Sorokin - The Day of Oprichnik
Jachym Topol - The Devil's Workshop
Nikanor Teratologen - Assisted Living
Kenzaburo Oe - Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness
Charles Maclean - The Watcher
Steven Barber - Caligula: Divine Carnage
Frederick Exley - A Fan's Notes
Andrea Dworkin - Mercy
Kate Millet - The Basement
Blaise Cendrars - Moravagine
Arthur Rimbaud - A Season in Hell

Attached: Chart Improvements 11.png (1000x4019, 3.37M)

Children of god should stay

Why do you think so? Should it replace Blood Meridian, or be there along with Blood Meridian? If you want both, what extra does CoG give to the chart that's not in BM?

This. Frisk is really disturbing. I felt genuinely exposed while reading it.

Idk I like it

Grimhaven can be found on most torrent sites. I also don't want to tell you what the kicker is in the story because of the impact it has when it happens. I had a friend read the book at my suggestion and I remember him coming to me saying, "What the fuck! Like really WHAT THE FUCK!"

I'll put it on the 'one person' list, but I'm still having question marks with this book because I basically still don't know anything about it. I understand that you don't want to give away the twist, but I'm sorry to say that you're not really convincing me. If more people agree why this should be on the list, with different reasons, I will think about adding it.

I suggest reading a few of WIlleford's books. Definitely Cockfighter, Shark Infested Custard and you could start the Hoke Moseley series with Miami Blues.

I'm not op but my fav bookseller has these: Sideswipe, The way we die now, The burnt orange heresy.
Would you rec The burnt orange heresy for instance? Or maybe these aren't a good way to into Willeford. Just wondering because I'm about to order other books from them.

What about autobiographies? The linda lovelace one is my fave and my heart races whenever i read it. It's fucking disturbing and nuts. if you don't know who she is, she was one of the biggest porn stars of the " golden age of porn" and she did the movie deep throat. years later she put this book out saying she was forced by gun point into being a hooker, making films fucking dogs and women. there is a brutal account of her being raped dildos and object at some kind of BDSM dungeon. All while under duress and against her will. Even goes into depth about the playboy mansion and some actors at the time. It doesn't matter if you believe it or not ( It seems pretty real ) it's a fucking insane read of abuse and sexual accounts. Also william bennet of whitehouse ( peter sotos companion) was very inspired by this book

Attached: 220px-Ordeal_(Linda_Lovelace_autobiography).jpg (220x329, 21K)

Folks did a google search of Charles Willeford Grimhaven mobi and found this site epdf.tips/grimhaven8e42f0a8cc329004d6fab591adb0c6f634480.html

I checked it out myself and it worked, had to read it on Internet Explorer pages (I've read it before obviously) but it's well spaced.

I can't remember reading The Burnt Orange Heresy although some reviews say that this is the grimmest book Willeford had written until Grimhaven. I find the sequence in Cockfighter where he tests a rooster for fighting moxy to be very hard to get through.

I normally would say no, because it's non-fiction. However, I have Sotos' Proxy on there, which is partially non-fiction, and I can't make a disturbing books list without Sotos in it. Ordeal sounds like one of the books I would make an exception for. I would like to know from other people what they think, since I want to make the 'best' chart I can make, and if everyone else feels like I'm cheating by adding one piece of non-fiction, I will not add it. For now it goes on the 'one person' list.

I'd be very interested in hearing your opinion of Grimhaven. It's a quick read, a slow reader can read it in less than 3 hours. A quick one in under an hour.

The link does work, it opens in Internet Explorer like you said. However, I am a very slow reader, and English is not my native language. I am probably not going to read it, to be honest with you, since I am in the middle of another book and I can't switch like that.
That said, I am also very curious about it, and if other people want to read it, I would be more than happy to listen to their verdict.

Folks, give it a go. I am a big Willeford fan and this particular book is one of his best.

I am also interested to hear what others think of it, especially ones like yourselves who enjoy shocking fiction.

I read the piano teacher definetly not on the level of disturbing as the other books. the only thing that could be really considered disturbing is the codependent relationship between the MC and her mother and the BDSM sperg out at the end. Also the author won the nobel. so dark for normie tier

Thanks for the info! I'll make it red.

Nah I think this book should be on it. I have a copy myself. Sad shit

Attached: 20190420_161209.jpg (2576x1932, 1.43M)

Most pages have a decent excerpt to show

Attached: 20190420_161444.jpg (2576x1932, 1.88M)

That's great to hear! I'm really glad to be able to put this on the chart.

Here's her husband threatening her with donkey rape

Attached: 20190420_162248.jpg (2576x1932, 1.77M)

wtf

bump

>Short update of today:
I removed both Macbeth (Shakespeare is off the list) and Exquisite Corpse (is straight horror), and added Linda Lovelace - Ordeal.
The Piano Teacher is now red (not disturbing enough), so that one won't be added either.

My most important question right now is: should Death on the Installment Plan stay? Is it disturbing enough in comparison to the other books to be on the chart? I'm having some doubts about it myself.

Also, check out the big post I made a little up with the current standings, I still have a lot of books that only have one recommendation, and some books on the old chart that need to be discussed.
Thank you for all your comments/opinions/experiences with disturbing books, I hope you're enjoying this thread as much as I do!

Seconding Rimbaud
He was truly a disturbed and depressed individual. A Season in Hell is a poetic recount of his experiences as a poet and human.
Also add Les Chants de Maldoror

Maldoror is already confirmed in the original chart, but I will add A Season in Hell!

nice

Attached: 55H4VL0092.png (653x840, 1.32M)

DARK SPRING is an autobiographical coming-of-age novel that reads more like an exorcism than a memoir. In it author Unica Zurn traces the roots to her obsessions: the exotic father she idealized, the impure mother she detested, the masochistic fantasies and onanistic rituals which she said described the erotic life of a little girl based on my own childhood. The book was written months before her suicide which is eerily close to the suicide of the little girl in the book.

sounds like confessions of a mask by yukio mishima

Thanks for the explanation, I'll put it on the 'one person' list!

How is Death on the Installment Plan? I just finished Celine's first book (Journey to the End of Night) and thought it was incredible. Are they similar to each other?

Also Bastard out of Carolina seemed pretty weak when I read it.

Just started reading ordeal after seeing it in this thread and its definitely disturbing enough to be on here

Why even read this shitty lit? It's only known because it's shocking, without any talent.

I read Journey as well, did you not find the second half of the book a lot less impressive than the first?
What did you find weak about Bastard Out of Carolina?

Thanks for the info, is it difficult to get through? Is it more intense because you know it's non-fiction?

This is me, by the way.

Key:
Green - Books that stay
Blue - Books being replaced by another by the same author
Orange - Books on which it's undecided
Red - Books that will be removed
Nothing - This book has not been talked about, so I have almost no information on it

>Important:
Death on the Installment Plan, should it stay or not?

>Books that are going to be added:
[replacements]
Marquis de Sade - 120 Days of Sodom
Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian
Sarah Kane - Cleansed
Joyce Carol Oates - Zombie
Hubert Selby Jr. - The Room

[new entries]
William S Burroughs - Naked Lunch
Chuck Palahniuk - Haunted
Evan Connel - Diary of a Rapist
Gabrielle Wittkop - Necrophiliac
Pier Paolo Pasolini - Petrolio
Mo Hayder - Pig Island
Artaud - Heliogabalus
John Ridley - The Drift
Leon Bloy - Sweating Blood
Agota Kristof - The Notebook Trilogy
Edgar Hillsenrath - The Nazi and the Barber
George Bernanos - Mouchette
Linda Lovelace - Ordeal
Arthur Rimbaud - A Season in Hell

>Books on the list no one has talked about (in depth): should they stay or do they have to go, and why?
Louis Aragon - Irene's Cunt
Slavenka Draculic - The Taste of a Man
J T LeRoy - The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things
Natsuo Kirino - Grotesque

>Books that are recommended to be added to the list, but only by one person: should they be added, or not, and why?
Kathy Acker - Blood and Guts in High School
John Hawkes - Second Skin / The Lime Twig
Joseph Heller - Something Happened
Sorokin - The Day of Oprichnik
Jachym Topol - The Devil's Workshop
Nikanor Teratologen - Assisted Living
Kenzaburo Oe - Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness
Charles Maclean - The Watcher
Steven Barber - Caligula: Divine Carnage
Frederick Exley - A Fan's Notes
Andrea Dworkin - Mercy
Kate Millet - The Basement
Blaise Cendrars - Moravagine
Charles Willeford - Grimhaven
Unica Zürn - Dark Spring

Attached: Chart Improvements 12.png (1000x4019, 3.36M)

I just finished reading Moravagine. I can't say it's bad (the prose is beautiful and it's original enough) - but I was severely disappointed, both because nothing happens (ok this is debatable) and because it isn't dark or disturbing. I like the beginning which has a few interesting pages about life (life being sickness, health being death), and which reminded me of Bataille or Sade. Then the story kicks in and it's 200 pages of nothing. I know there are anons who love it, though. I wish this novel was actually discussed, not only recommended from time to time.

Thanks for the update! Too bad you didn't like it. I will remove it from the 'one person' list. Which books from the chart (or new additions) did you read and enjoy, and why?

Attached: bas penguin classic.jpg (780x1193, 208K)

not real tbqh

bump

it definitely felt intense because it was non-fiction but it wasnt too difficult to get through. at times I did feel like she couldve done something to escape earlier but ive never been through what she has so im probably not qualified to say that

I'm glad I convinced people to read it! I found it excellent and disturbing. Speaking of I own a few of these books. This is an OG copy of atrocity exhibition. Also I don't think naked lunch should be on the list. Not that disturbing

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The only reactions to Naked Lunch which I've had so far were ambiguous towards it belonging on the list, so I'm going to remove it.
Also, nice collection! I myself only have The Wasp Factory and Maldoror (and Lolita if that counts), but then again I've only recently started to read books like this after exploring some horror novels.
Do you agree with the other inclusions so far? Someone else said that Bastard Out of Carolina was 'pretty weak', do you dis/agree with that?

As much as I enjoy DeSade, I find it hard to call Justine 'dark and disturbing'. 120 Days, sure - but the entire time I read Justine, it felt much more like a very black comedy. Even putting aside the more handwavey elements (like the amount of times her body is utterly wrecked or damaged, how many things she has shoved inside or whatnot, and still ends up being tight/healthy enough for things to get hurt again). but even the various evil characters and their over-the-top actions (like the towns people who try to get Justine killed because they blamed her for the death of a child she had no hand in), and just how she Lucille Ball's her way into shitty situations - it's funny. The ending too, the way it's worded, and what happens. The whole thing is funny.

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Crash from JG ballard should be on there instead. Bastard out of Carolina is just a case of child sexual abuse and dealing with being a bastard child in the south. It's very pretty and well written but idk about being THAT disturbing. Geek love is deffinelty deserving, pretty surreal too. 120 days should be on there.Has anyone read audition? I would imagine thats pretty disturbing.

Why do you prefer that over The Atrocity Exhibition? Someone in the previous thread also preferred Crash, but didn't explain.

going to read bastard out of carolina next, thanks for recommending ordeal if you're that user, I just finished it and it was an interesting read, felt really bad for her and the dog scenes were especially hard to read, I cant believe that people actually go through that shit - definitely worth putting on the list, felt more disturbing than cows considering its real

atrocity exhibition is very surreal and experimental. A great read but crash is deffinelty more disturbing in its content. it's about the very real fetish of people getting off and fucking during car crashes.
yes I am that user. I'm glad you read it, yea it's pretty insane. I'm kinda addicted to reading vintage smut and adult film actors biographies and man is there some shit

any more like it to recommend?

Thanks, I will change Atrocity to Crash! Also, have you read any Sotos?

Naked Lunch should stay. Midwits think that is only shock value, ignoring the subtle critic againts power structures, described as monstruous and apathetic towards humanity.
Just read the Benway chapter and you'll find out a very lucid description of the use of drugs by the goverment to interrogate and supress the wil. The book it's full of stuff like this and more, but sometimes it´s not easy to grasp.

Interesting, I will keep it on the list for now with a question mark, treating it as a 'maybe' alongside Death on the Installment Plan.

>tbqh
prove it

get rid of the non- fiction and add it to a future non fiction Dark/Disturbing chart.

I just finished reading Grimhaven. It's a good book, though not especially dark or disturbing. It starts quite laid-back and, dare I say, comfy, then it kicks you in the balls, then it continues moving at a relaxed pace till the end. I can relate a lot to Hoke and his desire for a simple, quiet existence I once happened to live for half a year on ~$25/month. Overall, it was a great read and I highly recommend it, but I'm not sure it would fit into this chart - it's too slice-of-life'ish, one step from being iyashikei.
I would totally watch anime about a poor cute former detective doing cute things with his cute daughters.

no

I don't think there's any other book about which I can help. I could push to add 'I will spit on your graves' but then you'd have an unending series of new books that only one person recommends or has even read. I'm also skeptical regarding 'A season in hell' since the 'poetry' status of a work always makes it less disturbing imho. But it's not like a 'perfect' chart could be made anyway.
I haven't read it but my disappointment regarding Moravagine made me feel the same. Who would have thought that every user has their own feelings about what is 'disturbing'? Hell, we should all be used to watching disgusting movie clips and reading insane stuff. Sometimes I just don't understand at all how some people's minds work.

I appreciate you coming back with your thoughts on Grimhaven. The kick in the balls is very dark, and I found it very disturbing but I appreciate your view, it takes different things to disturb different people. If you enjoyed that try Cockfighter or Shark Infested Custard. He was an incredibly good author.

assisted living by teratologen has been mentioned, i support that choice on having it on the list, such a disgusting book, but yet so funny. a great read!

just saw the new joker movie. pretty twisted stuff

"The Marquis de Sade is alive and well and living in Sweden--or perhaps author Nikanor Teratologen is the devil himself, sending the English-speaking world a Scandinavian squib to remind readers that such reassuring figures as vampires and serial killers are no more frightening than pixies or unicorns in light of the depravity contained in one quiet suburb. Reading like a deranged hybrid of Deliverance, Naked Lunch, and Tuesdays with Morrie, and rivaling The 120 Days of Sodom in its challenge to our assumptions as to what is acceptable (or not) in literature, Assisted Living presents us with a series of queasy anecdotes concerning an eleven-year-old boy and his grandfather, a monster for whom murder, violence, incest, drunkenness, and philosophy all pass as equally valid ways to spend one's time. Whether it's a study in excess, a parody of provincial proto-fascism, a clear-eyed look at evil, or simply a prodigious literary dare, Assisted Living is unlikely to leave you indifferent."

These two books (Sotos and Lovelace) are exceptions, and I am not going to argue them being there or not.
I am also not going to make a non-fiction Dark/Disturbing chart: if other people want to make one that's more than fine, but this chart alone (for which I had an old version to work with) is taking me over 2 weeks now.

Thanks a lot for reading it, and for the explanation! I will remove it from the 'one person' list. I understand what disturbs people is subjective, and I'm glad that two people enjoy his work now, but it's not for this chart. Thank you, other user (), for being super passionate about the books you love.

Are you ? Because they also suggested that book but didn't want another book to just be added to the 'one person' list. I personally don't know about A Season in Hell, but I'll let it stay for now and hope there will be other people talk about it. I can always change the chart, even long after making one. I'm sure more people are going to read books from this chart when it's finished and distributed; even now people are already reading some of the new suggestions!
Other than that, I was just curious about which other books you've read, even if they were already confirmed.

I will add Assisted Living! I have a question about the humour: previously, both in a different way with Death on the Installment Plan and with Ass Goblins of Auschwitz, humour can lessen the intensity of the contents of the book. How is that for Assisted Living?

Everyone knows about Süskind's Perfume, but I still think it's worth adding.

I actually don't, can you tell a bit more about it and why it should be on the list?

It's a deliciously written story of a maniac perfumer who uses freshly murdered girls to make perfumes, set in wondrously grimdark 18th-century Paris.

I will put it on the 'one person' list! Is it disturbing enough, you think? I'm just asking, since I myself wanted to put Lolita on the chart, but many people argued against it for a) already being very well known, and b) not being that disturbing in comparison to other works on the chart.

Oh, I forgot to ask: is it straight/classic horror? Because your description sounds like it could be, and I opt not to add straight horror works to this chart since there already are enough charts for that.

It's sickeningly disturbing. And no, l wouldn't consider it to be a horror story at all. It's a rather sympathetic chronicle of a misanthropic psychopath gifted/cursed with a superhuman sense of smell.
Hell, I thought it wasn't on the chart because of it's popularity (checking the wiki, the novel has been a source of inspiration for such guys as Nirvana, Rammstein and Marilyn Manson), but if even you didn't know about it, Perfume definitely should be added.

Thanks, that's good to know! And I've just checked the previous thread and I'm surprised that no one has mentioned it, so thanks for suggesting!

Here's the daily update with the current standings:

Key:
Green - Books that stay
Blue - Books being replaced by another by the same author
Orange - Books on which it's undecided
Red - Books that will be removed
Nothing - This book has not been talked about, so I have almost no information on it

>Important:
Death on the Installment Plan, should it stay or not?

>Books that are going to be added:
[replacements]
Marquis de Sade - 120 Days of Sodom
Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian
Sarah Kane - Cleansed
Joyce Carol Oates - Zombie
Hubert Selby Jr. - The Room
J.G. Ballard - Crash

[new entries]
William S. Burroughs
Chuck Palahniuk - Haunted
Evan Connel - Diary of a Rapist
Gabrielle Wittkop - Necrophiliac
Pier Paolo Pasolini - Petrolio
Mo Hayder - Pig Island
Artaud - Heliogabalus
John Ridley - The Drift
Leon Bloy - Sweating Blood
Agota Kristof - The Notebook Trilogy
Edgar Hillsenrath - The Nazi and the Barber
George Bernanos - Mouchette
Linda Lovelace - Ordeal
Arthur Rimbaud - A Season in Hell
Nikanor Teratologen - Assisted Living

>Books on the list no one has talked about (in depth): should they stay or do they have to go, and why?
Louis Aragon - Irene's Cunt
Slavenka Draculic - The Taste of a Man
J T LeRoy - The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things
Natsuo Kirino - Grotesque

>Books that are recommended to be added to the list, but only by one person: should they be added, or not, and why?
Kathy Acker - Blood and Guts in High School
John Hawkes - Second Skin / The Lime Twig
Joseph Heller - Something Happened
Sorokin - The Day of Oprichnik
Jachym Topol - The Devil's Workshop
Kenzaburo Oe - Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness
Charles Maclean - The Watcher
Steven Barber - Caligula: Divine Carnage
Frederick Exley - A Fan's Notes
Andrea Dworkin - Mercy
Kate Millet - The Basement
Unica Zürn - Dark Spring
Patrick Süskind - Perfume

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Thanks for considering, I would definitely rate it more disturbing than Something Happened but each to their own.

I also enjoyed Perfume but again, without going into the details, Grimhaven has it over Perfume because the anti-hero in Perfume is killing girls he doesn't know, for a logical reason. I'm probably giving too much of Grimhaven away but what he does and why he does it is mindboggling

Thanks for doing this user, I like these kind of books and its nice to get all of these reccs

Can you say who you are? I'm getting confused because I replied to so many people.

No problem, it's nice to hear all this positivity!

Rape: A Love Story has somewhat disturbing contents, but Zombie, inspired by the crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer, is written from the perspective of a disturbed mind. I think it fits the theme of the list better.

Apologies, I'm the Charles Willeford fan. I've read a few books on your list, and a lot of disturbing books not on your list. Grimhaven wasn't published because the publishers thought it was too grim to be popular and when I read it I agreed with them. Mind you I had already read all the Hoke Moseley books and had gotten to like the character so it was even more shocking for me to read that this was going on in his mind. Willeford actually used the premise in Grimhaven in his subsequent Hoke books but the denouement is different in Grimhaven.

Oh, thanks for letting me know. which of the books on the list have you read, and what did you think of them?

Celine should definitely stay. Yes, its not really that disturbing comparing to newer entries(though far more than typical classics, very turpistic in naturalistic way, he was a doctor after all), more depresing, nihilistic, and generally dark( though full of dark humor), but firstly its great representation of dark literature of that time, secondly, Celine is fundamental figure in history of literature that generally centers on darker side of human existence, many authors from this list were inspired by his writing, or admired him, both style and substance. Afterall he is like an archetype of grim, recluse artist, rejected by the world, that never got soft, in fact more radical and egdy and is controversial to this day, and all of this is not that superficial as in many other examples in history of literature. If we add a guy like Rimbaud, then come on, Celine is a must pick. And simply he writes great books.

All of his works would fit quite well, but Im torn apart beetwen Death, and his pamphlet, Trifles for massacre, cause in a way its more wild and disturbing than his other books, with added value of virulent antisemitism, though in a way less a novel.

Thanks for the detailed info! I understand that he is a great and celebrated writer; the problem with Céline is that Death is more depressing than disturbing, and there already is a depressing literature chart (with Death on it), so how much does it add to have it on this chart when it's not that unsettling/disturbing?
And if Rimbaud's work turns out to not fit the new chart either, then that will have to be removed too.

I've read Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, I much preferred the Border trilogy and NCFOM and The Road. I've read William S Burroughs Junkie, not particularly disturbing to me. Pahlaniuk's Haunted, I love it. If you're talking about the short story Guts, I agree, that should be on the list. I've also read Last Exit to Brooklyn, no longer on the list. It's just lifestyle choices that were shocking in the day. Read Heller and Suskind too. Catch 22 is my favourite book. I don't like to read books because I should, I read what I like. Some of those are shocking, TBC Part 1

I remember my brother being "caught" reading The Fog by James Herbert, who read the scene where school boys castrate their teacher. The headmaster phoned our mother who told him straight, I don't care what they're reading, they're reading, that's good enough Part 2

I really didn't like American Psycho because I thought it was done for shock value and I remember being a kid and thinking of these same types of tortures. Now I think of them as childish,a desire to be shocking for the sake of being shocking. Whereas when I recommend Willeford's books, they're shocking because the actions aren't there for their shock value, the shock comes because there is a logical but terribly flawed logic to the actions taken. There are other great authors of the 60s, like Richard Stark who create a reason for their characters to act in the most incredibly psycho or sociopathic manner and they take you with them, they have you understanding and empathising with their characters and that is the true mark of an artist, they put you into someone's mind and you can understand and appreciate their actions, hopefully not wanting to carry out anything similar but to empathise with the characters, no matter what they do.

Oops that last post was Part 3, forgot to add that

Is it too late to add a recommendation?
300,000,000 by Blake Butler was quite disturbing and hallucinatory. His other works I've read aren't that good and he seems like a putz but this one novel is great.

The worst translation of 120 Days possible.

The thing is how we define disturbing. If we mean that it must be torture porn, or something close, then almost all works written before WW2, or around that time, should by thrown out, as they are generally tame comparing to newer ones(likely excluding de Sade) . And I dont think this would be good decision. Various epochs, styles, writers and countries are the power of those charts. Older works contentrated more on tragedies or disturbing situations and characters, than splattering bodily fluids. The atmosphere was more important than plain violence, sex, blood and gore(not saying newer works dont take it into the account, but the proportions are different).

Celine later works are perfect example of it( Journey is somewhat different, Celine evolves and becomes more harder and edgier, also in style). He paints the world rotten and evil, bleak and devoid of any hope. And it doesnt mean that he dont picture any atrocities, he does, he shows in details everything that could generally happen to humans on the bottom of social ladder, their diseases, foul bodies, daily struggle, carnal pleasures or various vile and immoral actions... I would say just dont exaggerate in this, and dont picture something too unrealistic. Generally I would say he dont exaggerate and his pessimism is not so extreme, emotionless and wallowing, like for example Ligotti, but because od that it seems more real and relatable, and its probably why people find him exceptionally depressing and disturbing. He often laughts, dark humor and irony is present, but it only adds to it, in reality people always laugh, even in something like concentration camps( as some writers on this list will tell you) .

He is generally considered not an easy and pleasurable read( though some, like me, pervertedly love him and find utmost pleasure there) he wasnt added there without a reason in a first place, and I think he still fits well, both for the historical perspective and his influence, and because of sole quality of his work.

It is not too late at all! I will add it to the 'one person' list.

You're absolutely right: 'disturbing' is a concept both very vague and deeply personal. Understand that I definitely don't want this to just be a splatterfest chart, but it should unsettle the reader, whether it's in an extreme or a subtle way. I've also thought about Kafka's Trial: to me the entire atmosphere was very unsettling, like living in a kind of nightmare world where nothing makes sense, no matter how hard you try to understand anything, but on the other hand I've seen it featured on comedy/humour charts, which shows that not everyone finds this as disturbing as I do.

I, as the one who wants to make a new chart, have to decide for or against every book that might be featured on it, and I had to create my own rules and guidelines for it (as you can see in the first post of this thread), and even then people were asking if certain books could be on it because it was in a grey area. It's terribly hard to make certain decisions; sometimes I try to influence it a little bit (either because I think a book should be on there (Lolita, for example), or because I don't have a lot of faith in a book), but most of the time I'll have to let go and listen to what you guys have to say, and try to make a decision based on that.
Some of the challenges were Child of God versus Blood Meridian, and Titus Andronicus versus Macbeth versus neither, where there were some strong opinions on both sides, and at some point I have to step in and say 'this is going to be it', and even then I might change it if enough people are against that decision, you know?
Anyway (that was a bit of a tangent), some people were against Death on the chart, and I'll have to make a decision whether to remove it or leave it (thank god no one mentioned replacing it with another work except for you, and even then it wasn't a solid suggestion), and since I've only read Journey, I feel somewhat crippled in this argument. (It's also my most disliked novel I've read, but I do my best to remain as objective as you can be here, especially since it's not the same book as Death.) You make a well explained point, and for that I will leave it on the chart (for the contents of your point, not just your well-spokenness).

I now have 45 confirmed works that are going to be on the chart, 4 books on the previous chart that have not been discussed at all, and 15 works suggested by one person. I was hoping I could confirm or remove every single one of them, but that's clearly not going to happen. I think putting the limit to 50 books is very reasonable; I like the chart to be as diverse as possible, but if I add any more it's going to be cluttered and just too many books. Depending on how long this thread is going to go on and how many more suggestions/recommendations/requests for removal I'm going to get (it's been decreasing for a while now), I am slowly going to prepare myself towards making the actual chart.

Tiny mistake: I now have 46 confirmed books, I can't count.

Has anyone found an English translation of Complete Manual of Suicide or if there's a very similar book? Really interested in reading it

The reason it's going to be removed is because there is, as far as I know, no English translation.

how so? what is the best one then?

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Anyone read Irene's cunt? I looked at the summary and it doesn't seem disturbing at all.

I think people will appreciate this decision, of letting this book stay, hopefully, at least as much as I enjoy those charts in general, and i appreciate your work, it greatly helps our lonely board. Maybe one more thread and it will be done.

Also, why did you hated the Journey so much? I know he is very polarazing writer, so I am very curious why you are so particularly against it?

Ive been looking for one too, its a shame that there isn't a translation and I cant read jap

I'd like to know as well!

Thanks for all the kindness! We're getting close to being finished, which is really nice.
I really liked Journey when I started reading: the war part was really good, absurd, ridiculous, and hilarious. Then that section ends and then it's like I'm reading another book. The Africa part was okay, but I really disliked the blatant racism that the main character has against the 'lazy, dumb' natives. (I read more about Céline while reading the book, and it makes it more difficult for me to empathize with the main character after I read that it is basically a reflection of Céline himself.) After Africa he's just sad about his miserable life while also trying to bang as much as he can, and that was just not interesting for me at all. He keeps being extremely nihilistic about everything, even though nothing really is happening, and it just felt really edgy to me. It made sense in the war and Africa part, and I liked those sections because everything IS absolutely terrible all the time. Another thing is that the second half of the novel doesn't really have any interesting plot (I know this is subjective, but you asked me why I hated the novel), and the books ends on what feels like a really random part in the story. It didn't feel like an end, more like the writer just losing the interest in writing his journal.
I really don't like stopping in the middle of a book, so I forced myself to read through the entire thing, and it was a really disappointing read, especially since it had such a strong start. And the fact that the ending was so weak (again, in my opinion) did not bring me any satisfaction for finishing it, other than being glad I don't have to read it anymore.

I dont really want to get into long discussion, thread is likely coming to end, but I would say I had completely oposite opinions about this book. For me while the war part was really interesting, the book really took me somewhat halfway through. Though the war part is absolute classic and writers like Heller or Vonnegut hugely draw from that, openly admitting it, I think limiting Celine to being a war writer is a huge understatment. The book is an analysis and commentary not only on war, but whole Western society and its problems, the dying colonialism, capitalism that starts to have some big issues, he subtly highligts various sociopolitical problems of its day. And the existential and philisophical aspects of this book are just brilliant. And while talking about the racism, for me he isnt really that racist, as much he is absolutely full of boiling hatred for everyone and everything. People Celine really disliked were Jews and Chinese, we should despise the first, and fear the second. I think this is interesting commentary today, especially considering when it was said. I probably need do bring up later his Triffles...

And the construction on the plot is also very clever. Stars with a sunset, end with a sunrise, in the middle, when it is darkest, there is also a litteral blindness of main character. And the sudden, absurd ending? Gradual loosing of pace, sense and emotions? Well, the whole premise is the journey to the titular end of night. Not going in depht what it can be, and really depht of this book is really on the highest level, the paradox is that end of the night is unreachable and absurd, as every night ends with dawn, but dawn is not a night, not your goal... or is it? In my opinion ending is just as it should be. Well i could go on and on, I read many of his works, and works on him, wrote and thought a lot too. That are just the most basic, self evident things. And I never touched the style. Most his book are more or less different, and he is absolute language master and great inventor. He and Proust basically invented modern french lit and Celine also inspired almost all 'dark' writers after him. Though he is largely rejected by academia. I think he is really undervalued and underanalysed. I could go on and on, but probably i shouldnt

>Every book Better than Food reviews

I realise I'm coming to this late on, plus I've not read The Room, but I'd definitely nominate Selby's 'The Demon' which seems to be one of his lesser known works. The protagonist is drawn down into the abyss of some dark carnal desires, which the passing of time only serves to amplify and accentuate. Personally, I found it had a profound and unshakeable impact. Highly recommended.

juliette is by far more disturbing because the perverse philosophizing gets into your head

I'm on mobile right now, but I'm just posting to bump this thread. I'll reply to people in about an hour when I'm home.

I would suggest to differentiate books that you can buy and cant. For example Sotos and Aldapuerta are more or less impossible to get so you should have a link to a mega or something.

Grimhaven isnt even published.

When it comes to Assisted Living it's an odd book no doubt. The humor often consist out of absurdities in the characters philosophizing and making very obscure references. The book is also "written" by a preteen who misuses and misspells words all the time.

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I definitely thing there should be a key, sexual, violent, suicide, drugs etc. as someone who hasn't heard of most of the books on the list I have no idea where to start and I'm sure other people would feel the same

I think I'll keep The Room on for now, people have been saying that that should be the Selby book for the chart, but thanks for the recommendation!

Talking about that: I've been thinking about adding an asterisk or a small section after the name of certain writers, to indicate that more of their works should be looked at.
Something like:

120 Days of Sodom
Marquis de Sade*

or

120 Days of Sodom
Marquis de Sade
(See also: Justine, Juliette)

I don't know if this is going to make the chart too cluttered or too confusing, especially since and (if they're different people) also want indicators to be added to signify whether stories include rape, torture, drugs, murder etc.
I need more input on this, what do others think about this?

I'll note that, but again, many people have argued for either 120 Days or Justine for a long time, and I'm going to keep it on 120 Days now. It was already really hard to make that decision, but I really appreciate the recommendation!

I was planning to add a link to several pdf or download links in the chart, so people can read the difficult to get books (So far I have the links of Sotos - Proxy, Gira - The Consumer, Aldapuerta - The Eyes, and Guyotat - Eden Eden Eden. (Also Sotos - Pure, and Guyotat - Tomb for 500.000 Soldiers, but they're not on the list.) If anyone has more links to any of these works, I would love to have them so I can add them.)
I might even add an asterisk to the books of which I have a link, to immediately clear which books can quickly be accessed online.
Grimhaven is not going to be on the chart, you can see the recent discussion above.
Are you arguing in favour of or against Assisted Living, or are you just giving more information? Are there any other confirms or recommendations you have for this chart? Thanks for the info either way!

I'm and also the very first user to recommend Assisted Living; just giving more information. It is a fucked up book by all means. The "humor" and the way its written just adds to it all.

Sidenote: the original (Swedish) version is written in an archaic local dialect that is very hard to read and understand. The book even comes with its own glossary. What I've heard the English translation is a much easier read because of this.

Thanks for explaining more. And yeah, I can understand it must be really difficult to read the original. They could have translated it in an archaic local English dialect if they wanted to maintain that specific feeling of the book, but I'm glad they didn't: that also makes it more marketable.

Here's the daily update!
There haven't been many changes, and I think this is not going to increase.
46 books have been confirmed, and I would like to get that to 50, so I can focus on making the actual chart!
So 4 books from the 'one person' list can still be added, or new recommendations; as long as there are other people backing it up, it can be on the list.
Note that I'm not trying to force to get 50 books on the chart (if we end up with fewer, that's also fine), but rather saying that there are only 4 more places until I start making the chart.
If books are going to be added after that, another book will have to have to be deleted from the chart.

>Important:
Joseph Heller - Something Happened, and Kenzaburo Oe - Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness, are both on the 'one person' chart. Both of these are pretty big writers, have other people read these works? The people who recommended these works spoke highly of them.

Key:
Green - Books that stay
Blue - Books being replaced by another by the same author
Orange - Books on which it's undecided
Red - Books that will be removed
Nothing - This book has not been talked about, so I have almost no information on it

>Books that are going to be added:
[replacements]
Marquis de Sade - 120 Days of Sodom
Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian
Sarah Kane - Cleansed
Joyce Carol Oates - Zombie
Hubert Selby Jr. - The Room
J.G. Ballard - Crash
Peter Sotos - Proxy

[new entries]
William S. Burroughs - Naked Lunch
Chuck Palahniuk - Haunted
Evan Connel - Diary of a Rapist
Gabrielle Wittkop - Necrophiliac
Pier Paolo Pasolini - Petrolio
Mo Hayder - Pig Island
Artaud - Heliogabalus
John Ridley - The Drift
Leon Bloy - Sweating Blood
Agota Kristof - The Notebook Trilogy
Edgar Hillsenrath - The Nazi and the Barber
George Bernanos - Mouchette
Linda Lovelace - Ordeal
Arthur Rimbaud - A Season in Hell
Nikanor Teratologen - Assisted Living

>Books on the list no one has talked about (in depth): should they stay or do they have to go, and why?
Louis Aragon - Irene's Cunt
Slavenka Draculic - The Taste of a Man
J T LeRoy - The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things
Natsuo Kirino - Grotesque

>Books that are recommended to be added to the list, but only by one person: should they be added, or not, and why?
Kathy Acker - Blood and Guts in High School
John Hawkes - Second Skin / The Lime Twig
Joseph Heller - Something Happened
Sorokin - The Day of Oprichnik
Jachym Topol - The Devil's Workshop
Kenzaburo Oe - Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness
Charles Maclean - The Watcher
Steven Barber - Caligula: Divine Carnage
Frederick Exley - A Fan's Notes
Andrea Dworkin - Mercy
Kate Millet - The Basement
Unica Zürn - Dark Spring
Patrick Süskind - Perfume
Blake Butler - 300,000,000

Attached: Chart Improvements 14.png (1000x4019, 3.36M)

>juliette is by far more disturbing because the perverse philosophizing gets into your head
Maybe you have a point. I do remember agreeing with at least a few of the Libtertines, even if so many of them were unbelievably extreme.

Why is Haunted on the list? That book is more humorous than disturbing imo

>LOL RAPE

Give me something that will actually give me nightmares and make me want to put the book down.

If this is the criteria then Philosophy of the Bedroom's the most disturbing; it contains all that I'm clearly able to remember from Sade except Justine's concluding with Zeus' having her a la Semele.

Something Happened is a masterpiece much better than Catch 22. It is more depressing than disturbing. So I'd say no.

niggas i read Lolita two weeks ago.
i found it absolutely amazing but it really isn't dark or disturbing at all, unless you go all tumblr triggered and shit yourself at the mention of pedophilia.
the "sex scenes" are super subtle and have literally no details whatsoever, nothing gross or revolting.

>retard who haven't actually read any of the books on the chart

I agree with you

Well yeah. That's why it's going away.

A number of people found it disturbing, some of them said that at least Guts should be on the list. What's disturbing for one can not have any impact on another, what did you find humorous about Haunted?

Do you have any book suggestions?

Thanks for the input! I will remove it from the 'one person' list.

It is a great book, I agree with you. The way in which the book is dark is a lot more subtle in comparison to some other books on here, but then again, Lolita is not on this chart.

bump

If I don't get any more suggestions today, I'm going to start working on the chart tomorrow.

throw out jelinek, she's a pleb.

to paraphrase reich-ranicki, a well-known german literary critic: "the literary talent of jelinek is, to put it softly, rather modest. Her dramas are unperformable. She's never managed to write a good novel, almost all of them are more or less banal or superficial."

read some excerpts of her in school (i'm german), can confirm. not worth reading.

oh, just saw that it was already being removed. well, i'm just making another case for it being removed then.

No problem, thanks for the info either way!
Do you happen to have read other works on the chart or list?

blood meridian has a few extremely brutal scenes (infants getting their heads smashed on a rock) but its overall tone isn't particularly dark or disturbing. child of god is far better suited for this chart, if anything i would consider replacing it by outer dark

ketchum is genre lit, it may be very disturbing (haven't read it) but it looks somewhat out of place on this chart. if we were to include it, we may as well include stuff like bighead by edward lee

i agree with dropping jelinek, the fact that some retard decided to include it on the first chart is more disturbing than her high school reading nobel bait. i'd suggest replacing this hack by her fellow austrian thomas bernhard, preferably correction (which also made it on the current Yea Forums top 100), his darkest novel. it's not violent or anything, but disturbing in a way akin to celine or ungar

also, drop the shakespeare, it just feels force to make the chart appear more """literary""". you may include something like the monk by lewis instead.

As you can see in the most recent chart, Shakespeare has already been dropped. The Monk is also straight horror and has been in at least two horror charts, so I'm more leaning towards not including it.
A number of people have recommended The Girl Next Door, and even though it might be the closest to straight horror that we have on the list, I would prefer to keep it on here. It's not featured in any other chart, it's apparently pretty disturbing (a lot of torture), and (if that matters) it's based on an actual gruesome murder case (Sylvia Likens).
The McCarthy novels have been in a giant debate and back-and-forth, and for now I will leave Blood Meridian on it. (I'm planning, as you can see here that I might add other suggestions by the same author, especially with writers like de Sade and McCarthy where there are at least two novels really close when it comes to the 'most dark/disturbing'.)
I'm really happy with all the feedback though, don't get me wrong! It really helps see what everyone thinks, so I can try to create a chart most people will agree with.

I'm currently working on a draft of what the chart would look like right now. I will create a new thread in about an hour when it's finished and link to it (and also link back).
Books can still be added and deleted, but I really want to start with the layout of the new chart.

>ideas for the layout so far:

- Add indicators of rape, drugs, torture, pedophilia, etc. (In the shape of a capital letter next to the books? e.g. R D T P)

- Add books of the same author that can be read as well, as an extra recommendation. (In brackets underneath the name of the author.)
Example:
120 Days of Sodom
Marquis de Sade
(Also: Justine)

- Add one link that goes to a page containing all the links of pdf's of hard to find books we can collect. (We can show which books they are in the chart by adding an * after the title of the book.)

- Dark layout? Matches the mood of the chart, but I also want to stand out to the previous chart.

Any other ideas? Do you think the above features should be in the chart?

I’ve been scouring the internet for Irene’s cunt. No hosts and the paperback cost too much...anyone have a link...I think it’s just 100 pages or so

Another small thing: should I make clear which works are poetry and plays? As far as I know there are 2 pieces of poetry and 1 play in there.

Please let me know if you manage to find anything!

Ligotti writes a scene where two hobos rape a woman who has been turned into a mannequin, then smash her skull in and then freak out and smash her to bits because the mannequin has perfectly realistic insides.

Oh, in the same story, he also describes a sex cult where a feeder eats garbage, dead people and human shit. Then, said feeder's dominatrix gets bound inside of her feeder and forced to live as a tapeworm, eating and experiencing everything he eats and feels and possibly living long after he's dead.

My Work Is Not Yet Done is extremely graphic. Someone wakes up with a human head stitched to their own chest and as they expire screaming, they agree to the business deal the head agrees too.

I just created a new thread with a draft chart!