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What is the darkest most disturbing book?

Try Pynchon, or a Confederacy of Dunces. But really, it depends on how easily you shock. Someone once said that the educated mind is only shocked by ignorance.
 
Ashlea said:
Try Pynchon, or a Confederacy of Dunces. But really, it depends on how easily you shock. Someone once said that the educated mind is only shocked by ignorance.
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Thanks for your offerings ashlea.Could you give a brief description of each book and give me the authors please.Thanks
 
Actually, my contact with Thomas Pynchon's various novels and Confederacy of Dunces (by Toole) have been slight as best (meaning I haven't read them all the way through, I just know them by reputation.)

There's a thread on Confederacy of Dunces here and one on Pynchon here
 
I guess it depends on what you would find shocking. However, some titles which come to mind are:
Last Exit to Brooklyn by Thomas Selby (I think that's the author's name, or maybe Phillip Selby) or his other titles.
The Knock-Out Artist or Body by Harry Crews
Notes of a Dirty Old Man or Tales of Ordinary Madness by Charles Bukowski
The Beetle Leg by John Hawkes
Something Happened by Joseph Heller
Crash by J.G. Ballard
Dr. Adder by K.W. Jeter
Hope that helps.
 
Wetbones by John Shirley. It's absolutely disgusting. About these people who get their brains rewired so they enjoy pain.

From the list above, I read Last Exit to Brooklyn. Egads, but I hated that book. The main problem was the grammar, or lack thereof, but I think I would have hated it anyway.
 
It's a horror book, rather than a deep philosophical one. And it's sick from beginning to end. I read it when I was on holiday one year, and like milk that's gone off that you pass on to everyone else to have a sniff, it got passed from person to person to read. It's a horrible book, and everyone said it was a horrible book, and yet every one of us was compelled to read them damn thing.
 
Enough to keep most people satisfied I should think. The title comes from the act of turning a body completely inside out.
 
I thought of it while nodding off last night, the man's name is Hubert Selby.
Anyway, I didn't much enjoy Last Exit to Brooklyn, either. Yeah, it was tough to read (the grammar thing), but it was also disturbing.

Wetbones sounds very similar to two of the other books I mentioned: J.G. Ballard's Crash (as nearly as I can tell, it's about the erotic possibilities of large scale self-mutilation) and K.W. Jeter's Dr. Adder (an early, gory look at cyber-punk style self-improvement).
 
I suggest The Painted Bird by J.Kosinsky. It is definitely extremely disgusting, cruel and scary for about fifty initial pages; I couldn't stand it any more, so I don't know how does it go further. But the beginning must be something you're looking for.
 
By "darkest" are you wanting titles that are dark through content, through descriptions, that are sick, that are perverted, or something else?
 
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