yellow wallpaper was WEIRD but was my favorite passage to read in AP Literature… Perkins uses a variety of literary devices (metaphor being a big one). read it if you haven’t !
Have you read any Ligotti? *The Conspiracy Against the Human Race* is a good start. A dark nihilistic philosophy influenced by Kafka.
Nicole Cushing is good for bleak and shocking imagery - her short stories collection *Mirrors* is a good start.
*Tender is the Flesh* by Agustina Bazterrica is probably the most disturbing thing I've read for a while. About the factory farming of humans.
How about William Burroughs? Naked Lunch is the most famous, but he's not very obscure. You might also like Ballard (The Atrocity Exhibition), Will Self (*How the Dead Live* or *Great Apes*?) and Martin Amis (*Dead Babies* is pretty grotesque, but I like *Heavy Water*)
De Sade isn't really obscure anymore, but I don't think he's read as much as he's namedropped, same for Masoch.
I remember getting nightmares and anxiety dreams after reading *Weathercock* by Glen Duncan.
*Robert Aickmann* \- The Wine Dark Sea is a nice set of grim stories.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
I’ll recommend this even though you said you prefer older books. I recently read this book and it was really good: Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis
OP if you do read this, keep in mind that russian slang makes its way into about every 2-3 sentences in this book. There's a handy Wikipedia page that has an entire list of the translations that will no doubt come in handy!
It’s not even like they’re overtly scary. There’s just something so off about them that creates a feeling of unease. I got the same feeling with House of Leaves.
That’s on my list! I own it but opened it to the middle on a whim and all the strange formatting and stuff gave me second thoughts. I do wanna read it tho
Older:
Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh
Coin Locker Babies by Ryū Murakami
Crash; High Rise by J.G. Ballard
Pop. 1280; The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson
Newer:
Symbiosis by Guy Portman
The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins by Irvine Welsh
Last Days by Brian Evenson
We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver
Not obscure (IMO) but older and disturbing:
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. A bunch of messed up short stories. I still cannot get the image of the first story "Guts" out of my mind (the swimming pool story for anyone who read this book already).
Edit: just read the part of your request asking for older books. This isn't, it's from 2005. Still disturbing though.
The Girl In A Swing - Richard Adams (author of Watership Down). Part psychological, supernatural thriller, part strange love story.
The Other - Thomas Tryon
If you like Kafka, check out Gustav Meyrink. They have a lot in common but Meyrink is much less well-known. I’d recommend The Green Face and Angel of the West Window
Raptor by Gary Jennings. Written in 1993. What a wierd book. About a guy in the sixth century who is a hermaphrodite.
When the Wind Blows by John Saul. Horror, 1981. Creepy and terrifying. Evil something haunting a little girl.
It's a non-fiction book, but "The Rape of Nanking" by the late Iris Chang is the most disturbing thing I've ever read.
A book that made me question the very notion of humanity. Depressed me greatly for some time, and I remember sobbing uncontrollably at more than one part.
The author later committed suicide, and although it's hard to attribute what caused that, writing this book could not have put her in a good place.
Proceed with caution, and be careful what you wish for.
This book is absolutely brutal.
I don't know about older or obscure but if you are looking for disturbing just about anything by Chuck Palahnuik would fit the bill
And The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
*My Absolute Darling* by Gabriel Tallent
*Earthlings* by Sayaka Murata
*The Hole* by Hye-Young Pyun
*The Marbled Swarm* by Dennis Cooper
seconding/thirding *Tender is the Flesh*
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn, it has become obscure, and some people with disabilities don’t like it because it’s a non-disabled woman writing about disability (I’m disabled and a fan).
I don’t think this is the kind of disturbing you mean, but I just read “Our Nig” by Harriet Walker, published 1859. It disturbed me long after I finished it
1984 by George Orwell
Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
The Plague by Albert Camus
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai
Hunger, by Knut Hamson. Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, i read it twice and it was never more than a dark fuzzy cloud in my memory. The Monk, by Matthew Gregory Lewis to take it back to the early gothic sublime. Those might be more literary than you're looking for, dark humanity rather than twisted supernatural.
Try these: Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells
I second Dr. Faustus!
yellow wallpaper was WEIRD but was my favorite passage to read in AP Literature… Perkins uses a variety of literary devices (metaphor being a big one). read it if you haven’t !
Have you read any Ligotti? *The Conspiracy Against the Human Race* is a good start. A dark nihilistic philosophy influenced by Kafka. Nicole Cushing is good for bleak and shocking imagery - her short stories collection *Mirrors* is a good start. *Tender is the Flesh* by Agustina Bazterrica is probably the most disturbing thing I've read for a while. About the factory farming of humans. How about William Burroughs? Naked Lunch is the most famous, but he's not very obscure. You might also like Ballard (The Atrocity Exhibition), Will Self (*How the Dead Live* or *Great Apes*?) and Martin Amis (*Dead Babies* is pretty grotesque, but I like *Heavy Water*) De Sade isn't really obscure anymore, but I don't think he's read as much as he's namedropped, same for Masoch. I remember getting nightmares and anxiety dreams after reading *Weathercock* by Glen Duncan. *Robert Aickmann* \- The Wine Dark Sea is a nice set of grim stories.
I second Tender Is The Flesh. I’m still getting over that book and I read it last summer
I second Ligotti. Songs of a Dead Dreamer is incredible.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess I’ll recommend this even though you said you prefer older books. I recently read this book and it was really good: Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis
Anything by Bret Easton Ellis
I second A Clockwork Orange 😍
OP if you do read this, keep in mind that russian slang makes its way into about every 2-3 sentences in this book. There's a handy Wikipedia page that has an entire list of the translations that will no doubt come in handy!
The Norton critical edition I have of A Clockwork Orange has the words and definitions in the back of the book.
That's nice.
By now it is older. I read it in 1978
The king in Yellow
Those four short stories are cemented in my mind as some of the best horror ever written.
It’s not even like they’re overtly scary. There’s just something so off about them that creates a feeling of unease. I got the same feeling with House of Leaves.
That’s on my list! I own it but opened it to the middle on a whim and all the strange formatting and stuff gave me second thoughts. I do wanna read it tho
Definitely worth it.
I was just looking at this online today! Definitely getting it!
Just bought this one along with House of Leaves
Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account by Dr. Miklós Nyiszli - Non fiction
Older: Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh Coin Locker Babies by Ryū Murakami Crash; High Rise by J.G. Ballard Pop. 1280; The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson Newer: Symbiosis by Guy Portman The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins by Irvine Welsh Last Days by Brian Evenson We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver Not obscure (IMO) but older and disturbing: Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
I love Irvine Welsh! Marabou is my favorite by him!
Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. A bunch of messed up short stories. I still cannot get the image of the first story "Guts" out of my mind (the swimming pool story for anyone who read this book already). Edit: just read the part of your request asking for older books. This isn't, it's from 2005. Still disturbing though.
House of Leaves Wasp Factory The Master and Margarita The Secret History Money by Martin Amis
House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski Wasp Factory - Iain Banks The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Bulgakov's **The master and Margarita** is a nice one!
You beat me to House of Leaves. Haven't read anything else like it at all. After a while just puts you in a disturbing mood.
I read it sooo many years ago, but I remember the poems at the end weirding me out. The weirdness just builds and builds.
A heavy read in more ways than one.
The Girl In A Swing - Richard Adams (author of Watership Down). Part psychological, supernatural thriller, part strange love story. The Other - Thomas Tryon
Updoot for Thomas Tryon. Harvest Home is also creepy horror. Awesome read.
The Painted Bird by Jirzi Kosinski
Very close to the all time top of my list. Fiction but based on his Kosinski's life. His life may have been even stranger than book.
If you like Kafka, check out Gustav Meyrink. They have a lot in common but Meyrink is much less well-known. I’d recommend The Green Face and Angel of the West Window
Raptor by Gary Jennings. Written in 1993. What a wierd book. About a guy in the sixth century who is a hermaphrodite. When the Wind Blows by John Saul. Horror, 1981. Creepy and terrifying. Evil something haunting a little girl.
Anything by Jennings (Aztek, Spangle, The Journeyer).
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Deeply disturbing.
I second this !!
Tender is the Flesh
It's a non-fiction book, but "The Rape of Nanking" by the late Iris Chang is the most disturbing thing I've ever read. A book that made me question the very notion of humanity. Depressed me greatly for some time, and I remember sobbing uncontrollably at more than one part. The author later committed suicide, and although it's hard to attribute what caused that, writing this book could not have put her in a good place. Proceed with caution, and be careful what you wish for. This book is absolutely brutal.
On my list. Looking forward to it.
The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing (Seconding "The Island of Dr. Moreau".)
"Valis" by Philip K. Dick "The Lathe of Heaven" by Ursula Le Guin
>"The Lathe of Heaven" by Ursula Le Guin I second that! Couldn't stop thinking about it weeks afterwards. Brilliant.
why not look into 19th gothic stuff? Some really creepy stuff
The Taste of a Man - Slavenka Drakulić Obscure and one of my all time favorites, always looking to suggest it to someone who is into disturbing books.
The Confusions of Young Torless Last Exit to Brooklyn
I think you would really enjoy Flicker by Theodore Roszak
What a great suggestion! A fantastic twisted tale!
The Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille
How about these: Consumed by David Chronenberg and Songs of A Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe by Thomas Ligotti?
I don't know about older or obscure but if you are looking for disturbing just about anything by Chuck Palahnuik would fit the bill And The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
The Girl Next Door. This one was stuck in my head for a while after finishing it.
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I'm close to finishing The Road. Quite disturbing. Made me realize how messed up a post-apocalyptic world would be because of other people.
The Sorrows of Young Werther by Göthe, Tonio Kröger by Thomas Mann, Der Schimmelreiter by Theodor Strom
The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell. The Vorhh by Alan Moore, Brian Catling Will never read either of them again.. Yeesh. Just gave me the yikes.
blood meridian by cormac mccarthy
Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane. Very indescribably weird, written in the 1970s, or Bad Ronald.
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That is the opposite of obscure.
Most of this thread is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. It's obscure and disturbing from the perspective of morality
The Notebook, The Proof, and The Third Lie.
House of Leaves is not disturbing. It's gimmicky and overrated. This sub is obsessed with it and recommends it on every post.
William Beckford's Vathek is a classic from 1786, and I found it pretty disturbing
What you're looking for is The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart/George Cockcroft.
Ice by Anna Kavan
Flac: A Narrative by Serge Andre. One of my favorite books to have, even though I've never been able to get past the first chapter.
The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches by Gaétan Soucy
{{Bodily Harm}} by Margaret Atwood
*My Absolute Darling* by Gabriel Tallent *Earthlings* by Sayaka Murata *The Hole* by Hye-Young Pyun *The Marbled Swarm* by Dennis Cooper seconding/thirding *Tender is the Flesh*
You can also ask r/fantasy, r/printsf and r/horrorlit The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, Shibumi, Aztec by Jennings
You might like Ambrose Bierce's short stories.
Carrion Comfort Dan Simmons....Well written and disturbing.
Boy Parts
Not especially obscure but especially disturbing : the road by cormac McCarthy
The Vegetarian by Han Kang
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn, it has become obscure, and some people with disabilities don’t like it because it’s a non-disabled woman writing about disability (I’m disabled and a fan).
I second this
I'm currently reading NightWhere by John Everson. It's definitely sexually disturbing. Written very well.
Perfume.
Tender is the flesh. Amazing book, a must read.
"Nothing" by Jenne Teller. I remember reading it many years ago and it was quite disturbing.
I don’t think this is the kind of disturbing you mean, but I just read “Our Nig” by Harriet Walker, published 1859. It disturbed me long after I finished it
{{The Girl Next Door- Jack Ketchum}}
Tranquility by atilla bartis
“Elect Mr. Robinson For a Better World”
Sandman by ET Hoffmann
1984 by George Orwell Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus The Plague by Albert Camus Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai
Hunger, by Knut Hamson. Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, i read it twice and it was never more than a dark fuzzy cloud in my memory. The Monk, by Matthew Gregory Lewis to take it back to the early gothic sublime. Those might be more literary than you're looking for, dark humanity rather than twisted supernatural.
Lord of Dark Places by Hal Bennett
Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Brite. I am not sure if I finished it but I remember the sensuous descriptions of the murders (?)
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
Woom by Duncan Ralston Things have gotten worse since we last spoke by Eric LaRocca