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Transgressive Literature...

  • 08-01-2010 10:38pm
    #1
    diddlybit
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,026 ✭✭✭


    ...is a special interest of mine. I enjoy texts that push a reader to the limits of what she/he is comfortable with. There 's very little that I cannot digest easily but there are a couple of instances in which I've had to read books with one eye shut or had to put them down for a break.

    In particular:

    A. M. Homes- The End of Alice
    Marquis de Sade- The 120 Days of Sodom
    Bret Easton Ellis- American Psycho
    Chuck Palahniuk- Haunted

    For a variety of reasons there were scenes in these books that forced me to leave them down for a short time and I learnt what taboos make me truly uncomfortable.

    Have any books had the same effect on anyone else?


Comments

  • #2
    randomguy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 289 ✭✭randomguy


    You should try this, I remember reading it with one eye closed it ws so repulsive in places...
    Exquisite Corpse


  • #3
    Morzadec
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,952 ✭✭✭Morzadec


    You'll struggle to find anything more transgressive than David Peace's Red Riding Quartet (1974, 1977, 1980 and 1983). I'd recommend them, a bit different but well worth a read.


  • #4
    HalloweenJack
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,334 ✭✭✭HalloweenJack


    I was going to say American Psycho. There are times when it get s a bit too graphic.

    Any of the LA Quartet by James Ellroy. They all have graphic depictions of sexual violence and disturbing inter-human relationships.


  • #5
    Coriolanus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,879 ✭✭✭Coriolanus


    diddlybit wrote: »
    Bret Easton Ellis- American Psycho
    About the only book I've read that disturbed me like American Psycho was the Wasp Factory.
    Quite short too, which is a blessing really. :pac:


  • #6
    ZorbaTehZ
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,149 ✭✭✭ZorbaTehZ


    Crash - JG Ballard

    Extremely sexually explicit in many scenes, some of the imagery was really disgusting.


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  • #7
    jimmymal
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 228 ✭✭jimmymal


    naked lunch and cities of the red night- william s. burroughs
    found them quite difficult to swallow so to speak. i think a lot of his work is like that though apart from junkie perhaps which is more autobiographical i believe.

    concrete island from jg ballard also is tough going in that you become claustrophobic.


  • #8
    baalthor
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,241 ✭✭✭baalthor


    randomguy wrote: »
    You should try this, I remember reading it with one eye closed it ws so repulsive in places...
    Exquisite Corpse
    Indeed ...
    The fridge scene was the worst bit ...
    HalloweenJack wrote: »
    Any of the LA Quartet by James Ellroy. They all have graphic depictions of sexual violence and disturbing inter-human relationships.

    American Tabloid (not part of the LA quartet) had one passage that really disturbed me when I read it; it's where one of the characters covertly observes the making of a porn movie.

    A not so obvious choice might be the first installment in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. I can't think of many fantasy novels where the central character
    rapes a girl at the start


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