Group thread

Hello! I mentioned in another thread that I was hoping to tag the books in the MDB catalog according to what makes them disturbing, and possibly gather comments on them. Since I haven't read most of the books on the list, I was hoping y'all would be able to help me with this. If you recommended a book on the original Most Disturbing Books thread, please feel free to start a thread on it here to review, explain, or just post a few keywords that you think should be used as tags.

Having said all that, please feel free to hijack this thread for your own purposes!

My pick was Johnny Got His Gun--keywords I'd use are "war", "psychological horror", "hospitals" and "amputation".

My most disturbing was Perfume: The story of a murderer by Patrick Suskind I actually don't count it as one of my favourite books because I prefer to forget the story as much as possible. I found it disturbing because of the unnaturalness of the main character and his obsession with the sense of smell, even from birth. Something about the inhumanity of his one-focus mind makes me shudder. His unnatural life, driven by his obsession, was as painful as it was engrossing to follow. This is the story of a human monster. All in all it was an unpleasant story in my opinion, but still one that resonated somehow. The thought that there are people out there with minds indifferent to everything that makes us human, and consumed by desires that are inevitably destructive to others, makes the story more poignant.

Tags I would use - "sense of smell" , perfume, obsession, stalking, murder, psychosis, unnatural

My picks were

If this is a man by Primo Levi
tags: non-fiction, WWII, holocaust, auschwitz
Pet cemetary by Stephen King
tags: horror, cemetary, zombies

I forgot

Dark places by Kate Grenville
tags: fiction, psychopath, obsession, first person narrator, abuse, hatred, rape

The Beasties by William Sleator
Supposed to be a children's book along the lines of Goosebumps, I assume. The most disturbing tale of war, amputation, half-beings, and mutilation.

Two books came to mind and stayed there, so I have joined the group.

The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge was so well written that it has entirely put me off reading about human beings in Antarctica. Whenever I enter it into my library I will tag it "relentlessly hopeless" and "suffering" with the organizational things. I have been leery as well about Ms. Bainbridge; I respect her writing, but I'm afraid she'll hurt me.

The Prayer of Jabez by Bruce Wilkinson horrified me with the greed and self aggrandizement of the author. It was enough to give a bad name to religion. The tags will be "greed" and "self-absorption."

Robert

Mine was The Grizzly Maze: Timothy Treadwell's Fatal Obsession with Alaskan Bears by Nick Jans.

I picked this mostly because of a particular scene in the book that described the audio on the lens-covered video that depicted the death of Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend by bear attack. The scene is particularly bad and even more tragic when the events that lead up to the attack form this unbelievable perfect storm of events.

There was the fact that Timothy Treadwell thought he knew bears and that the media led him to believe this by rewarding him with TV appearances to show off his "amazing" close up shots of the bears.
There's the drought that year - which meant the bears were more agressive and on the lookout for food
There's the fact that his girlfriend went up that year because it was supposed to be their last trip since he was "retiring"
There was bad weather that put them back at their airline late - and the extra money that it was gong to cost them to fly back infuriated Tim so much that he demanded they go back to camp...

They were packed, they were ready to leave and they went back. Where they died...killed by the animals that Timothy thought he understood.

Tags in my catalog (pick what you like): tragedy, nature, biography, made into a documentary, bear attack, gore, vivid detail, alaska, wilderness, lack of knowledge, arrogance

I'm kind of scanning through the books, so here are my tag suggestions-feel free to modify them however you need to. And I have to say, there are a number that just from the titles I thought-Of Course it's disturbing! You can tell from the title! And there are a few that I'm sure I can guess why they're on the list, but since i haven't read them, I won't suggest tags for.

American Psycho: gore, graphic violence, rape, murder, dismemberment, rodents, violence against women
Cobra Event: viruses, murder, violence against women, gore
The exorcist: Demon posession, supernatural violence, mental illness
The Giver: Dystopia, euthanasia
The Holy Bible: Supernatural violence, violence against women, gore, rape, graphic violence
The Hot Zone: Gore, viruses
Lolita: Pedophilia
Love you forever: just a guess, but I think it was nominated because the mother is overbearing and breaks into her kid's house just to cuddle with him while he's asleep. SO, I guess the tag would be Overbearing parent
Oryx and Crake: Virus, dystopia, rape (OK, I know the rape isn't really mentioned and described, but even the aside stuck with me through the whole book)
Yellow Wallpaper: eerie. Is there a tag for eeire?

My picks were Ordinary Men and the Turner Diaries.

For Ordinary Men I have these tags:
introspection, evil in any person, Nazi, Poland, genocide

It was disturbing to me because of the first tag. It is very easy for people to judge other people in hindsight, and it can also be easy for anyone to fall into evil and atrocity if there is not enough vigilance or education.

For the Turner Diaries (I do not own the book, I have an electronic text I found somewhere) use these tags:

Neo-Nazi, United States, National Alliance, inciting fiction

I'd like to nominate The Girl in a Swing by Richard Adams as a most disturbing book. To be honest, I don't remember it very well (I read it quite a long time ago), but I do remember being very disturbed by it!

Another one is the short story A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner, which I would tag "Corpse" and "Madness."

Amityville Horror, I would add the tags haunted house, (or haunting), murder, true story

Exquisite Corpse, cannibalism, serial killer

We Need to Talk About Kevin Serial killings, Roman a clef, Family relationships, Suspense

By the time I read this book I thought I was all horrored out. It had been a long time since I read something that really kept me glued to the pages from start to finish as my blood ran colder and colder.

Kevin, as I'm sure we all know by now, is Shriver's representation of those boys who, one day, walk into school and start killing. However, although it quickly becomes clear that this is what will eventually happen, the majority of the book focuses on his upbringing and his relationships with the rest of his family. The book is Shriver's attempt to understand why these things happen and what it is that drives the people concerned.

Kevin's birth is resented by his mother and she is unable to love him in the way that, later, she loves his sister. Then again, many babies are born into less-than-ideal families and they don't all turn out to be serial killers. In fact, Kevin's mother, who tells the story, is at least able to conceal her feelings from him and, in all practical ways, is an adequate parent. His father, on the other hand, can see no wrong in him. It's a situation that is all too common and we are immediately plunged into the debate about whether a parent creates the psychology of their child (Mum to blame, as usual) or whether some children are inherently evil and, therefore, unlikeable.

The real beauty of the book, for me, is the way we are privy to every significant event in Kevin's life and yet are never really able to say 'That was the point where it all went wrong. I can see what could have been done to change things.' Does that suggest that Kevin was always wicked or simply that parents are largely helpless?

The alienation between Kevin and his mother is so sensitively portrayed that, however much we love our own children, it rings eerily familiar bells for any parent who has ever looked into their newborn's cot and wondered 'Who are you? What will you become?'

I'm not sure that the book answers any of the questions it poses but then, isn't that usually the way in real life and good fiction? What makes it not only a great read but also, I believe, an important book, is that the questions are asked in the first place and it is impossible not to ponder them.

An interview with Lionel Shriver makes the point that the title of the book is a wake-up call to all of us. It doesn't refer only to Kevin's parents but to parents everywhere and, perhaps even more-so, to society as a whole. We do need to talk about Kevin; all of us. And if we don't do it soon, it may be too late.

3-- I hadn't realized Perfume was a book first. I saw the movie and was deeply disturbed.

12 - I had forgotten A Rose for Emily until I saw one of my own grey hairs on my pillow and it brought back all the horror I felt upon reading it in high school.

Another story: The Rats in the Walls by H. P. Lovecraft. It was in one of those pocketbooks given to soldiers during WWII and I was very much too young to read it. Gave me nightmares for years.

Tags would be horror, confinement, rats--although probably saying Lovecraft would be sufficient.

The third was Babi Yar by Anatoly Kuznetsov. It was the site of the largest mass murder by the Nazis and what made it so horrifying and unforgettable was that it was true.

Tags: WWII, mass murder

2 finals down, 4 more to go. Thankfully, they are for my 4 best classes.

The books have been tagged with fiction and non-fiction, and I'm starting to tag with the ones y'all have suggested today.

Good luck with your finals! I'm sure the tagging can wait till afterwards (unless it's keeping your mind off the stress).

I feel a bit cheeky making a suggestion considering you're meant to be revising, but I'd love to see the reasons behind the choices put in the comments section for each book. For example, the above mention of the scene in the book about the Grizzly bears (the audio of the final attack) did more to whet my appetite than any tags - sick, I know, but isn't that why we're all here?

It would also clear up the obvious questions, like "Why is Dr Seuss in the list?". Of course the comments would have to be spoiler free where possible.

Can we add our own?

My suggested tags...

for Back Roads: incest, murder, molestation, child abuse

for House of Sand and Fog: suicide, overdose, murder, racism

for "The Lottery" in The Lottery and Other Stories: stoning

for Lucky: A Memoir: rape

for The Lovely Bones: murder, dismemberment

for She's Come Undone: rape

I'm sure people will have more to add for each book, but these were the ones I could come up with from memory.

I'd also like to suggest adding The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things by J.T. LeRoy to the list.

Hi there! Interesting group, I initally was just lurking, because I thought it might be too disturbing to join. ;)
My most disturbing might be Last Exit to Brooklyn
Disturbing for it's brutal gang rape murder of a prostitute that seems to suggest horrifyingly that she "had it coming", in a rather unconvincing internal monologue. Also a suggestion that everyone who lived in that section of Brooklyn in that era, hobnobbed with transvestites on a daily basis. Also, that all homosexuals are inherently child molesters.
So in addition to being subjected to a heartless, cruel read, my BS detector was going off quite a lot. And there's nothing I hate worse than having my nose rubbed in it, when I think an author is full of sh*t. Makes me want to go find them and punch them in the face.
I did the next best thing -I tore up the book into very tiny pieces and threw it in the trash.
Not because I'm a prude, but because I think the author is a liar.

Having said that, and seeing that hijacking is allowed, I'd add The Mulching of America for similar reasons. An ugly brutal book, that ulitmately works less in the service of satire, and more in enabling an author running on fumes to engage in lazy, vain, macho ramblings. A shame because Naked in Garden Hills is a brilliant piece of satire. That book could also be on this list.

Some other important "must have" goodies for the list. As opposed to my others above these are largely books I think that are worth the disturbing aspects:
The Painted Bird-Jerzy Kosinski
Justine and 120 Days of Sodom-De Sade
Torture Garden-Octave Mirbeau
Maldoror-Conte De Lautreamont
Young Torless-Robert Musil
Frisk-Dennis Cooper
and Closer-Dennis Cooper
(No American Psycho without those Cooper books!)
Some SF books:
Dr Adder-KW Jeter
Altered Carbon-Richard Morgan
What I'm reading now The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner,is unquestionably disturbing.
Crash, The Unlimited Dream Company, High Rise and Concrete Island by J G Ballard are very disturbing books.

In the context of horrorthere's plenty to disturb in Clive Barker's Books of Blood

A Dream of Dracula-Leonard Wolf
An often very disturbing analysis of the core of the vampire mythology.
Not to say it isn't worth reading.;)

Day of the Locust and Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathaniel West are very disturbing books.

My word, I almost forgot Anomalies and curiosities of medicine. A truly disturbing book to read.

Hey, how about Psychopathia Sexualis by Kraft-Ebbing?

Now we're rolling!

As If I Am Not There war, rape, refugees

I also posted this on the thread on Book Talk, but thought I'd come here just to be thorough.

The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck. War, dictatorship, brutality, etc in South America, in addition to graphic descriptions of tropical diseases, and particularly their effects on male genitalia...

Booksloth: The touchstone points me towards a book called "S: a novel about the Balkans", if you tell me who wrote yours I can look up the correct book.

Everyone else: Got the new recommendations, they're in the catalog now.

Sorry MDB, I should have explained. I think the book has different titles in the UK and US. It's the same book anyway. Written by Slavenka Drakulic.

Are you still tagging? If so, here's a few more suggestions:

American Psycho - satire.
The Amityville Horror - forteana.
The Bad Seed - murder, thriller, psychopathy.
The Collector - psychological, obsession.
Dracula - gothic, horror, vampires.
The Exorcist - horror, possession.
Geek Love - circus, freaks.
Happy Like Murderers - serial killers, true crime, Fred & Rose West.
Haunted - satire, short stories.
Helter Skelter - serial killers, true crime, Charles Manson.
The Hot Zone - disease.
In Cold Blood - true crime, psychopathy, murder.
Last Exit to Brooklyn - short stories.
Let's Go Play at the Adams' - psychological, torture.
Love You Forever - picture book.
Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy - young adult, poetry.
Night Shift - horror, short stories.
Pompeii - historical, volcano.
Portrait of a Killer - true crime, serial killers, Jack the Ripper, ripperology.
The Stranger Beside Me - true crime, serial killers, Ted Bundy.
War Game - war, WWI, picture book.
We Need to Talk about Kevin - school killings.

A Long Way Gone - murder, rape, child abuse, drug use - and a true story that's still continuing today.

Thanks for the tags Moomin, I am woefully behind in tagging! I'm just now getting caught up with all the new suggestions.

I thought you'd left us, MDB!

Moomin-my semester (and life) was taken over by this horrible thing called chemistry. Not content with taking up all of your free time trying to memorize formulas*, it invades your dreams and causes restless nights! Fortunately, that's all behind me and I have 4 weeks of vacation before I return for my final semester-one completely free of anything math or science related. :)

AA1986/MDB

*I'm a history major and English minor, I was promised there would be no math!

>31 AngelaB86::
Chemistry - formulas - I don't envy you! And where and when, as a history major English minor, are go going to use all this chemistry?

Were you doing all those lovely equations? The joys! No wonder you are back here, a bit of tagging should clear your mind of all that stuff...

Calculating the pH of ancient documents is about all I can come up with, otherwise I'm a little confused about what I'm supposed to do with it, lol.

And that means never having to remember stuff like the Avogadro constant ever again :)

Avocado what? :)

Exactly ;)

Avogadro's number = 6.0221415 × 10^23; it is also Avogadro's constant. That it is a constant is interesting in itself.

I worked as a municipal investigator for a long time; I didn't use my chemistry much at all. But somebody was manufacturing ethyl alcohol in bulk; I knew the questions to ask and don't think any of the other investigators in the office would have.

If you start talking about the environment and somebody says that the swamp near the outlet has a pH of 2.5 you get an idea that it is pretty acidic.

You throw the baking soda into water to stir it in all at once, and it works. You throw the baking soda into lemon juice for the same reason and you get a reaction. You know why and that the same thing will happen with vinegar.

I'm a humanities guy, but I can't see any loss in knowing a little science.

Robert

I'm not anti-science, in fact I enjoyed my biology classes very much. I just think it would make more sense to require students take classes they actually have an aptitude/interest in than require they take a class for the sake of pretending it makes them 'well rounded.' There's nothing so demoralizing (to a student) as spending 5 months struggling in a class you didn't really have a chance in to begin with, and then having your performance in other classes suffer as a result.

Hmmmm, this is getting a little OT. Back to creeping each other out!