# Most disturbing thing(s) you've read



## sir_vile_minds

After reading something very, VERY disturbing last night, I though it'd be interesting to see what other people have read that had disturbed them in any way.

For me it's:

Eric the Pie by Graham Masterton
Victims by Shaun Hutson (certain scenes in this book really made my toes curl)
Slug Bait (lyrics) by Throbbing Gristle
Totally Sexy French Girl by Kevin 'Earfetish' (Short story/contains sexual scenes throughout)

Please note that to read any of these stories you need to be in possession of a very strong stomach and not be easily offended.

To admin: If this thread is not suitable for the forum, deletion is welcome.


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## Nicky

there's a scene in toward the end of the novel Memnoch The Devil where where The devil and Lestat travel back in time to watch the crucifiction of Christ. And as they are standing in the crowd watching him carry his cross time slows down and the crowd freezes and the only ones moving are the devil and Lestat and then Christ turns to look over at Lestat whose vampire senses are tingling at the sight and the smell of the blood falling from Christ's body to the ground and Christ says something like 'Go ahead, taste the blood of God - you know you want to'. (it was something like that). And I closed the book and never opened it again.


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## Bilston Blue

I've read some pretty disturbing stuff in the wake of the riots in the UK these past few days; people excusing and justifying the rioting and looting and the like.

Apart from that I gave up on American Psycho about halfway through. Not that I couldn't stomach it, more that I thought "what's the point?" Just not good literature at all.


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## moderan

Graham Masterton is a pretty good hand at "disturbing". So are guys like Skipp and Spector, or Clive Barker. That's what they do. But then I find certain behavioral aspects of RL far more disturbing than fiction.


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## BabaYaga

RL has more horror than any author can cram into a book. That said, I think the most disturbing things I've read have been: 

_The Wasp Factory _by Ian Banks - from start to finish it was just.... upsetting. But very well written. 

_Exodus_ from _Haunted_ by Chuck Palahniuk- again, a generally disturbing book, but that story in particular forced me to go watch Scrubs reruns for hours just to feel better. 

And recently there have been parts of _Shantaram _(the bit with the mouse) that have left me unable to sleep.  

Looking at that list, I'd say it's always realistic violence against animals or children that really leaves me unsettled.

 I've got a pretty solid stomach when it comes to other run of the mill horror fiction or movies and usually end up cheering for the zombies/ non-twilight vampires/ masked killers of promiscuous teenagers.


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## BabaYaga

sir_vile_minds said:


> For me it's:
> 
> Eric the Pie by Graham Masterton...



Just read it at work. 

It's now also on my list.


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## Offeiriad

I think the name of the book is called Hot Zone and it's one I read while on a kick about wanting to learn about deadly viruses like the ebola virus, etc. I stopped reading it because of the graphic and very detailed descriptions of what a patient went through while suffering from the viruses.


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## sir_vile_minds

BabaYaga said:


> Just read it at work.
> 
> It's now also on my list.



Nasty, isn't it? 

One plot hole I noticed though: First it says that he played with friends in the school yard, then it goes on to say that he has no friends (or the other way round).


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## BabaYaga

Hmmm, yeah, I think I was too busy throwing up inside my mind to notice at the time I have to admit, I started at the beginning, read the first bit and thought it was kind of lame so I skipped to the end- and then of course I had to see how it got from the unassuming start to the gory finale. I guess curiosity (as well as Eric) killed the cat. Realised today I haven't eaten any meat since I read it...Despite the fact that I should know better by now, I'm also going to go and try to find 'Victims'.


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## ProcrastinationStation

Offeiriad said:


> I think the name of the book is called Hot Zone and it's one I read while on a kick about wanting to learn about deadly viruses like the ebola virus, etc. I stopped reading it because of the graphic and very detailed descriptions of what a patient went through while suffering from the viruses.



I love that book! read it at least 3 or 4 times!
I've never found Cliver barker to be that horrifying, though I havn't read much of his work, I'm currently reading Coldheart Canyon and stopped about halfway through books of blood, mainly because I found it slightly boring. I don't really think I've come across something that was too horrible for me to continue reading. 
I just bought the wasp factory and also have American Psycho on my to read list, but I'm not sure when I'll get around to them. Once I do I'll report back.

Just remebered, Cujo, the book was hard to read at points and the ending was a really horrible downer, I also felt so horrible for the dog because he didn't really know what he was doing at all.


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## BabaYaga

ProcrastinationStation said:


> Just remebered, Cujo, the book was hard to read at points and the ending was a really horrible downer, I also felt so horrible for the dog because he didn't really know what he was doing at all.


I always feel bad for the animals... will check out Hot Zone as well now. Hopefully no dogs or cats.


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## ProcrastinationStation

There's monkeys and animal dissection.


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## Bloggsworth

My bank statement...


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## sir_vile_minds

BabaYaga said:


> Hmmm, yeah, I think I was too busy throwing up inside my mind to notice at the time I have to admit, I started at the beginning, read the first bit and thought it was kind of lame so I skipped to the end- and then of course I had to see how it got from the unassuming start to the gory finale. I guess curiosity (as well as Eric) killed the cat. Realised today I haven't eaten any meat since I read it...Despite the fact that I should know better by now, I'm also going to go and try to find 'Victims'.



It did start slow but I knew it'd get interesting after he ate the woodlouse. 

Not sure if I said it but you'll only be able to find Victims on eBay and/or Amazon: Hutson's works are only available in the UK and in charity shops at that.


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## ScientistAsHero

Stephen King's books don't bother me anymore, but I read two when I was a kid that, at the time, seemed really disturbing.

One of them was in the book Needful Things. I was about 10 when I read it, and one of the main characters in the story is a 10-year-old boy named Brian Rusk. As I read, naturally I started to identify with the kid, and read in fascination as he encountered Leland Gaunt and obtained a Sandy Koufax baseball card from Mr. Gaunt's little Castle Rock shop. However, later in the story, Brian is really upset about some things that Mr. Gaunt made him do as a return-favor for the baseball card. At one point, there is a scene where Brian's younger brother, Sean, who is about 6 or so, comes out to the garage to find Brian with a shotgun pointed to his head, intending to kill himself because of the bad things Brian's done. Sean begs and pleads for Brian to stop, even saying that he'll let Brian watch whatever channel he wants to on TV, etc., but Brian pulls the trigger.

I had already read many other acts of violence in that story, but that scene just disturbed the crap out of me! I guess it was just the connection I felt with the kid because he was my age... it just seemed really horrible and unbelievable that he would blow his brains out with a shotgun. It sounds silly now, but I was kind of bummed out for probably about a solid week or two because of that scene. It just gave me a really dark, sad feeling.

The other scene that kind of disturbed me was the scene with the children in the sewers in IT. (Again, SPOILERS.) Beverly has sex with all of them, and they're like, 12 years old! I remember reading it and feeling very awkward because I'd never really read anything to do with sex in books before... especially sex between kids! 

Now, as an adult, I kind of wonder about Stephen King's purpose of including that scene... his rationale was that they were all scared and confused from having recently fought the monster, and Beverly doing that with them kind of made their heads clear and let them regain their direction and resolve. I don't consider him to be a pervert or anything, but it does seem really odd to me. I guess you can't really imagine what people would do in a situation like that. I don't quite know what to think of that scene to this day.

There's not too much in books that bothers me as an adult. I guess the disturbing nature of both of the things I've mentioned is more due to the fact that I read them as a kid than anything else.


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## sir_vile_minds

I'm now reading "Helter Skelter", the classic book about the Manson murders and some of the stuff in this book is extremely disturbing, especially the descriptions of how the victims were found and slaughtered.


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## BabaYaga

sir_vile_minds said:


> It did start slow but I knew it'd get interesting after he ate the woodlouse.
> 
> Not sure if I said it but you'll only be able to find Victims on eBay and/or Amazon: Hutson's works are only available in the UK and in charity shops at that.



Yeah, looked at the cover online. It seemed like something you'd have to unearth from the bottom of a book bargain bin. In that 'it's so bad, it's gone full circle and become good' sort of way...*


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## BabaYaga

Yeah, I think the concepts that you're describing are disturbing no matter what the context. I know my mother, who is as hard as nails, wont read any Stephen King, not because she doesn't like sex scenes or violence in books, but because it so often happens to kids in his. I have to say, never read IT, so thanks for the spoiler, I would have been extremely weirded out if I'd read that 10 minutes before bed.*


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## Rustgold

In Fiction :
One of the 'The Girl Who' books by some Scandinavian author started with a adult going back to a child kidnap/rape scenario.  I only read the first few pages and I've wiped the details from my memory, but it taught me a lot about what not to do.  It was rather disturbing & foul tasting, even without the fact that his books are marketed towards minors.

Non-Fiction :


sir_vile_minds said:


> I'm now reading "Helter Skelter", the classic book about the Manson murders and some of the stuff in this book is extremely disturbing, especially the descriptions of how the victims were found and slaughtered.


Lots of things are disturbing in real life.  2 year old girls being raped in the name of religion, girls being picked off the streets and raped by paid rapists in the name of religion; there's so many things that are sick.  But even worse; in a local Ipswich school 2 years ago, there were dozens of students & teachers who wrote messages of support for a paedophile teacher on the basis that he's a 'good block'.
The more I see, the more I seriously struggle to see how I can relate to the world we live in.


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## sir_vile_minds

BabaYaga said:


> Yeah, looked at the cover online. It seemed like something you'd have to unearth from the bottom of a book bargain bin. In that 'it's so bad, it's gone full circle and become good' sort of way...*



The books aren't bad, they're just extremely gory (think a baby being put in a microwave (the film crew thought it was a model), giant slugs attacking the country and eating human brains, a man who uses real bodies rather than wax in his film sets). They used to sell really well but just went out of print.


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## J.R. Morin

For me personally the most disturbing thing I have ever read was The Cask of Amontilliado by Edgar Allen Poe. I cannot remember a time when I was filled with more dread. I honestly squirmed in my seat when I read that in my Gr. 12 English class. But I suppose thats what made it so good. It registered such jarring emotions of discomfort. I can only hope to be able to write with such power one day.


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## BabaYaga

sir_vile_minds said:


> ...giant slugs attacking the country and eating human brains...



K, it still doesn't sound like high literature, but I'm willing to accept that I may have judged the book by its cover unfairly. Will see if I can order a second hand copy of one of his books along with my next Amazon haul and give more accurate commentary once I've actually read it- any spoilers about cats, dogs, monkeys, ferrets or wombats or similarly furry, four-legged creatures appreciated! (I think I can stomach woodlice/ spiders)

Rustgold, I know what you're saying and I think that's part of the reason that horror/ fantasy movies are so popular. It's like a rollercoaster, you can enjoy the fear and terror in a way because you know it's not real and at the end of the day, even though you screamed your head off, everyone is ok. The monsters don't exist and they're not going to get out on bail or released early due to overcrowded prisons or expensive lawyers. What scares me more and more are not the individual sickos (for lack of a more sweary word) who torment innocent people, but rather the huge governments that stand by and watch as people are violated, killed or dehumanized while keeping their eyes firmly trained on the bottom line. There are more monsters in parliament and on the street than there are under the bed.

JR, first, nice avatar- I actually used a similar font for my freelance biz card, second, I totally agree with you about E A Poe, I grew up reading his stuff and, along with Roald Dahl, he was one of the reasons I wanted to start writing, I liked the Cask of Amontilliado as well, and The Purloined Letter and the Tell Tale Heart, although The Black Cat irked me in parts for obvious reasons.*

Speaking of Roald Dahl, there's another one for the list, The Swan.*


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## ProcrastinationStation

Just though of "Let The Right One In" there were some fairly disturbing bits in the book, though overall I didn't think it was that great. Also read Day of the Dead (I think that was the title, by the same author) neither were that great and I wouldn't read them again, didn't realise the second one was by the same author and it had some amazing reviews. I dunno, maybe I'm just a philistine.


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## Courtjester

In my view it is not without reason that Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ is so widely considered a blood-curdler. I first read it at the age of about fourteen and it scared me stiff. Thirty years later, I tried it again. Same result. The Courtjester


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## Leon84

I always thought that Edgar Allan Poe's short story "the black cat" was quite a disturbing tale. Being that it was written some time ago the references to animal cruelty were quite ahead of their time.


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## Bluesman

Tess Gerittsen,s The Surgeon was a gory murderous book and i loved it


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## CFFTB

Some of Kafka's stuff is just brutal, & I'm talking all the senses. Physically, emotionally, spiritually, & mentally. I couldn't even finish In The Penal Colony. I cheated & skimmed over to the end, then had to go back a bit when I couldn't figure out just what the hell happened. 

The Judgement was incredibly depressing. At the end when he's hanging from the bridge, I'm thinking _What?!? Over an argument with your father, over a friend of yours?!? WTH???_ 
And all of this work came out of him by the time he was 41. I have to wonder again, as with many other famous writers, what the heck REALLY happened to them that all of this misery came pouring out of them.


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## yingguoren

A book called 'The Republic of Wine' by Mo Yan. It's about a culture of elitist restaurants that serve endangered animals and babies. It goes into description about how the food is prepared, which you need quite a strong stomach for. (No pun intended.)


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## m alexander

*Trance Formation USA*

Beware, sexual content not advised for under 18 year olds.

Trance Formation of USA.  It goes into depth about some of the practices  of people in the US govt, FBI and CIA.  Absolutely shocking and as bad  as the Nazis, but then it was a program the Nazis gave to the US govt,  the Nazi doctors who the US govt protected from war crimes, 'MK ultra'  being the official name of them beginnings.
People in the CIA adopted sexually abused female children and gave their  abusing parents immunity from criminal action just as long as they  signed adoption papers, then them women were mind controlled to be  prostitutes for drug smuggling people within the CIA, FBI and US govt.   These women later wrote books about it all and tried to file criminal  proceedings against these government departments and particular people,  but official secrets acts prevented them from taking them to court.  You  cant get anymore shocking than this book and it so shocking its hard to  believe, but the women involved have their faces all over the internet,  they are credible witnesses and Ive even seen a video in Youtube of one  of these women in a court of law trying to bring legal proceedings  against certain people in the FBI and CIA, the defense attorney hands a  letter to the judge, and he reads it then addresses the court in this  next particular way, " For the defence of this nation these legal  proceedings cannot continue."


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## chongjasmine

The most disturbing thing I had read is a child called it. It is a child abuse story. And I find the story to be very disturbing because it is a non-fiction, and that the child abuse in that story actually occurs.


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## Kevin

*confirm  these at your own risk*

A few that come to mind:

The Road- Cormac McCarthy- I had a dream once where I was locked in a blackened room where all there was to eat was live people. Scared the cr@! out of me.

 "Reading Lolita in tehran"-non fiction. There was a sidenote about a religious ruling as to whether it's okay to eat a chicken after uh..certain... uh.. "relations." Amazing.

 A recent "google search" regarding Ted (unibomber) Kascinsky and experments on mind control performed upon him by a certain Harvard professor in the  1950s, and this particular professor's fondness for torture. Theodore was only 16 at the time.


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## Jinotega

The most disturbing things I've read are in newspapers.  When I was living in Texas there was a story about two middle-aged brothers who chained their elderly mother to a bed and raped her for months....

After that, I stopped buying newspapers and watching the so-called 'news.'  That put me over the edge.  If they can't come up with better stories than people raping their own family members, why even bother.  So much is happening in our world and the media focuses on trash like this.  

If 'disturbing' is distorting the truth, misleading people, following hidden agendas, warping peoples' minds all in the name of making money, then surely the mainstream media has produced the most disturbing things any of us have read.  It affects the lives of millions of real people where a disturbing piece of fiction remains only fiction.


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## Steamship

Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahnuik. 
Great Novel but Very disturbing.


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## themooresho

"Lord of the Dead" and "Slave of my Thirst" by Tom Holland, especially the later.  The entire last 100 pages of Slave of my Thirst I read with my mouth gaping wide open.
Also, a classic by H. P. Lovecraft called "Dreams in the Witch House" was absolutely chilling, and then "House of Leaves" by Mark Danielewski made me question my own sanity.
"The Gargoyle" by Andrew Davidson was pretty cringeworthy at the beginning.
"The Collector" by John Fowles really freaked me out in the sense that it showed how a person can turn from relatively normal into a monster, and all it takes is a little bit of self-indulgence taken too far.


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## Kyle R

Nicky said:


> there's a scene in toward the end of the novel Memnoch The Devil where where The devil and Lestat travel back in time to watch the crucifiction of Christ. And as they are standing in the crowd watching him carry his cross time slows down and the crowd freezes and the only ones moving are the devil and Lestat and then Christ turns to look over at Lestat whose vampire senses are tingling at the sight and the smell of the blood falling from Christ's body to the ground and Christ says something like 'Go ahead, taste the blood of God - you know you want to'. (it was something like that). And I closed the book and never opened it again.



Content aside, that sounds like an amazing scene.

I think the most disturbing thing I've ever read was "Haunted" by Chuck Palahniuk.

In it he has stories of a boy who's intestines are pulled out of his body in a swimming pool, masturbation gone horribly wrong.. people eating a portion of another character while the character is still alive.. the description of a man trying to kill another man, then discovering to his horror how the victim hasn't died yet, so he keeps trying and trying different things..

It was mostly just a "how much of this can you read before you give up in disgust?" novel. But I read the whole thing. Hah! I sure showed him. Was disturbing, though, that's for sure.


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## Sharon L

Most disturbing was _Sybil--_and though I loved Sally Field's portrayal of her in the movie version there's no beating the book....

Stephen K. gives me chills, but his take on human foibles and weakness is so real you just have to laugh... love him!

Sharon L.


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## saintenitouche

Will I get made fun of if I say "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair? Lol, honestly the imagery wasn't really that disturbing it was just so freaking depressing. Sorry guys I don't read stuff that's too gross. :]


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## ScientistAsHero

I flipped through a book by Paul Auster the other day at the bookstore and by chance came upon a scene where a brother and sister were described as they descended into an incestuous relationship. I guess I'm pretty jaded from watching horror movies and dark content on TV, but the passage in the book did seem kind of icky. I think it was just because it was described in such poignancy. I don't think the author was condoning or recommending that type of behavior. I think he was more presenting it from the character's points-of-view, because to them it apparently seemed like the most natural thing in the world. But it was still pretty disturbing. I ended up buying one of his other books.


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## mightyblues78

For me, one of the most disturbing books that I have read has to be _Assassins_ by Shaun Hutson. Hutson has a knack for describing fairly horrific scenes in great detail; I for one find it quite disappointing that he now seems to limit his work to more 'real-life', gang-inspired horror than the supernatural edge that his earlier novels had. Having said that, _Assassins_ certainly had a bleak, inner-city gangland feel to it as well.

I must say that I had high hopes for _Apartment 16_ by Adam Nevill, but was left feeling a little let-down come the end.


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## mightyblues78

In addition to my last post and looking at more mainstream press, surely one must include Stephen King's _Pet Semetary_ in a list of the most disturbing books ever written? While it obviously has lost a little of its shock value in these more hardened times, it certainly took me a couple of goes to finish it the first time I read the book!


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## philistine

The collected works of the Marquis de Sade, the poetry of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, and perhaps several anonymous works of fiction printed by one Charles Carrington, including, but certainly not limited to, _Raped on The Railway, Experimental Lecture_ and _Sadopaedia.

_An excerpt from Sade's_ Les 120 journées de Sodome:

_


> Coffee was served by Augustine, Fanny, Céladon, and Zéphyr. The Duc bade Augustine frig Zéphyr, and the latter shit in the nobleman’s mouth at the same time he discharged; the operation was a stunning success, so much so that the Bishop wanted to duplicate it with Céladon; Fanny attended to the frigging, and the little fellow received orders to shit in Monseigneur’s mouth the moment he felt his fuck flow. But the young operatives succeeded less brilliantly than had their companions: Céladon was never able to co-ordinate his shitting with his discharge; however, as this exercise was merely a test of skill, and as the regulations made no mention of the subjects being obliged to excel in it, no punishment was inflicted upon him.


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## Walkio

philistine said:


> The collected works of the Marquis de Sade, the poetry of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, and perhaps several anonymous works of fiction printed by one Charles Carrington, including, but certainly not limited to, _Raped on The Railway, Experimental Lecture_ and _Sadopaedia.
> 
> _An excerpt from Sade's_ Les 120 journées de Sodome:
> _



Just wondering if you think this sort of stuff has any 'worth'? Is it well-written, or thought-provoking, or is it just some sick little man writing primarily to be disgusting (like when the South Park kids wrote 'The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs)?!

Clive Barker and Herbert, and things like Blatty's The Exorcist and The Road don't bother me. But I have to say I was a little disturbed at a scene in a Stephen King book (won't say which one because of spoilers) where a 12-year-old girl has sex with 6 similarly aged boys one after the other down a drain. And I don't even understand why it needed to be in there anyway; it's not like the plot cried out for it.


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## philistine

Walkio said:


> Just wondering if you think this sort of stuff has any 'worth'? Is it well-written, or thought-provoking, or is it just some sick little man writing primarily to be disgusting (like when the South Park kids wrote 'The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs)?!



Particularly in the case of Sade and Rochester's work, yes, they are very well written. The effect their work produces, you get the impression that they were highly educated men who simply got bored, and decided to wax erotic, pornographic, etc. I don't think I've come across a work by Rochester (in his famous play or poesy) that I thought of being poorly written, appealing to a common denominator, or just perverse for that very sake. It's worth noting the era in which these men wrote, which of course, was commentary in itself. 

The books which Carrington produced, although I haven't read most of them, are well written, just as you'd expect any Victorian or Edwardian literary novel to be, though with the central topic being that of sex. Many of the titles were purportedly written by the likes of Swinburne, Wilde and even Lawrence (though he toed the line anyway with _Lady Chatterly's Lover_).

There's something intrinsically entertaining about a remarkably educated and talented person writing such filth, as that what essentially is, if we get down to brass tacks. Modern erotica or pornographic work lacks the _coup de maitre _found in those works aforementioned, and so it just falls into dirty novel territory.

To add another example, I always found _Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde_ quite disturbing, particularly that short description of Hyde trampling on the man's body, done much in the same way as a smashed orange, or beaten dough. Quite horrific, really.


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## ScientistAsHero

mightyblues78 said:


> In addition to my last post and looking at more mainstream press, surely one must include Stephen King's _Pet Semetary_ in a list of the most disturbing books ever written? While it obviously has lost a little of its shock value in these more hardened times, it certainly took me a couple of goes to finish it the first time I read the book!



I didn't think the book of Pet Semetary was that disturbing, but when I was a kid me and my sister watched the movie, and the sister with spinal meningitis, "Zelda," scared the crap out of us! Nowadays it's kind of funny to watch that movie, because Zelda just looks like a man in drag, but back then we were scared witless of her.


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## Kevin

Re: Zelda
I wondered about that character. So many of his characters (and settings)were repeated, that I figured that  they're all modeled on his real life experiences.


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## rachelwrites527

Probably the most disturbing thing I've read recently was Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk.  I'm generally pretty tolerant about disturbing things, but that was just too much.  I finished reading that book and I actually felt nauseous.


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## Kyle R

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention two short stories:

Edgar Allen Poe's "The Telltale Heart" was a story that imbued me with an unhealthy dose of paranoia that lasted for days.

"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins also deeply disturbed me.

It's about a woman in the 19th century being "treated" for her psychosis (which was actually just post-partum depression).. but the treatment (confined isolation in an attic room) becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.. driving her more insane.

You live in the mind of the woman as she spirals into lunacy, but the beautifully disturbing part about it is, the more crazy she gets, the more she believes she's getting better. Her hallucinations are absolutely, deliciously disturbing. Give it a read!


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## aj47

The novelized _Ender's Game_ by Orson Scott Card.  I couldn't make it past the first chapter even though I loved the short version.


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## Daneril17

I've recently read the Turn of the Screw and must I say it is a very disturbing and ambiguous novel in nature, however I also want to read The woman in black due to the new movie coming out with Radcliffe however the story line interests me a lot.


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## Bossk

Guts. 

It's a short story available online for free here written by Chuck Palahniuk. Don't read it though. It's disgusting. I'm surprised I managed to get as far as I could. I think the author was just trying to write the most disturbing story possible.


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## theorphan

I once read a book in Lit class that had incest, rape, graphical descriptions of minors having sex, and etc.  My Lit teacher had something wrong up in his noggin.


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## Archetype

Jeff Lindsay's Dearly Devoted Dexter is the first thing that comes to mind. It's part of the series the Dexter TV show is based on. There's a surgeon who likes to play a real life version of hangman with his victims. He leaves them alive when he's done. The phrase "yodeling potato" was used to describe what the victims look and sound like after he's finished.


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## Rustgold

Bossk said:


> I think the author was just trying to write the most disturbing story possible.



If I ever wanted to do that, I'd just write down all the things Christians used to do to infidels (makes the Romans appear civilised in comparison).


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## BabaYaga

Thanks to following Stephen Fry on Twitter, I have been introduced to the horrific work of grotesque that is The Human Centipede. I honestly can't imagine how Tom Six sat down in front of his cast and crew members and said, "You're just going to love this!". I honestly can't imagine how anyone would agree to take part- and yet they all did!.... oh and there's a sequel. Gah....


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## Terry D

_When Rabbit Howls_ by Truddi Chase.  An autobiography of a woman with dissociative personality disorder.  The terror and abuse this woman suffered fragmented her into 92 distinct personalities.  The title refers to a voiceless personality which can only scream.  I read this book many years ago and the thought of Rabbit still sends shivers.


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## Deleted member 64995

Good question.
Up to now, I haven't found any books.


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## Hector

Jungle Book.


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## BrandonTheWriter

Stephen King's books have given me some nightmares almost. Especially Misery and IT, they have some really disturbing moments. There is some parts in those books where I actually had to stop and take a breather.


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## BadHouses

This blog post:

Other Things Amanzi - "Perianal Absess Connection"


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## Matchu

^^^^
I understand it is a thread about disturbing posts.  Still the blog post you cite turns from jocular, 'doctorly' medical humour toward child rape in the blink of a paragraph.


...and dunno where 'doctorly' came from, front of brain issue...


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## CyberWar

Most of my favourite reads would probably rank as quite disturbing for the average person. I am very much into dark and macabre things. Plague, war, genocide, torture, serial killers - you name it.

One of the more memorable reads that come to mind is an account by a WWI veteran of how he saw a comrade literally drown in his own shit, being too weak from dysentery to stand up after falling, and the other men likewise too weak to help him up. Some of the accounts of how folks went about burying the dead between battles are also pretty hardcore.


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## Irwin

I started reading _The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump_ but it was too disturbing. It literally made me nauseous. It was a library eBook so I just returned it and started on a novel.


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## PiP

the most disturbing book I've ever read is Gray Mountain by John Grisham


> The year is 2008 and Samantha Kofer’s career at a huge Wall Street law firm is on the fast track—until the recession hits and she is downsized, furloughed, and escorted out of the building. Samantha, though, is offered an opportunity to work at a legal aid clinic for one year without pay, all for a slim chance of getting rehired.
> 
> In a matter of days Samantha moves from Manhattan to Brady, Virginia, population 2,200, in the heart of Appalachia, a part of the world she has only read about. Samantha’s new job takes her into the murky and dangerous world of coal mining, where laws are often broken, communities are divided, and the land itself is under attack. But some of the locals aren’t so thrilled to have a big-city lawyer in town, and within weeks Samantha is engulfed in litigation that turns deadly. Because like most small towns, Brady harbors big secrets that some will kill to conceal.



WikiPedia: Facts: *Surface mining*, including *strip mining*, open-pit mining and mountaintop removal mining, is a broad category of mining in which soil and rock overlying the mineral deposit (the overburden) are removed, in contrast to underground mining, in which the overlying rock is left in place, and the mineral is removed through shafts or tunnels.

Basically, they rape the land.


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## indianroads

Pretty much everything by H P Lovecraft.
Pet Cemetery by Steven King bothered me too.
ETA
The forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia bothered me because my grandfather considered taking Henry Ford’s offer to relocate at the new Moscow Ford plant at the start of the depression.


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## Lazybones358

I've read a few things by Hubert Selby Jr. All pretty disturbing. I read _The Room_ recently, and had to wonder why. It was hard going in places.

I also found _The Kindly One_s, by Jonathan Littel tough going in parts - though mainly, I think, because of a scene which details the narrator's involvement in a massacre in Ukraine.

_Revolutionary Road_ is dark: A bleaker take on life than in any horror story (I think); I suppose because it's so tangible, so domestic, and it's filled with suffering without any crime or overt transgression ever being committed.


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## Joker

_The Big Sleep _is the last book I've read and _goddamn _is it nihilistic. The ending left me totally bummed in a way most noir can only imitate.


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## Sinister

Off the top of my head, the Crossed comics by Garth Ennis.  Dare you to image search that!  That compared to most of these suggestions is like Everclear to Lemonade.

Someone said The Wasp Factory.  Love that book!  Lord of the Flies was kind of icky.  "The Human Chair" was nice and creepy.  Plenty of Junji Ito qualifies, certainly.  Love Uzumaki, for instance.  Perfume by Patrick Suskind was good clean fun.

But if you want to know something I read that really creeped me out, personally.  What I found really disturbing was Waiting for Godot by Beckett.  And I'm sure you're rolling your eyes at this point.  But I've been stuck in this house on this hill for a decade and more.  It *upset *me something awful.  It still gives me chills.  Even though I prefer just reading the screenplay, watch it and see if you agree.

-Sin


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## Splinter

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis contained some imagery that I still can't get out of my head. I can't unread it, as it were.
A very powerful and well written book, which I won't be reading twice.


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## indianroads

I don’t recall the title, but it was by H P Lovecraft … it wasn’t necessarily frightening, but was deeply disturbing. I’ve not read anything by Lovecraft since.


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## Parabola

indianroads said:


> I don’t recall the title, but it was by H P Lovecraft … it wasn’t necessarily frightening, but was deeply disturbing. I’ve not read anything by Lovecraft since.



I read one by Lovecraft where the protagonist seemed to be turning into a monster. Found that one pretty disturbing because of the language used.


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## indianroads

Parabola said:


> I read one by Lovecraft where the protagonist seemed to be turning into a monster. Found that one pretty disturbing because of the language used.


I don't know if Lovecraft had kids, but if he did, his bedtime stories must have been dreadful.


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## Parabola

indianroads said:


> I don't know if Lovecraft had kids, but if he did, his bedtime stories must have been dreadful.



Oh god, that's conjures up some horrifying images lol.


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## Joker

Dunno if it counts because TV but there's a scene in True Detective where the cops find a baby heated to death in a microwave  

They only show some of it but it was enough to nope me out.


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## indianroads

Hands down, Malleus Malevicarum. Deeply disturbing.


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## Joker

indianroads said:


> Hands down, Malleus Malevicarum. Deeply disturbing.



The original incel manifesto


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## indianroads

Joker said:


> The original incel manifesto


Yeah… big time.


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## C.K.Johnson

Under The Skin by Michael Faber creeped me out. Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo is horror on a different level.


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## bazz cargo

Mine is a must read
1984
by
George Orwell.

Traumatizing but essential.


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## Maelgwynn

The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum, brilliant book to evoke such a visceral reaction, but not one I’d re-read for pleasure.


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## indianroads

Pretty much everything written by H P Lovecraft gives me nightmares.


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## Maelgwynn

indianroads said:


> Pretty much everything written by H P Lovecraft gives me nightmares.


I adore Lovecraft, one of my favorite writers, but yes, the entire concept of cosmic horror is nightmarish.


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## indianroads

Maelgwynn said:


> I adore Lovecraft, one of my favorite writers, but yes, the entire concept of cosmic horror is nightmarish.


Stephen King has nothing on Lovecraft.


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## Maelgwynn

I like a lot of Kings stuff, but he’s rarely frightening, and when he is it’s usually the idea and not the execution. The concept of The Stand is terrifying, but the epic fantasy novel that follows isn’t. Salem’s Lot is the only one I recall scaring me the first read. Still, he’s a genius with characters and his books are almost always a great time, so I’m a fan


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