Have you ever found a book to be good, but too disturbing to continue?

[elizilla]

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. He perfectly captures an irritating family dynamic that's eerily similar to the one that makes me dread Christmas every year. It was raising my blood pressure just to read it, and not in a good way. If I'm going to be stressed out by a book, how about some suspense or drama, rather than just teeth-grinding petty snarky awfulness? Shudder. I think I read about a quarter of it, then realized it was making me utterly miserable, so I put it down.

[covingtoncat73]

Originally Posted by elizilla

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. He perfectly captures an irritating family dynamic that's eerily similar to the one that makes me dread Christmas every year. It was raising my blood pressure just to read it, and not in a good way. If I'm going to be stressed out by a book, how about some suspense or drama, rather than just teeth-grinding petty snarky awfulness? Shudder. I think I read about a quarter of it, then realized it was making me utterly miserable, so I put it down.

This, in a nutshell, is why I am not a big fan of contemporary literary fiction. If it is historically set, I'll go for the "literary" stuff, but I am more into fantasy. I read to get away.

[Joykins]

Stephen King is, in addition to all the strengths Prestidigitweeze mentions above, a very...audio writer. His books have a soundtrack. I swear there are Eagles songs, Hank Williams songs etc. that I can't hear now without thinking of his books. I guess that's part of making a cultural detail sinister.

[shanghaichica]

Shadow family by Miyabae Miyuki. The book was fine enough although rather disturbing but I stopped reading after the daughter slept with her father.

[elizilla]

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

This, in a nutshell, is why I am not a big fan of contemporary literary fiction. If it is historically set, I'll go for the "literary" stuff, but I am more into fantasy. I read to get away.

Indeed. Escapism FTW. It doesn't have to be all sunshine and puppies - bad things happen, and that's what authors generally wrap their plots around. But grinding, petty, meaningless misery that goes on and on without end? Not what I want to read about.

[Lucid_Dreamer]

I've never not finished because a book was too disturbing. I've had visceral gut reactions to books (I tend to read horror and dark fantasy a lot) but never not finished one.

[Treadstone71]

Originally Posted by kjk

Wasn't that a plotline in a Heinlein book?

Almost; you may be thinking of Heinlein's "Number of the Beast". I haven't read it recently, but I recall the premise was something along the lines that really popular literature became real as another universe, and the main characters in the novel traveled between these universes. The only specific ones I remember from the book are the Oz universe and the Lensman universe.

I think he also did something similar for "Job: A Comedy of Justice", where various deities and afterlifes existed depending on the number and strength of their believers.

As for the topic of this thread, I don't recall ever permanently dropping a book for being too disturbing. There are some, such as "American Psycho", where what I've heard beforehand has stopped me from picking it up. I may try it sometime down the road, but there's so much else that the chances are slim.

[iverson]

when i graduated, i find every book is hard to read. can not find my patience to read the book, what should i do?

[taosaur]

Originally Posted by iverson

when i graduated, i find every book is hard to read. can not find my patience to read the book, what should i do?

Lol, and you ended up at this forum how?

Seriously though, you just need to get a better feel for what interests you, and how to identify books that will really grab you, even if they're total fluff. Reading 'candy' every now and then can give you more patience for something that may not have as much instant gratification, but will be more rewarding when you've finished it.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by Treadstone71

[T]he premise was something along the lines that really popular literature became real as another universe, and the main characters in the novel traveled between these universes. . . . I think he also did something similar for "Job: A Comedy of Justice", where various deities and afterlifes existed depending on the number and strength of their believers.

All of which has nothing to do with the idea that whatever you think becomes instantly real, so that what you fear is actually summoned by your fear and is coming for you from that moment forward on some level, on some plane. Worse, whatever holocaust or annihilation you picture will then occur -- if not here, then somewhere parallel -- meaning that all who have undisciplined thoughts and fear the worst for humankind become prolific and unconscious mass murderers.

And even worse than all that is the idea that the unconscious ramifications of whatever we all think in any moment are all coming true all the time, in a kind of grim collaboration that lacerates any hope of sustained future existence.

As a hidden but encompassing truth about the totality of existence as represented in a work of fiction, my idea is far more likely to have been used by a horror writer than in pulp science fiction, since the concept is more Platonic/Cabalistic than science- or even pseudo-science-referential. A vintage pulp science fiction writer is more likely to create a machine that causes someone to summon or be killed by the object of their fear. And even if a horror writer has done it in the metaphysical sense I'm talking about, the evidence of which I haven't yet encountered, the chances they did it exactly as I or someone else would are nil.

Besides which, Kenneth Grant is closer to the idea as I perceive it than any other writer you might have mentioned.

Some guy (re Brahms's Second Symphony): "Isn't that same melody used in a Mendelssohn string quartet?"

Johannes Brahms: "Yes, yes, any idiot can see that."

Every child has had the experience of imagining that the people around them are performing -- are in essence acting their lines in an endless movie of which said child is the star. If that idea inspires me, should I really stop myself from presenting it my way because something as banal as The Truman Show already exists?

[garrybuck]

>when i graduated, i find every book is hard to read. can not find my patience to read the book, what should i do?<

I felt the same way when I graduated. I'd always been an avid reader, but 5 years of engineering school was like some hellish Pavlovian experiment where they beat the love of reading right out of me. The cure for me was magazines. The articles were short and they had pretty pictures. I was reading magazines that specialized in hobbies and interests that I was passionate about so it didn't 'feel like work'. Once I got over the aversion to reading (it took a couple years) I was able to get back into books.

[tponzo]

All of which has nothing to do with the idea that whatever you think becomes instantly real, so that what you fear is actually summoned by your fear and is coming for you from that moment forward on some level, on some plane. Worse, whatever holocaust or annihilation you picture will then occur -- if not here, then somewhere parallel -- meaning that all who have undisciplined thoughts and fear the worst for humankind become prolific and unconscious mass murderers.

The Lathe of Heaven bu Ursula LeGuin. The protagonists dreams constantly reshape reality for good and bad, even to the point of alien invasion.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by tponzo

The Lathe of Heaven bu Ursula LeGuin. The protagonists dreams constantly reshape reality for good and bad, even to the point of alien invasion.

I met Ursula K. Le Guin as a kid and sat in on one of her classes when I lived in Portland, Oregon. At that time, she wore single-piece black dresses and had short silver hair that terminated in points -- that's how she seemed to this then-fourteen-year-old observer anyhow.

Le Guin seemed to have emerged from an Edward Gorey drawing. She looked like one of his ladies in furs and flapper dresses, the kind who tilt impossibly long cigarette holders at their mustached admirers in derbies.

She made a big impression and, yes, of course I know Lathe of Heaven. That book's idea is different from mine. Consider how each idea comes into play, its specific effect and emphasis.

Her take on the general idea of dreams becoming real is collaborative and often willed. As the daughter of an anthropologist, dreamed reality means something very specific to her -- something concretely related to collective development. Since you seem to be an intelligent person, I doubt you have any difficulty in seeing the application as unique to her. This despite the fact that everyone has wondered what it would be like if their wishes and dreams came true.

Again -- my idea isn't collaborative but disruptive. It isn't about wishes but rather about the thoughts you try to repress. The effect is unscheduled, immediate and impossible to control.

You seem to be making reductive connections between concepts intended for entirely different ends -- concepts which might share a certain lineage but are fundamentally disparate.

No matter how much the creators of The Matrix prate about Schopenhauer, many people think the premise, worldview and even surface details were stolen from Philip K. Dick. In that particular case, I tend to agree.

Beyond pointing out finished works which are that detailed and that inclusive in their pilfering, I tend to agree with Yeats, who said "Masterpieces grow vague in many minds before they crystallize in one."

It was my mistake (for many reasons) to bring up an idea for a story here at all, but that doesn't explain why you'd continue to make comparisons after I asked you to refrain. What exactly is the payoff for you? Are you the sort of individualist who stands up and yells "Nobody tells me what to do"?

If you said you wanted to build a house and told me the location of the project, I wouldn't immediately drive to that spot and plaster it with photos of someone else's house. I'd respect your creative intent and leave you alone to do what you intended.

Better to make a suggestion that avoids the familiar or the cliche than tell someone their idea has already been done.

Here's a challenge for you: Instead of listing the books of which my idea seems to remind you, why not tell me about a detail or variation which, to your knowledge, none of those other books contains?

Bonus points if what you add is disturbing as well as unique.

[astrodad]

Nope. There's enough information out there (Goodreads, LibraryThing, MR, Amazon) to know whether or not a book will suit my tastes.

[kindleuzer]

Have never found one that I can think of offhand, but like I just mentioned in another thread, American Psycho came close. I don't think anything ever written can match some of the disturbing things in film these days. Maybe we're all just becoming desensitized, idk.