The weirdest novel you've ever read?

Discussion in 'Discussion of Published Works' started by Zombocalypse, Oct 25, 2016.

  1. Moe1795

    Moe1795 Member

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    Does naked lunch count? I dunno if that was a novel but it gabe me fuckin nightmares!
     
  2. jjwiggin

    jjwiggin Member

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    In the country of the young - by Lisa Carey. Weirdest ghost story ever!
     
  3. Okrachoke

    Okrachoke New Member

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    I'm another one that's going to say Naked Lunch. Luckily it was a school assignment and the teacher very thoroughly went over background info and his take on nearly every part of the book as we worked through it. Still a total mess of a book to me.
     
  4. czerny

    czerny New Member

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    A Clockwork Orange and I don't even think I need to explain haha.
     
  5. Lifeline

    Lifeline South. Supporter Contributor

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    Dispatches by Michael Herr. If I try to make logical sense of it I fail miserably, but if I just turn off my brain it sort of unfolds into this terrifying dream-like reality.
     
  6. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    if Dispatches confuses you don't read 'citadel' by Dale a Dye

    although actually for pure weirdness i'd say the silmarilion by Tolkein is pretty far up the rankings
     
  7. Lifeline

    Lifeline South. Supporter Contributor

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    weeelll.. you know what I'm checking out next :)
     
  8. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    Really don't bother... Dye trades on having written Platoon which was a much better film than book - his other vietnam books are excreable
     
  9. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    Ah shit, just remembered another one that tops the previous two I've mentioned.

    Gravity's Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon. The guy who recommended it to me said that it made Catch-22 look like M.A.S.H.

    He was right. I read it twenty years ago and didn't understand it, then re-read it a couple years ago and understood it even less. Pynchon is not for those with short attention spans.
     
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  10. Spencer1990

    Spencer1990 Contributor Contributor

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    I tried reading Gravity's Rainbow when I was in juvie, around the age of fourteen or so. I made it through out of sheer determination nothing better to do.

    Didn't understand a lick of it at the time.
     
  11. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    Ditto for me at 19 and forty-odd. Mason & Dixon is a tough one too.
     
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  12. SandCat

    SandCat New Member

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    I don't know if I'd call it the weirdest book I've ever read, but certainly the most recent was Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.
     
  13. GeorgiaMasonIII

    GeorgiaMasonIII Member

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    Wyrms by Orson Scott Card. The main character spent most of the book lusting after a giant worm, and in the book's climax, she was impregnated by said giant worm. I hope nobody needs brain bleach now.
     
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  14. Krispee

    Krispee Contributor Contributor

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    I once tried a China Mieville novel. Can`t remember which one but when a human/insect hybrid started to get fruity with a guy I called it quits. My friend got a different one from his wife for Christmas and was miffed when he told her it was weird and had trouble reading it. He asked if I wanted to read it and then read parts to me, and it just reminded me of the book I tried to read and told him no thanks. He did finally finish it but only to appease his wife.
    I like fantasy and sci-fi, and some weird and wonderful/magical, but China Meiville is on another level.
     
  15. Krispee

    Krispee Contributor Contributor

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    Yep, definitely. o_O
     
  16. MarcT

    MarcT Active Member

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    American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis.
    Not that I didn't get the book, I did. But the imagery, so powerfully and skillfully portrayed, haunted me for days afterwards. Even holding the book in my hands and turning each page became a challenge.
    What stayed with me is the impression that Ellis wrote it in a series of short but intense sessions of writing.
     
  17. The Cuckoo's Nest

    The Cuckoo's Nest Active Member

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    Junkie is definitely weird, but to answer another posters question, I'd say Naked Lunch doesn't count, not because it's not a novel or not relevant (it's a very good book), but because it was written with the intention, at least partially, in my opinion, of being a weird book.
     

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