D.H. Lawrence once wrote that "one loses one's sickness in books." I don't know if that's quite right. I read like a champ, yet I'm a fairly boring guy with few kinks that I'm willing to admit to. I have never killed a man. I have never had anonymous sex with multiple partners (my loss, I suppose). I have never even faced off against Ultimate Evil armed with only my wits, a flashlight, and a roll of duct tape. Consequently, the sicknesses I have to lose are easily handled by massive infusions of alcohol and by a strict program of yoga, emetics, and curmudgeonly behavior. Okay, I might be a huge fan of "Gilmore Girls" and vegetarian cookbooks, but those aren't as much signs of sickness as of postmodern metrosexual wimpery.
No, I usually go to books to find my sickness. I tend to prefer works that simultaneously attract and repel with an aplomb rarely found in standard "horror" fare. So, in tribute to this season where all America goes in search of their sicknesses and usually comes back with nothing more than a cheap torn costume and a bellyache, I have decided to offer up to you, gentle reader, a highly personal list of my favorites of what my wife recently dubbed my "awful" books.
There are no horror novels on this list, because they bore me to tears. Instead, the selections run the gamut from autobiography to experimental fiction. Yet these are the ones that gave me nightmares, or at least ruined my week admirably. At the root of this list are two questions: why do people choose to read a book they know will upset them; and what does it accomplish? Luckily, I'm no philosopher, so I can only offer pat answers. I like such books because I have an active imagination yet little ambition to be an Airborne Ranger or ninja, and what they accomplish is to allow me to satisfy the kinky parts of said imagination without actually getting down in there in the muck. They let me be a tourist rather than a resident.
So, without further ado, puffery, or hijinks, the list:
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1 - Eric Olsen
"awful" in the older sense I see, very fine job and much to think about. So, does this go in the Halloween pile? thanks!
2 - Johno
Yep: Halloween.
"Awful" seemed like the best word to describe the stuff I read, so there ya go. It's also how my wife described my collection, as in "Jesus, Johno, all you have are awful books!" So, awful. But great too. Language is so funny!
3 - Eric Olsen
cool, thanks! "Awe" is the root word of "awful" and "awesome"
4 - Johno
Exactly! I love it! "Awful" originally connoted something like divine power that struck fear and wonder into you, but not terror or loathing as the current meaning has it. These books definitely fit that bill for me.
Oh, and also, I just like to bloviate about my tastes and opinions. Thank you, Blogcritics!!!
5 - Eric Olsen
No - thank YOU!
6 - Rodney Welch
Glad to see you have a taste for both Thompson and Pynchon. The great thing about The Killer Inside Me is that it's such a brilliantly bleak black comedy. Lou Ford -- Barney Fife on the outside, Richard Speck on the inside.
I love Pynchon, but he baffles me. I've read Gravity's Rainbow three times over the last twenty years and I still don't really think I got it. I'm not sure where exactly my sense of what's going on breaks off; I just know that by the time I get to the "Byron the Bulb" section I've usually been wandering for a couple hundred pages. I probably ought to get that Companion thing and start over.
7 - Johno
Rodney, if you aren't up to the long, hard slog of "Gravity's Rainbow," I'd suggest working up to it-- seriously. Both Neal Stephenson and Umberto Eco mine similar territory, and if you can get through "Cryptonomicon" and "The Name of the Rose" (There also exists a readers' guide to this-- use it), "Gravity's Rainbow" seems like less of a mountain to climb.
Barney Fife/Richard Speck!!! Why didn't I think of that? Damn you, Rodney Welch!!
8 - Mark Saleski
when i got to the end of Gravity's Rainbow i likened it to piecing together an enormous jigsaw puzzle...thousands and thousands of pieces.
all the pieces were gray.
9 - Eric Olsen
I don't see "The Name of the Rose" in the same light as "Gravity" at all. I never did make it through "Gravity" nor did I much care about drifting away from it because there wasn't any "door" I could find in which to enter the thing, Ugh.
Whereas I found "Rose" very vivd, compelling, easy to follow as a story even if the philiosophy, semiotics, theology and the like were dense. They were like plug-ins that once you got through them you were back to the story, plus philosophy was one of my majors and comparative religion one of my minors so I at least knew the reference points.
It has been 20 years since I tried "Gravity" but I can't imagine putting in the time and effort to try it again.
10 - Rodney Welch
I've made it through Gravity's Rainbow on the occasions I've read it, just never with total comprehension. I found with Mason & Dixon, though, that Pynchon is more decipherable if you take him slowly -- like, real slowly. Of course, that may have had something to do with the book, which was plenty complex, even if it wasn't as complex as GR.
11 - Mark Saleski
i even bought Vineland...because i was kind of enthusiastic about Gravity's Rainbow during the first hundred or so pages...but then i lost interesting (despite forcing my way to the end).
here's what i remember about it:
- slothrop
- imipolex G
- missiles
- some scene were the guy's eating these really disgusting 'candies'
12 - Johno
Rodney, I totally understand. That's why, when I finished GR, I said "what the hell...?" and started over again. I'm not going to claim I understood the book-- I got totally swamped during the taffy-pulling scene-- but I LOVED it anyway.
Like you, I found Mason & Dixon more decipherable. I thought it might have been because I was pursuing an MA in US History at the time, but it's possible it's just a more well-integrated novel. I really need to read that one again.
13 - Johno
Mark-- I thought Vineland was total poo. It's hard to believe Pynchon wrote both books.
Eric, I agree with you in that "Name of the Rose" is a more user-friendly story in which the difficult parts are more illustrative than crucial. But I kind of view them both as 'metafiction' in which the book can be enjoyed on several levels depending on the reader's body of knowledge, imagination, and commitment to reading. A further parallel is that both Pynchon and Eco have turned out some real dogs of late: "Vineland," "The Island of the Day Before."
14 - Rodney Welch
I only mildly liked Vineland. I liked V. more. Never really thought much of The Crying of Lot 49, but maybe I read it too quickly.
Mark -- Surely you also remember the toilet scene and -- while we're on the subject -- the "Mistress of Night" scene, where the girl poops in the guy's mouth? Made me sick for three days.
15 - Eric Olsen
damn coprophages
16 - Mark Saleski
.....oh yea....i forgot about that. it didn't make me sick...just laugh. (not sure what that says about me)
17 - Eric Olsen
a better title might have been "Gravity's Dildo"
18 - Tom Johnson
I've been thinking about delving into Gravity's Rainbow but it seemed daunting during the bookstore-flipthrough. Now I'm thoroughly confused: intrigued, yet discouraged. Intriguingly discouraged; or maybe discourage intrigue. Now I've got to read it just to see what everyone's going on about, and now I'm even less certain of what I'm getting myself into . . .
19 - Johno
The coprophagy scene is really what put the book on this list.
But Red Sorghum really puts all the others to shame. Gory, horrid, and brutal, yet utterly mesmerizing.
But don't blame me if it puts you off your lunch.