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So I listened to an iceberg video last week called The Disturbing Book Iceberg and was mega disappointed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5JK03oC1Ek I mean, why is Stephen King below the water level? I love king but he's mainstream - things are supposed to get more obscure the lower you go. And not a single entry from Kathe Koja? For shame. I want to make a better Disturbing Book Iceberg, but I'm gonna need some help. Gimme your entries and we'll build one together. We'll need the title, author, a link from either Goodreads, Wikipedia. Book Depository, or Amazon would be a big help. Explain why it's disturbing and what layer you think it should be on. We can discuss and debate, with the best being listed here in the OP post. RULES - * One entry per author * Short stories are a-ok * The more obscure the better * online publication (blogs, etc) are a-ok * Fiction is good, nonfiction is good (Nothing to Envy, Night, etc), straight-up journalism or wiki articles not ok * comics and manga are a-ok but will be given the same scrutiny as regular books. No "Ew it's weird!" crap - it's gotta go that extra mile. The thing to keep in mind is DISTURBING. That means we're good to go grim as all gently caress here. Here's the template I'll be using -  Here are some entries for starters - Layer 0 - Mainstream, famous, probably has an A-budget film adaptation. Layer1 - Mainstream, but not terribly famous but easily available. Your mom has probably not heard of it. Unlikely to have a film adaptation. Layer 2 - Side stream - indy publishers, back of the library, hasn't been been checked out in a long time. The neckbeard mini-mart cashier who sells weed from his car has probably read it. Layer 3 - Underground - limited publishing, passion projects. Experimental stuff, probably poor quality and edgelord but there's an attempt to do something different. Here's the gray zone between mental health and mental illness. Layer 4 - Underground - Now we're getting to the mentally ill stuff. This is where you stop adn think, "Wait, this person actually believes this, don't they?" Layer 5 - Forbidden Zone. This layer is exclusive to the kind of stuff that should probably never leave the author's head. Makes you think "This person would be a serial killer if it wasn't for them having a writing outlet" or even "This person is totally a serial killer". Books by criminals are not an automatic entry - the work itself MUST be hosed. Edit - lol I mispelled the title The Frog Pit fucked around with this message at 13:42 on Nov 21, 2021 |
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Nov 21, 2021 13:33
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I did some digging and have contender entries for each layer - Layer 0 - "Survivor Type" Stephen King  "Survivor Type" is a horror short story by Stephen King, first published in the 1982 horror anthology Terrors, edited by Charles L. Grant, and included in King's 1985 collection Skeleton Crew. Speaking about the story, King says: "As far as short stories are concerned, I like the grisly ones the best. However, the story 'Survivor Type' goes a little bit too far, even for me." (From Wiki) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivor_Type Layer 1 - "Mad Shadows" Marie-Claire Blais  "A harrowing pathology of the soul, Mad Shadows centres on a family group: Patrice, the beautiful and narcissistic son; his ugly and malicious sister, Isabelle-Marie; and Louise, their vain and uncomprehending mother. These characters inhabit an amoral universe where beauty reflects no truth and love is an empty delusion. Each character is ultimately annihilated by their own obsessions. Acclaimed and reviled when it exploded on the Quebec literary scene in 1959, Mad Shadows initiated a new era in Quebec fiction." https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/836224.Mad_Shadows?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=6rVIRlqTUL&rank=1 Layer 2 - "The Pushman and Other Stories" Yoshihiro Tatsumi  Designed and edited by one of today's most popular cartoonists, Adrian Tomine, The Push Man and Other Stories is the debut volume in a groundbreaking new series that collects Tatsumi's short stories about Japanese urban life. Tatsumi's stories are simultaneously haunting, disturbing, and darkly humorous, commenting on the interplay between an overwhelming, bustling, crowded modern society and the troubled emotional and sexual life of the individual. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/53178.The_Push_Man_and_Other_Stories Layer 3 - "The Mud Ballad" Jo Quenell  "In a dying railroad town, a conjoined twin wallows in purgatory for the murder of his brother. A disgraced surgeon goes to desperate ends to reconnect with his lost love. When redemption comes with a dash of black magic, the two enter a world of talking corpses, flesh-eating hogs, rude mimes, and ritualistic violence." https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/53148951-the-mud-ballad Layer 4 - "Things Have Gotten Worse Since we Last Spoke" Eric LaRocca  "A whirlpool of darkness churns at the heart of a macabre ballet between two lonely young women in an internet chat room in the early 2000s—a darkness that threatens to forever transform them once they finally succumb to their most horrific desires. What have you done today to deserve your eyes?" https://www.bookdepository.com/Things-Have-Gotten-Worse-Since-We-Last-Spoke-Eric-Larocca/9781951658120?ref=pd_detail_1_sims_b_p2p_1 Layer 5 - "Beauty Labyrinth of Razors" Jun Hayami  "Graphic art by Jun Hayami in the Japanese erotic-grotesque ("ero-guro") style of manga, a unique fusion of sex and violence unlike anything seen in Western comics. Deranged killers, innocent young women, and leering perverts collide in some of the most feverishly lurid fantasies ever committed to paper. "Beauty Labyrinth of Razors is a compendium of Jun Hayami's most disturbing work, containing 12 stories selected from his books and never before translated and published in English." https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2060836.Beauty_Labyrinth_of_Razors
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Nov 21, 2021 16:08
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Talked it over with my friends, here's the updated list. Please add if you think of anything or disagree with the titles/placement. ayer 0 - Mainstream, famous, probably has an A-budget film adaptation. "Survivor Type" Stephen King “Little Things” Raymond Carver “The Medea” Euripides “24 Hours” Neil Gaiman “Titus Andronicus” Shakespeare Layer1 - Mainstream, but not terribly famous but easily available. Your mom has probably not heard of it. Unlikely to have a film adaptation. "Mad Shadows" Marie-Claire Blais “The Pillowman” Martin McDonough “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” Harlen Ellison “When the Wind Blows” Raymond Briggs “Firefly” Piers Anthony “Crooked Little Vein” Warren Ellis “Bear” Marian Engel Layer 2 - Side stream - indy publishers, back of the library, hasn't been been checked out in a long time. The neckbeard mini-mart cashier who sells weed from his car has probably read it. “Zombie” Joyce Carol Oates “Face” Peter Milligan, Duncan Fegredo “Sredni Vashtar” Saki Layer 3 - Underground - limited publishing, passion projects. Experimental stuff, probably poor quality and edgelord but there's an attempt to do something different. Here lies the gray zone between mental health and mental illness. "The Mud Ballad" Jo Quenell "The Pushman and Other Stories" Yoshihiro Tatsumi Layer 4 - Underground - Now we're getting to the mentally ill stuff. This is where you stop and think, "Wait, this person actually believes this, don't they?" "Things Have Gotten Worse Since we Last Spoke" Eric LaRocca “The Painted Bird” Jerzy Kosinski Layer 5 - Forbidden Zone. This layer is exclusive to the kind of stuff that should probably never leave the author's head. Makes you think "This person would be a serial killer if it wasn't for them having a writing outlet" or even "This person is totally a serial killer". Books by criminals are not an automatic entry - the work itself MUST be hosed. "Beauty Labyrinth of Razors" Jun Hayami “The Fifth Nail” Joseph Edward Duncan III “The Pugelist” Jennifer Gibbons
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Nov 21, 2021 21:58
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Selachian posted:Can you expand a bit on this one? I wouldn't call it obscure or underground; Kosinski was a famous author, and The Painted Bird was his best-seller. That's a good point. I guess I was thinking more in terms of how disturbing the content is and was reading a few critical reviews on Kosinski's sadomasichistic fantasies in the text. He was an insufferable jerk (the introduction he wrote for Painted Bird is an exercise in self-pitying cringe) but was also a world-famous bestseller so he doesn't belong that low on the tier. I'm hoping to make this iceberg more about obscurity + mental instability of the author than just the content. That's going to be a challenge as obscure can be stable and famous can be batshit. Here's the new revised version, with Painted Bird moved up - Layer 0 – Mainstream authors, famous titles, often taught in schools, widely available, may have an A-budget film adaptation. "Survivor Type" Stephen King “The Medea” Euripides “24 Hours” Neil Gaiman “Layers of Fear” and “Long Dream“ Junji Ito “Titus Andronicus” Shakespeare “Night” Eli Wiesel “Johnny Got his Gun” Dalton Trumbo “In Cold Blood” Truman Capote “Picnic at Hanging Rock” Joan Lindsay “Lolita” Vladimir Nabokov “In the Penal Colony” Franz Kafka “There will Come Soft Rains” Ray Bradbury “The Bluest Eye” Toni Morrison “The Gulag Archipelago” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Layer1 - Mainstream, but not terribly famous but easily available. Authors are usually successful, many are award-winning, books may have cult status in their genre. “Little Things” Raymond Carver “House of Leaves” Mark Z. Danielewski “The Pillowman” Martin McDonough “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” Harlen Ellison “When the Wind Blows” Raymond Briggs “Firefly” Piers Anthony “Crooked Little Vein” Warren Ellis “Bear” Marian Engel “The Plague Dogs” Richard Adams “Goodnight Punpun” Inio Asano “Perfume – The Story of a Murderer” Peter Suskind “Roadside Picnic” Boris Strugatsky, Arkady Strugatsky “The Wasp Factory” Iain Banks “On the Beach” Nevil Schute “Zombie” Joyce Carol Oates “The Painted Bird” Jerzy Kosinski Layer 2 - Side stream - not always easy to find but usually available through online stores. Many have cult status. Often deserve more attention but are a little too off-beat for a mainstream audience. “Face” Peter Milligan, Duncan Fegredo “Sredni Vashtar” Saki "Mad Shadows" Marie-Claire Blais “The People of Sand and Slag” Paolo Bacigalupi “Penpal” Dathen Auerbach “Blackwater” Michael McDowell “The Ice Man” Philip Carlo “Stitches” David Small “The Auctioneer” Joan Samson “Blood of the Tracks” Shūzō Oshimi “Last Summer” Evan Hunter Layer 3 - Underground - limited publishing, passion projects, experimental stuff, an attempt to do something different. Gray zone between mental health and mental illness. "The Mud Ballad" Jo Quenell "The Pushman and Other Stories" Yoshihiro Tatsumi “The Inferno In Bottles” Kyusaku Yumeni “The Cipher” Kathe Koja “Poor Big Sister” Suehiro Marou “Hell Baby” Hino Hideshi “Hideout” Matsemuni Kakizaki “Things Have Gotten Worse Since we Last Spoke" Eric LaRocca “Save Me the Waltz” Zelda Fitzgerald “Titus Alone” Marvyn Peake Layer 4 - Underground – Often hard to find physically or in special reprints. The authors here are not of the right mind and it shows in the text. “In the Realms of the Unreal“ Henry Darger “Fourteen” Umezu “Toy Cemetery” William W. Johnstone “The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick” Philip K. Dick “Turn Loose Your Death Rays and Kill Them All!” Fletcher Hanks, collected by Paul Karasik Layer 5- Forbidden Zone. Oftentimes out of print or were never properly printed. The combination of unhinged writing and unhinged mind. "Beauty Labyrinth of Razors" Jun Hayami “The Fifth Nail” Joseph Edward Duncan III “The Pugelist” Jennifer Gibbons “The Box” Thndrshark “Pickton – In His Own Words” Michael Childres
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Nov 23, 2021 13:00
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Awesome. So I've moved Painted Bird up a layer, exchanged Punpun for Nijigahara Holograph, removed Picnic at Hanging Rock because it's not really disturbing when compared to the others on the list I added Earthlings, Save Me the Waltz, Hell in Bottles, I also added Republic of Wine by Mo Yan because... dang. I adjusted the description of layer 4 to exclude special reprints - if something obscure is collected later on in a specialty reprint by a third party, that doesn't count. That way books published through scans/fan translations of books with no official English version posted online but aren't available pretty much anywhere else can be applied. I added The Inferno In Bottles to layer 4 because, while a classic in Japan, it's never been officially translated outside of one online post (at least as far as I could find). This is important because pretty much everything is available of you look hard enough online, which would make the bottom two tiers useless unless that distinction is made. Question - Murakami is pretty famous for the disturbing, but he's also written a ton and I don't know which would be the best to pick. Also on the hunt for anything outside of the US and Japan. Those are more than welcome.
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Nov 24, 2021 11:14
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Asgerd posted:Where does Hogg fit into this? Oh wow, I've never heard of that one before. Looking it up led me down one hell of a rabbit hole, thank you! Samuel R. Delaney isn't Bradbury famous, but he does have an impressive resume. That's sort of what makes Hogg stand out over the Scrotie McBoogerballs -style writing that books like it are often mistaken for. That means he can't be underground (too many Hugo awards) but he should count as sidestream. Regarding Conspiracy Against the Human Race, is that 0 or 1? Ligotti has had a wild rise in popularity over the past ten years, he's almost a household name nowadays. I also noticed there's no Marquis de Sade on there, my bad. + + + Layer 0 – Mainstream authors, famous titles, often taught in schools, widely available, may have an A-budget film adaptation. "Survivor Type" Stephen King “The Medea” Euripides “24 Hours” Neil Gaiman “Layers of Fear” and “Long Dream“ Junji Ito “Titus Andronicus” Shakespeare “Night” Eli Wiesel “Johnny Got his Gun” Dalton Trumbo “In Cold Blood” Truman Capote “Conspiracy Against the Human Race” Thomas Ligotti “In the Penal Colony” Franz Kafka “There will Come Soft Rains” Ray Bradbury “The Bluest Eye” Toni Morrison “The Gulag Archipelago” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” Harlen Ellison “120 Days of Sodom” Marquis de Sade Layer1 - Mainstream, but not terribly famous but easily available. Authors are usually successful, many are award-winning, books may have cult status in their genre. “Little Things” Raymond Carver “House of Leaves” Mark Z. Danielewski “The Pillowman” Martin McDonough “When the Wind Blows” Raymond Briggs “Firefly” Piers Anthony “Crooked Little Vein” Warren Ellis “Bear” Marian Engel “The Plague Dogs” Richard Adams “Nijigahara Holograph” Inio Asano “Perfume – The Story of a Murderer” Peter Suskind “Roadside Picnic” Boris Strugatsky, Arkady Strugatsky “The Wasp Factory” Iain Banks “On the Beach” Nevil Schute “Zombie” Joyce Carol Oates “The Painted Bird” Jerzy Kosinski Layer 2 - Side stream - not always easy to find but usually available through online stores. Many have cult status. Often deserve more attention but are a little too off-beat for a mainstream audience. “Face” Peter Milligan, Duncan Fegredo “Sredni Vashtar” Saki "Mad Shadows" Marie-Claire Blais “The People of Sand and Slag” Paolo Bacigalupi “Penpal” Dathen Auerbach “Hogg” Samuel R. Delaney “Blackwater” Michael McDowell “The Ice Man” Philip Carlo “Stitches” David Small “The Auctioneer” Joan Samson “Blood of the Tracks” Shūzō Oshimi “Last Summer” Evan Hunter “Earthlings” Sayaka Murata Layer 3 - Underground - limited publishing, passion projects, experimental stuff, an attempt to do something different. Gray zone between mental health and mental illness. "The Mud Ballad" Jo Quenell "The Pushman and Other Stories" Yoshihiro Tatsumi “The Cipher” Kathe Koja “Poor Big Sister” Suehiro Marou “Hell Baby” Hino Hideshi “The Republic of Wine” Mo Yan “Hideout” Matsemuni Kakizaki “Things Have Gotten Worse Since we Last Spoke" Eric LaRocca “Save Me the Waltz” Zelda Fitzgerald “Titus Alone” Marvyn Peake Layer 4 - Underground – Originals are often hard to find physically, special reprints don't count. The authors here are not of the right mind and it shows in the text. “In the Realms of the Unreal“ Henry Darger “The Inferno In Bottles” Kyusaku Yumeni “Fourteen” Umezu “Toy Cemetery” William W. Johnstone “The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick” Philip K. Dick “Turn Loose Your Death Rays and Kill Them All!” Fletcher Hanks, collected by Paul Karasik Layer 5- Forbidden Zone. Oftentimes out of print or were never properly printed. The combination of unhinged writing and unhinged mind. "Beauty Labyrinth of Razors" Jun Hayami “The Fifth Nail” Joseph Edward Duncan III “The Pugelist” Jennifer Gibbons “The Box” Thndrshark “Pickton – In His Own Words” Michael Childres
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Nov 25, 2021 02:29
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Okay! Here's round #1 Lemme know what you think and what should be changed, moved, removed, or added.  edit - uploaded bigger version for readability The Frog Pit fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Dec 1, 2021 |
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Dec 1, 2021 00:47
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Bilirubin posted:Also is similar to most of the protagonist he writes (not a typo, its always a hard drinkin manly man). Black Sloth is weird as gently caress and so much fun though. Definitely checking out Black Sloth today. Ligotti can't go into Layer 6 - that layer is for difficult to find books by mentally unwell authors who are also unknown - the disturbing-ness of the content isn't all that relevant because of how subjective the concept is. Personally speaking, "The Bluest Eye" is arguably the most hopeless, despairing looks at childhood I've ever read (like the author I grew up poor in Ohio, it hit like a sack of bricks)but I can't put it lower because it's so famous and available that Oprah promoted it. Ligotti is wildly successful and world famous with his books cherished the world over. Conspiracy Against the Human Race was an important inspiration for True Detective, after all. However, "The Fifth Nail" is a fan-collected blog written by a real life serial killer while he had two hostages in his house. It wasn't meant for publication and even then only has a tiny release. THAT gets on level 6.
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Dec 1, 2021 10:47
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Version 2.0 - 
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Dec 3, 2021 03:09
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Youreverydaytheorist on Youtube wants to do a video of out iceburg in February!! I'll be sure to thank you guys for your help and suggestions  Newest update! 
The Frog Pit fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Jan 7, 2022 |
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Jan 7, 2022 21:54
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