Hi , I'm looking for books that are surreal horror. I like the nightmarish scenes in David Lynch movies and the surreal creepiness of David Cronenberg "Videodrome"
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Hi , I'm looking for books that are surreal horror.
you may like solenoid by carterescu
I’m currently reading The Tunnel by William H. Gass. I wouldn’t call it horror, but it’s definitely disturbing and surreal. I’m about halfway in.
I'm reading it too, a little further than halfway now, but I've been stumped the entire time on how this is supposed to be disturbing. Certainly I like it a lot, but my expectations have felt fricked from the start considering my introduction to it was through a "dark and disturbing" lit chart on here (though I read Omensetter's Luck a year ago). Maybe it's that the chart put it alongside novels like American Psycho, Frisk, Necrophiliac, and In the Miso Soup that I expected something gruesome and gut-wrenching.
(Now I'm seeing Celine in pic related, which feels like a more apt bedfellow.)
Surreal: okay (structurally, mostly). Dark: sure? Disturbing: sort of?
If anything I find it moving, though in an emotional sense that isn't so much touching or sentimental as it is "effecting", if that makes any sense. Maybe as if I'm being impregnated with the Kohler's feelings. Reading the chapter "Child Abuse", for instance, it felt more like devastatingly relateable and prompted more of a fear of that in my self than anything like an external horror (what I mean by "impregnating").
For OP, I'd probably recommend Omensetter's Luck instead (though I'm not familiar with Lynch beyond Twin Peaks or the rabbit film). There's a much greater uncertainty about the reality of the events being portrayed or fundamentally what they represent and stem from. Has something of a fog over it, and calling it somewhat dream-like might make it akin to Lynch. (Been a year and my memory is bad, so someone who knows better can tell me I'm wrong.) The novel starts with an assay of events given by a senile man, in a sort of inner-outer ramble---to give more of an idea.
Not horror, but Kafka is a huge inspiration on Lynch. If you're non-IQfy I would start there.
From this chart I would recommend In the Miso Soup, Blood Meridian, and maybe Story of the Eye if you're finding yourself more interested in the disturbing side.
Ligotti would not be a bad choice to start with as well. Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe is very approachable and all short stories, so no big commitment.
Anyone interested in influences on Lynch's film should also watch The Trial (for instance, it has a scene that's a dead ringer for BOB climbing through the Palmers' living room).
I'll have to watch it now, it's been on my list for too long. Thanks, anon.
Seconded. Pretty sure Kafka was a huge influence on Lynch.
Ever read The Cipher? Sounds like what you're looking for.
Is that the chapter where he screams at his baby son and roughly shakes the crib against the wall because he hates the sound of the kid crying? Been a while since I read the book but that scene stuck with me. The way Gass narrates Kohler's thought process, how he totally disconnects and stops seeing his kid as even human, is downright disturbing. It's worse because you almost catch yourself seeing where Kohler is coming from and sympathizing with his thought process in some way, and then you have to take a step back and realize how fricked up the whole deal is.
>Is that the chapter where he...
Yeah, that's the one. Your description is about right for how it felt to me---I felt it was written in a way where I was carried away with his feelings and can't do anything about it. Thinking of Omensetter's Luck, Kohler is despicable in a way like Jethro is, but Jethro (even though I found him sympathetic and relatable) felt further away somehow, and maybe because he's presented with a foil in Omensetter. It's hard for me to feel anything against Kohler is what I guess I'm trying to say, and I'm taken with how well he's portrayed to elicit that. If I compare that chapter to a similar scene in Dubliners (you'll know which), I felt a lot of pity and contempt for the character in the latter, which I didn't feel for Kohler.
I think my issue with it being on that chart is that it's not disturbing in the ways I expected, as in not graphic like some of the other books on the list.
H.P. Lovecraft. As an added bonus, all his work entered the public domain in 2005. I recommend starting with "Pickman's Model".
David Wong
>surreal horror
>surreal
You morons don’t understand surrealism
then explain it to us, o mighty all-knowing pseud
For monolingual morons such as yourself, see
>posts dictionary definition
anyone can do that. explain the difference between what OP asked for and what you think actually exists
That’s literally Andre Breton’s definition, ya moron
That's surrealism, not surreal
Slightly off topic but someone in this thread might know the answer.
I've been trying to find this story for a while. It might be lovecraft, I think it was a short story.
The main character gets some kind of cursed book from a bookstore. I think the guy who gives him the book is some kind of little humanoid alien who may have been previously cused. I think the book might displace him in time and somehow he becomes aware of the ancient gods. I know it's vague, but is any of this ringing any bells.
Anyone?
It's lovecraft, can't remember which story though
Thanks. Hopefully someone knows the name.
I'm still looking for the name of this book or story.
You'd probably have more luck if you made a thread about it
I'm not a IQfy regular, thanks for the advice.
try asking in the sci fi fantasy general thread, a lot of people who post there read lovecraft
Robert Aickman is the answer you're looking for, and Ramsey Campbell, Thomas Ligotti and Kathe Koja also have a similar style.
Box Man is kinda like that
ETA Hoffmann (the sandman) or Kawabata (one arm/house of sleeping beauties) short stories
The Illustrated Man could work but some of the stories within the frame are more tame
I always figured that if you got Lynch or similar to film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie you'd get a more book accurate story than the adaptation it did get.
JG Ballard. *Especially* Empire of the Sun's cannibal pedophile rape (failed) sequence.
>The Hare, Cesar Aira
Kafka. Try In a Penal Colony
Try swallowing a colony's worth of my penile emissions.
It's considered surreal horror but it felt more like a fun comedy. Still a good quick read.