What's the weirdest book you've ever read?

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  • Residents FanResidents Fan Posts: 9,204
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    bugloss wrote: »
    it was written later, by George Orwell and Aldous Huxley

    But "1984" is a very "UK just after WWII" book, with
    its rationing, bomb devasted-cities and pseudo-Churchillian
    slogans. And "Brave New World" is full of overt late 20s and
    early 30s ideas; eugenics, behaviourism, Fordist
    consumerism. Whereas "We", even though the
    author was influenced by Russian society, doesn't
    feel tied to the date 1921 at all. Maybe it's because
    Zamyatin uses a more symbolic type of writing
    than Orwell and Huxley.
  • SuperSuper Posts: 257
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    The Straw Men- Michael Marshall Smith
  • Madonna38Madonna38 Posts: 2,078
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    Flowers in the attic.
  • pearlsandplumspearlsandplums Posts: 29,389
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    The house of leaves (as already mentioned)
    Anything by Murakami (Wild sheep chase and kafka on the shore being two prime examples.
    And lastly one i saw on amazon and just had to get 'the haunted vagina'. About a woman with another world in her *coughs* lady garden
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 4,138
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    But "1984" is a very "UK just after WWII" book, with
    its rationing, bomb devasted-cities and pseudo-Churchillian
    slogans. And "Brave New World" is full of overt late 20s and
    early 30s ideas; eugenics, behaviourism, Fordist
    consumerism. Whereas "We", even though the
    author was influenced by Russian society, doesn't
    feel tied to the date 1921 at all. Maybe it's because
    Zamyatin uses a more symbolic type of writing
    than Orwell and Huxley.

    you could also try Rex Warner's Aerodrome

    amazingly the BBC did it. It seems to be on youtube, mostly
  • Residents FanResidents Fan Posts: 9,204
    Forum Member
    bugloss wrote: »
    you could also try Rex Warner's Aerodrome

    amazingly the BBC did it. It seems to be on youtube, mostly

    I've heard lotsa good things about "The Aerodrome", so
    I must give it a look.
  • VeriVeri Posts: 96,996
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    The Third Policeman is great, imo. :)

    Anyway, the weirdest I've read is probably The Opoponax by Monique Wittig.
  • Residents FanResidents Fan Posts: 9,204
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    A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay. An intellectual in the 1920s attends a seance
    and ends up travelling to the strangest alien planet in imaginative literature. It's
    an extraordinary book, although it also has a harsh and disturbing message
    about rejecting the physical body.
  • TyeverasTyeveras Posts: 61
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    clm2071 wrote: »
    I dont think TWF was particularly weird although I agree about The Bridge, very tricky to understand.

    Walking on Glass is another of his which divides opinion - I know quite a few people who have read it and I'm the only one who rates it!

    Naked Lunch is the weirdest I've read, closely followed by A Clockwork Orange and anything by Charles Bukowski

    I loved Walking On Glass and The Bridge. Also I agree TWF is not on my list of weird books. Walking On Glass is unusual in that it's a crossover between Iain Banks and Iain M. Banks (non sci-fi and sci-fi in the Banks canon.) The Bridge may all be in the mind of a car crash victim in a coma, but (take note Flann O'Brien) it does NOT require a working knowledge of Heisenbergian physics!
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 8,510
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    The Cell ~ Stephen King
  • GirlfromEireannGirlfromEireann Posts: 4,117
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    "Umbrella" by Will Self

    I got to page 170 and then finally gave up.

    I don't mean to be offensive as I know many have liked it and it was one of the 6 short-listed books for the 'Booker Prize' but I found it pointless
  • SquishySquishy Posts: 2,937
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    'When God Was A Rabbit' was a little weird...the title was what attracted me to it but it left me feeling a bit confused about the point of it afterwards
  • GenyGeny Posts: 136
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    Orlando by Virginia Woolf
  • SilvioDanteSilvioDante Posts: 2,561
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    The Bible
  • shmiskshmisk Posts: 7,963
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    Exquisite corpse by poppy z brite
    I actually felt dirty having read it
  • benjaminibenjamini Posts: 32,066
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    Geek Love by Catherine Dunn. Weird and brilliant.
  • TeddybleadsTeddybleads Posts: 6,814
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    Herman Hess - Steppenwolf. One of those that blurs the line between fantasy and reality. it's quite a good read though.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 592
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    Anything by Haruki Murakami. Trying to explain to people what his books are about gets you a funny look! 1Q84 is a classic in my eyes and one of those books I'd really love to see made into a film (or series), but, for some reason, I just don't see that happening :p
  • Sue_CSue_C Posts: 1,459
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    hannahjay wrote: »
    Anything by Haruki Murakami. Trying to explain to people what his books are about gets you a funny look! 1Q84 is a classic in my eyes and one of those books I'd really love to see made into a film (or series), but, for some reason, I just don't see that happening :p

    I read his Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and found that very weird/incomprehensible. I can't say that I enjoyed it and so I haven't been inspired to try any of his other books. They seem to get very good reviews though.

    The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake is pretty weird and fantastical and well worth a read.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 8,145
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    Our tragic universe by Scarlett Thomas. No idea what the point was at all
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 136
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    Surfacing by Margaret Atwood.

    It was for my English A Level, and I'm not sure I'd have understood the story at all if we hadn't have been analysing the hell out of it for the exam.
  • barbelerbarbeler Posts: 23,827
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    I found The Bridge a bit difficult the first time round, but my father recently had some kind of a seizure and spent three days in hospital, convinced not only that he was dead, but concluded that those who visited him were dead also. At times he was in a waking dream, living out terrible nightmares - sometimes with his eyes wide open.
    Hearing his descriptions of what he experienced has made me want to give the book another go.

    So you didn't think The Wasp Factory was weird?

    A father interrogating his child on the measurements of objects around the house.
    Casual yet imaginative murders of young relatives.
    Catapulting small rodents into the air on parachutes.
    Sheep set on fire.
    A baby's exposed brain crawling with maggots.
    The wasp factory itself.

    And that's not even mentioning the incredible weirdness of the entire premise on which the book is based, followed by its mind-blowing conclusion.
  • starman700starman700 Posts: 3,113
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    Cloud Atlas,but once i got my head around it,it was an enjoyable read.
  • VideoNiceyVideoNicey Posts: 109
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    There was a book in my secondary school library called Starlust by Fred and Judy Vermorel, subtitled 'The Secret Fantasies of Fans'.

    It was reprinted not long ago by Faber, so it may not be such a rarity by now, but I remember giggling at it like a loon in the study room when I was supposed to have been doing serious homework or research. I don't think the school librarian knew she had such an utterly filthy yet hilarious book on the shelves, and neither did any of the staff.

    In short, the Vermorels decided to ransack the postbags of contemporary (it was published in 1985) pop and rock stars and publish the most extreme examples in the name of "sociological research". They also asked hardcore fans of certain performers to reveal their fantasies about their idols.
    I loved the book so much I had to track down a second-hand copy, and that's what I'm quoting for this post.

    I'm going to censor the quotes slightly so I don't get hoofed off this board, but here are some of the fans' thoughts...

    On Blondie - "I would like to make Debbie Harry's q**m ache."

    On the Jam's Bruce Foxton - "I licked my fingers as I had got them full of his ace-tasting j**ce."

    On Blondie drummer Clem Burke - "I'd squirt whipped cream in his a**l passage and then eat it with a spoon."

    A letter to Nik Kershaw - "Your s**rm would last me through breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea and supper!"

    There are absurdly pretentious letters to David Bowie, one fan claiming to be "a rat in a cybernetic sewer", and Barry Manilow fans are revealed to have their own secret "Mani-language", which naturally includes "Mani-legs" and "Mani-lust".

    There's even a foreword from the Who's Pete Townshend, and even he gets dragged into the sordid shenanigans, in the chapter handily titled 'Laura's Fantasy About Pete Townshend'. You do not want to know what Richard Jobson of the Skids gets up to with a willing groupie and a bag of grapes. :eek:

    It's a great book, all told, but what the hell was it doing in a school library?
  • jediknight2k1jediknight2k1 Posts: 6,892
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    The Silmarillion, I've still not managed to finish it.

    After the first Dune books there all get strange :D.
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