this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2024
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Asklemmy

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago

The Metamorphosis of a Prime Intellect.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Jitterbug perfume was out there.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted is the first thing which popped into my head.

It's a 'diegetic' anthology, the context is reminiscent of Sartre's No Exit in many ways, but taken to Palahniuk's particular style of extreme.

There's one short story in it which caused furor back in the day, but I honestly found the meta-context to be even more philosophically gruesome.

Edit: may be biased, I got the book as a gift from a girl I used to like a lot, but she... well, let's just say she was living that book at the time.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I'm gonna try that! Not really a book, but guts by him is also grotesquely integuing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Hope you enjoy, Guts is part of Haunted, the one which caused the furor!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Wildest as in..?

I finished reading Maldita Guerra, which is the current de facto book detailing the Paraguay War (1864-1870). Francisco Solano López, Paraguay's dictator at the time, is possibly the worst thing to have happened to the country. The fucking psycho established a cult of personality (saint figures in churches were removed to put photos of him), the only newspaper allowed to print was always cheering on how great and perfect he was, plus a secret police to ensure nobody would dare rise up against him. Oh, and the population was incentivized to denounce anyone that didn't show enough love for the president.

To make matters worse, there was no real justice system. If you were accused of treason or conspiracy, you were as good as dead, no recourse. Oh, and López' head was deep inside his own ass, any war reports that showed difficulties or stated losses from the Paraguayan army were rebuked and the person could end up dead for giving the bad news. The fucking asshole willfully ignored facts while giving orders to his army. He could've wiped the Triple Alliance's forces when they began the counterattack, but his "strategic genius" was composed of himself and nobody else.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Kafkas famous book, I think the title is the transformation.

Also Orson Wells about the civil war in Spain. This was not fiction, but it points out so much real life non sense and lies that had my head spinning for most of the book.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Which book is that about the Spanish Civil War?

On that topic, George Orwell's book, Homage to Catalonia, is also very much recommended.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

That's the one, I think I got my authors mixed

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

Gary Jennings' Aztec. Come for the historical accuracy of pre-columbian exchange Central America, stay for the depressing twisted sickening outlook.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Assisted Living (aka Äldreomsorgen i Övre Kågedalen) by Nikanor Teratologen. It's a very bleak and horrible story about a boy who is in an incestuous relationship with his nazi philosopher grandfather. Together the go around committing murder, rape, and other crimes, while relating everything to obscure authors and texts. The original is written entirely in a swedish dialect which is hard to understand, and it didn't translate that well into other languages I think.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

anarcho-syndicalism theory and practice by rudolf rocker, it was let's say enligthening, I was already an anarchist before reading it, but now I'm an anarcho-syndicalist

currently reading networking in the rust programming language btw

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago

Infinite Jest - just the part about video conferencing is wild and is even mire wild when you realize it was written in the 90’s before video conferencing really existed:

“Good old traditional audio-only phone conversations allowed you to presume that the person on the other end was paying complete attention to you while also permitting you not to have to pay anything even close to complete attention to her. A traditional aural-only conversation […] let you enter a kind of highway-hypnotic semi-attentive fugue: while conversing, you could look around the room, doodle, fine-groom, peel tiny bits of dead skin away from your cuticles, compose phone-pad haiku, stir things on the stove; you could even carry on a whole separate additional sign-language-and-exaggerated-facial-expression type of conversation with people right there in the room with you, all while seeming to be right there attending closely to the voice on the phone. And yet — and this was the retrospectively marvelous part — even as you were dividing your attention between the phone call and all sorts of other idle little fuguelike activities, you were somehow never haunted by the suspicion that the person on the other end’s attention might be similarly divided.”

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

Diaspora by Greg Egan, it's one of the best thought out take on what a post human society could look like. Lots of amazing ideas in the book.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Wild Animus

It's about a Berkeley graduate who takes a bunch of acid and then dresses up like a mountain Ram in Alaska and becomes increasingly more deranged.

It was on a reading list for a college class. Pirate the book if you decide to read, because the author is a raging asshole.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

I only know of this book because it was included in a Showcase Showdown style...thing I saw once, where everything in the showcase was...well, if not bad, highly impractical.

Mostly bad.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

Der Prozess (1915) by Franz Kafka, it still is relevant today.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami just a magnificent read, you probably couldn’t go wrong with any of his works.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. I into it blind.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

This was my introduction to Mieville. What a wild story told through China's extremely dense language.

...keep a dictionary handy.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago

Pearl by Josh Malerman (Bird Box).

It's about a pig on a small farm that can seep into your mind and make you do and see terrible things. I picked it up after reading Bird Box and a few other books of his, which I enjoyed. I expected to give up on it based on the silly 80s horror movie premise, but the book is truly demented and creepy and I felt existentially weird after reading it

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

Santa Steps Out was wild.

'Sex, Death, and Santa Claus

His generosity is legendary. He has a devoted wife, a crack team of sky-borne reindeer, hordes of industrious elves, and the love of good little boys and girls around the globe. But what unholy desires now propel him into the lascivious clutches of a certain fairy? And who was he before the sleigh and workshop, in times forgotten?

She munches on molars, summons drowned sailors to her pleasure, and recalls, sharp as a pinprick, her life as the most savage of ash nymphs. Why then is she stuck, night after night, hovering above pillows to leave coins for gap-toothed brats? More important, how quickly can she captivate the jolly old elf to the north?

He's huge, fluffy, lonesome, and unbearably horny. On his Easter rounds, he contrives, as often as possible, to get a grip on himself and peer into interesting bedrooms. But who in the world will throw him down and ravage him as the lovers under his gaze ravage one another?

Deadite Press is proud to bring back the ultimate erotic Christmas story from Robert Devereaux'

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

A long way gone by Ishmael Beah was pretty dark. Story of a boy soldier from Sierra Leone explaining how you get forced into it and the terrible things they did.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Currently reading The Illuminatus trilogy. It is a trippy, psychedelic thriller, which assumes many conspiracy theories, both well-known and obscure to be true.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

wholly chao

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Are you able to see the fnords yet?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Not yet enlightened enough.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

Fanged Noumena by Nick Land

Cyclonopedia by Reza Negarestani

Both are a naked lunch level mindfuck. Don't treat it as a book, but rather as a stream of consciousness on the acid trip. Don't try to make any sense, just ride the wave.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

"The teachings of Don Juan" by Carlos Castaneda. Read it in highschool and it put me off psychedelics for more than two decades.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

Clockwork Orange

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 days ago (1 children)

China Miéville - The City & the City is one that I don't think I'll ever forget. Wild because as far out as it feels, it's also a pretty accurate portrayal of how we've trained ourselves to intentionally not see. I find myself thinking of the book often.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

The premise for this book was so strange I often had to reread passages to fully understand the differing perspectives of people standing next to one another and yet be in two different realities.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

Sadly, Porn

I don't know how to describe it, expect to be confused and offended and gaslit.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago

The multiorgasmic man.

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