i love sad and psychological books like Franz Kafka and Fyodor Dostoevsky that make me ask about life or human nature (ik so teen angst of me). i have been trying to get into books again but the only books that have really peaked my interest were tragedy’s, the last book I felt really made me want to read more was the metamorphosis by Franz Kafka and lately I’ve seen i have no mouth and i must scream by Harlan Ellison on my tik tok feed and i’m going to try it.
so yeah i want to be mentally destroyed or at least rethink my moral grounds, any suggestions (i’m begging).
by early_moon
4 Comments
A Fine Balance
I just finished reading Crossroads by Laurel Hightower.
The main protagonist has lost her son in a car accident two years prior. If she cuts herself Tray appears to her.
It is tagged as horror. And it is a horror (especially if it was a movie). But it made me cry and it gifted me with a level of empathy that I remember denying I have.
You lost your son, he appears to you somehow, what would you do so that he stays in your life?
I’ve seen a few movies like this and I never felt more than entertained (at best).
A few months ago I learned that Penn and Teller have an episode where they expose people who promise they contact the dead. Penn said their intention was not to offend the grieving people who desperately cling to hope…
I laughed, I thought he was full of shit. I thought he said that purely so as to not alienate their audience.
I’m not into horror at all. I had this book around me for weeks. I nearly did not read it at all. This book destroyed me in a good way, and unless another novel comes along that speaks of this exact topic I’m sure it will be on my mind for years.
If you like Kafka and Dostoyevsky, try:
* Camus, I’m sure you have though
* The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro, one of the most Kafka-esque books I’ve read that’s actually good… at least I thought so, there’s a lot of divided opinions about this one
* Robert Walser, any of his short stories or novels, Kafka loved him, and he’s one of my favorite writers as well… not sure his plots are directly sad, but there’s a lot of sadness in it, like in his characters and in the way he writes
* My Friends by Emmanuel Bove, French writer, wrote beautifully and sadly, not much of a plot but that’s what I loved about it
* Malina by Ingeborg Bachmann
Is “a book that will destroy me” a tiktok trend? It’s asked so often and I always wonder why it’s phrased Ike that.
Anyway:
* The Dry by Jane Harper (fiction)
* Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty (non-fiction)