What's the most depraved book you've read?
 

I have just finished reading American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis and because it describes some very shocking things it got me wondering whether it was the most disturbing, depraved book I have read.

I thought so immediately after finishing it. But on balance I think I was more appalled by The Room by Hubert Selby Jr. Both books feature very heavy and detailed violence but I found that of American Psycho easier to bear, I think partly because it was tempered by humor and an unreal, slightly absurd atmosphere - and partly because most of the violence was directed against women and, being male, I found it less easy to identify with. The things that are described in The Room were more troubling to me because they mostly happen to men, and their perpetrator was - unlike Patrick Bateman - someone I ended up utterly detesting. Reading The Room was like being deep inside the guy's mind and his most lurid fantasies. The reader is trapped in his mind just as he is trapped in the room - it gets claustrophobic.

So those two are the 'worst' fiction books I've read. I know some people find non-fiction and true crime more affecting because they know that what's described really happened. I'm not one of them but if I was I think Panzram: A Journal of Murder by Gaddis and Long would be the most horrific book I have read so far. Carl Panzram was an American serial killer who lived in the first half of the 20th Century and whose detailed first-hand confessions and memoirs make up the bulk of that book.

Now American Psycho's finished I'm going to read something more wholesome (Moby Dick perhaps) but at some point in the future I may want to read about some more extremely cold-blooded, insanely detailed, elaborate and pointless suffering. What I want to know is: what else is as bad as, or even worse than the three books I've mentioned here? Have you ever had to stop reading, look up and around, and pause a moment for your mind to properly boggle at the awfulness of what you just read? What was that book?

Yeah, American Psycho would take the cake for me. The book is not depraved, it is evil. Not only the individual, but the society that created him.

In a way, Richard Bachman's Rage and The Running Man are also depraved. They're cupcake-sized proportions of depravity. Anti-hero bliss.

Off the top of my head, I would choose The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosiński. It's been awhile since I last read it. It's about a boy who wanders around small towns in Eastern Europe during WWII.

I think the only book to come close to what you are describing would be "The Hot Zone" about the rise of the Ebola virus. At one point there is a description of a victim on a plane coughing (basically his insides into a paper bag) and then it starts to describe him bleeding out through his pores. I had to take a break at that point.

depraved? i'm not sure what you mean.

one i couldn't quite get through, however, was something by the guy who wrote "trainspotting"--irvine welsh's filth.
it's the first-person story of a tapeworm.
yeesh.

The bible, it has inspired so much bad stuff, though I heard the Koran is pretty awful too.

I dont remember the titles, but Anne Rice wrote some radical depravity under a pen name. I believe there were 3 in a series, but dont hold me to that.

Remember, Google is your friend.

I haven't read The Room, but having read Requiem for a Dream, which is also by Hubert Selby, Jr., I can imagine what it might be like. I'll have to check it out sometime.

American Psycho would, so far, be the worst thing I've read as well. Like you mentioned, though, there's a certain absurdity to the whole thing, mixed with uncertainty regarding what's real and what's in Patrick Bateman's mind, that makes it not as bad as it could be. Either way, great book.

They're not even remotely as depraved, but you should check out Bret Easton Ellis' other books too. Less Than Zero does have one scene in particular that got to me while reading it, but nothing close to the mayhem of American Psycho. Patrick Bateman's brother is a main character of Rules of Attraction, and Patrick Bateman has a cameo appearance as well (this is before American Psycho obviously). Anyway, I'm a big fan of the author.

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Her Sleeping Beauty trilogy? I flipped through it at the book store once. It was... interesting.

The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty
Beauty's Punishment
Beauty's Release

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Oh, and if it's anything like the movie, The 120 Days of Sodom promises to be severely depraved, but I haven't read it. (Nor have I seen most of the movie, but I've seen enough.)

I read 120 Days of Sodom, by the Marquis De Sade. It's grim. Seriously.

I've heard a lot about this but I never read it - always thought it would be really tough because it's so old. Did you make it the whole way through? If so how long did it take?

I didn't read the book but I have the movie of 120 Days that a friend burned for me. I love sick, gruesome, gory, depraved, filthy entertainment. But this excludes watching people act like they're eating shit, watching adults act like they're fucking teenagers and subtitles. So no, I didn't enjoy it.

I've never read it but I heard Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian is pretty violent.

Well the full text is available here or here, or if you want something really depraved there's the movie version. That said, I don't recommend either based on what I know ;)

I have read it, and you heard correct. It's chock full of casual brutality.

Oh I should pick it up then I really liked The Road.

"Kids Who Kill" was a really interesting one for me.



It's amazing what little minds can really be capable of. I couldn't put it down. Even once I finished, I started it over not long after.

I'd probably have to go with In Cold Blood, especially because its true.

As for fiction...well, Stranger From a Strange Land isn't depraved per se, but depending on your views about sexual mores I could see how you could think it is. Especially the unabridged edition.

Stranger in a Strange Land is depraved?

That concept just blows me away - that a book which advocates loving each other in mind and in body, caring for each other, being peaceful to the point of allowing the government to kill you rather than use your immense mystical powers to defend yourself could be considered DEPRAVED and mentioned in the same sense as the depravity of Bateman or DeSade is puzzling to me.

Do not grok in fullness. :oogle:

I love these books, love love love them

American Psycho is pretty depraved, but Tropic of Cancer surpasses it.

I don't think it's depraved. I'm just saying it isn't considered one of the more controversial books of the 20th century for nothing. There's an awful lot of people who really, really didn't grok.

Rose Madder by Stephen King was the most depraved book I have read. If I recall correctly, the husband beats the wife for having dirty sheets. I made it through but I have never read another King book because of it.

This made me think of Misery by Stephen King. I found it a real struggle to read. It was the first King book I'd read that was so straightforward violent - most of his books are scary for what isn't said and the suspense of it all, but this one was eeeew!

Has anyone read The Bell Jar? I'm starting it tonight amd I've heard it's supposed to be pretty intense.

EH?! You do mean Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller right?

I read that quite recently and while I enjoyed it, and appreciated it, I cannot see how it would be considered 'worse' than American Psycho. I thought it was like chatting to your rudest, most foul-mouthed friend who's very good at anecdotes for a couple of hours about his sex life and what else he'd been up to recently. Whereas the last half of American Psycho describes and relishes acts SO depraved I have real difficulty imagining them.

Stranger in a Strange Land - I haven't heard of it before but I'm intrigued by the concept and I intend to check it out.

There is no comparison between Tropic of Cancer and American Psycho. Oliver has made a good description of Tropic.

American Psycho, while not entirely depraved (and I have some confusion about what that means) has a few very disturbing moments. The most disturbing was the threesome with the car batteries, etc. It was just dark and disturbing and made me very uncomfortable.

For someone who has no idea about this book, I can only imagine what this entails lol.

yes. thats the one i was thinking about. Brutal book!