What's the darkest, bleakest book you ever read?

Travesty John hawkes. But I loved it. I would really enjoy being the driver. I'd have my dad in the front seat and my brother in the back on the floor

The Tunnel somehow managed to transcend both its absolute edginess and shock-factor. The closest conditions I can imagine for the emotion it evokes is scrolling through a thread wiped with gore, by that point being completely unaffected by it, and stumbling upon an webm that's maybe not as bloody as the rest of them but brings an extra human element - maybe it's very long and captures all the stages of dying, or accidentaly provides some horrifying background (this woman is not just being raped in a cell - her daughter's corpse is lying in one corner, a month's worth of shit in the other)... and then morbid curiousity makes you find a version with audio.

The closest would be those tapes of the Bjork stalker that ended killing himself, then failed to make his brains splat the "the best of me" sign behind him.

Good but also hilarious

Tell me more about this stalker

>Over a nearly nine-month period, López made a video diary at his Hollywood, Florida apartment wherein he mused about Björk and various other topics while making a letter bomb rigged with sulfuric acid intended to kill or disfigure the singer. On September 12, López sent the package to Björk's residence in London, returned home and filmed his suicide. His decomposing body, along with his video diary and handwritten diary detailing his plot to kill Björk, were found by Florida police four days later.
>López's diary eventually numbered 803 pages.[2][3] Passages include his thoughts on Björk as well as his feelings of inadequacy due to being overweight, his disgust and embarrassment over suffering from gynecomastia (which he referred to as a deformity that made him feel "weird") and his inability to get a girlfriend.[2][3] In various sections, he wrote that he considered himself "a loser who never even learned to drive" and complained about his menial job as an exterminator that earned him little money.[3] López also noted that he had never been "loved or even liked by a girl".
>López initially intended to construct a bomb filled with needles containing HIV tainted blood.[6] This satisfied López's desire to be a person who would have a lasting effect on the singer's life.[6] He abandoned the plan after realizing that it was not feasible to create such a device.[6] He began constructing a letter bomb in a hollowed-out book,[6][7] ostensibly sent to Björk's home by her record label.[2] The device was designed to explode and disfigure the reader, at the opening of the book.[6] The final aspect of his plan was to commit suicide after the bomb was sent.[6] López hoped that, in the event that the bomb killed Björk, the two would be united in heaven.[9]

But Titus is fucking hilarious though

2666

Hogg.

not sure if you're memeing but that actually not a bad recommendation for this thread.

the book of disquiet, I actually couldn't finish it, it was too depressing

This. Macbeth would be a better choice.

I think I've seen this guy post on /mu/

Seven Madmen and its continuation "The Flamethrowers", honestly just a superior version of notes from the underground.

John Rechys - The City of Night
Yes homo but go read it

“There are so many prisons in the universe,” thought the old prisoner; “every prison is a universe, every universe a prison …”

I don't get it

Im actually not, never felt such a feeling of internal dread as I did while reading 2666 [until the final line that is]

i have no mouth and i must scream

dark short story

Beneath the Wheel by Hesse

The Cannibal by John Hawkes

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeew

Programmed to Kill

are you short, do you require an adult?

>A Modest Proposal
But Swift was a satirical writer, with that essay used often as an example of what satire looks like. What's the point of including it?

Bleak house

Something about South African Literature that is dark and bleak.

In The Heart of the Country by J.M. Coetzee and Expedition to the Baobab Tree by Wilma Stockenstrom (Translated by Coetzee) both have bleak expanses as part of the setting and involve a potential suicide by exposure. Some pretty damaged characters with warped views of themselves and their world. Insanity and dehumanization are also core themes.

Highly recommend both, they're fairly short and have interesting structures.

...

Damage done by Warren Fellows

You haven't, he killed himself in the 90s

I've read only "Waiting For The Barbarians" and loved it, so this recomendation is pretty well appreciated. Thanks a lot.

This is why I'll never kill myself. Just imagine, this guy missed out on the miracle of mainstream shitposting by just a few years.