I've recently become interested in bizarre literature. A lot of it isn't very mind blowing, but the sheer eccentricity is pretty mentally stimulating.
Here are a couple I've read so far.
The Beginning Was the End--Oscar Kiss Maerth: a 1971 pseudo-scientific book written by Oscar Kiss Maerth that claims that humankind evolved from cannibalistic apes.
Mount Analogue--René Daumal: bizarre and allegorical, detailing the discovery and ascent of a mountain, the Mount Analogue of the title, which can only be perceived by realising that one has travelled further in traversing it than one would by travelling in a straight line, and can only be viewed from a particular point when the sun's rays hit the earth at a certain angle. The novel also marks the first use of the word "peradam" in literature, an object that is revealed only to those who seek it.
The Book of the Damned (1919)--Charles Fort: Deals with various types of anomalous phenomena including UFOs, strange falls of both organic and inorganic materials from the sky, odd weather patterns, the possible existence of creatures generally held to be mythological, disappearances of people under strange circumstances, and many other phenomena, the book is historically considered to be the first written in the specific field of anomalistics.
Anyone have similar interests? Anyone got any recs?
Mount Analogue sounds incredible, is it hard to find a copy of it?
Robert Walker
I had to order it in from out of state because my uni library (the biggest library in Kansas, don't know if that says much) didn't have it.
The Book of the Damned and The Beginning was the End both had to be checked out of special collections for me to read. Worth it, though.
Owen Anderson
there's another rare Daumal book in English titled Mugle and the Silk. I've never been able to find an affordable copy but I think it's stuff he wrote when he was experimenting with carbon tetrachloride to give himself near death experiences.
If you like Fort try the Fortean Times and other related stuffs. You want "weird" literature probably, not "bizarre".
Adrian Sanders
Bear in mind that The Mount... is an incomplete work, he died while writing it. What we have is only like 1/3, or even less, of what he wanted to write. So it may be dissapointing, but very interesting nonetheless
Ian Wright
leedskalnin
Ryan Richardson
Maybe Julian Jaynes
Look into Colin Wilson -- specifically his Occult and Beyond the Occult books, for a THOUSAND recommendations on this (Fortean) note, plus the bits of intellectual biography that make them truly interesting (IMHO) by showing how their bizarreness was usually rooted in their strange esoteric philosophical inclinations
Similarly on that note, Arthur Koestler's lesser known stuff
Lord Dunsany's fiction
Aiden Adams
...
Juan Walker
>In Sara, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven There Were Men and Women
>Blue cloth binding: four and three-quarter inches tall by seven and three-quarter inches wide. Published in 1944. The right margin is unjustified in a way that suggests verse-but it is clearly prose. The first thing one notices, opening the book, is clusters of names-names of men and women, most of them writers, many well known. But then, even more striking, it becomes obvious that each page contains only one sentence, and it is always-except for the names-almost the same sentence.
>You want "weird" literature probably, not "bizarre"
pretty sure i want bizarre since that's what i said u fuckface
Michael Murphy
check out the bible.
Luke Rivera
>lord Dunsay Nice my man Speaking of Dunsay, I'm surprised there's been no mention of Lovecraft yet
Colton Scott
SWTPD
Gabriel King
lovecraft's lesser read stuff is actually really great, like the dream cycle and the stuff that focuses on consciousness/our reality being just the surface of what's really real
colin wilson also has some great lovecraftian stuff - the philosopher's stone and the mind parasites - written at the request (actually challenge, since wilson denigrated lovecraft) of derleth
Unfortunately they're all PDFs (no epubs) but it's still a good collection of the bizarre imo.
Jose Baker
is that phaistos disc
Joshua Russell
You will love this OP
The Interface series: reddit.com/user/_9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9 The anonymous writer posted the story in instalments through hijacking random reddit threads.
Personally I think it was written by one of the writers on Stranger Things, because the timing and themes were just too coincidental, but it goes way further.
Levi Lee
What about that JG Ballard book?
Daniel Hughes
Récoltes et Semailles
Jaxon Howard
By Reza Negarestani, 'The Dust Enforcer'
If you're at all like me, and this thread makes me think you might be, I should think it'd stimulate your mentatas something fierce
Hudson Gonzalez
>He says that blacks have smaller brains than whites[18] and that contemporary cannibal tribes are seeking to remedy this discrepancy by consuming brains in a frantic attempt to catch up, though he estimates that it would take them roughly 100,000 years to do so
Nicholas Cook
Picked up
Charles Williams
>He asserts that humanity evolved from two groups of apes: one peaceful, vegetarian and practicing free love; the other violent, carnivorous and given to fighting over sex partners. Originally all were of the former group. However, Eisler argues that Ice Age food shortages caused some to imitate wolves and other beasts of prey, wearing animal skins and taking up hunting. He claims this is the historical basis of the werewolf legends found in many cultures.
>Eisler advocates a return to what he imagines was the harmonious life of the earliest primates and proposes the development of a new psychology and ultimately a new society, lest we are destroyed in a nuclear war brought about by descendants of the wolf-men.
Dylan Ross
>>In Sara, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven There Were Men and Women is this where tortoise got the song name from?
Ethan Hernandez
Codex Seraphinianus
Brody Jenkins
Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged' is set in the bizarre world where market economies actually function better than controlled ones.
Jordan Sanchez
I'd guess. Tortoise is great though. 9/10 album.
Blake Hill
lel
Aaron Turner
I DO find it interesting that no one else has ever tried to copy or 'cash in' on the genre she invented.
John Reed
Try Roald Dahl's adult short stories.
Jayden Barnes
Which one? all his shit seems pretty off the rails
Thanks anons, this is some interesting shit
Owen Williams
Thomas Ligotti might interest u. Check out his collections of short stories
Christian Reyes
Speaking of Mount Analogue, watch Holy Mountain if you haven't already. I know it's not exactly on the books topic but it took it's inspiration directly from the book.
Justin Morgan
definitely read ashley and walrop's recollections of wolgamot at the start of the book. very interesting man. almost magical.
Andrew Gray
Will Self
Mason Brown
occultism isn't that bizarre. it's where people make up terms for shit that doesn't exist so they can trick people into thinking they know stuff "conventional" science doesn't understand.
isn't it odd that in an age of ubiquitous camera phones, the only pics of cryptids, ufos and ghosts are the ludicrously badly shooped?
Nathan Sullivan
waiting for it to come out in english. lol.
Jace Garcia
Charles Williams. Friend of Tolkien and Lewis but also of Alistair Crowley. His stuff is pretty weird.
Jackson Murphy
You don't know what you want.
Tyler Stewart
Urmuz - Bizarre Pages
Isaac Ward
"In the Realms of the Unreal: Insane Writings"--the best of stuff written by mental patients
Also, not exactly lit, but the art book/biography combinations:
A.G. Rizzoli: Architect of Magnificent Visions Adolf Wölfli: Creator of the Universe Charles Dellschau
And many more, but those are the ones I've read myself.
Also check out stuff edited by Adam Parfrey (published under Feral House imprint and others).
There's also all the Church of the Subgenius and Discordianism publications. There s Subgenius publication called "HIGH WEIRDNESS BY MAIL" which is another collection of writings by "insane" people. But I guess a lot of people here would consider those Babby's First Weirdness.
Adam Gorightly is another guy in the Discordian/Subgenius vein of weirdness that might be worth checking out, although I haven't read any of his stuff myself.
Some of the Disinformation Publishing company stuff might be of interest to you as well, although I never really got that into their stuff.
>Urmuz Yes. Also: Daniil Kharms - anything by him Nathalie Sarraute - Tropismes Leonora Carrington - The Hearing Trumpet Marcel Schwob - Vies imaginaires Francis Ponge - The Soap (and any other of his short prose poems about things) Julien Gracq - Le rivage des Syrtes Alfred Jarry - Dr. Faustroll (the actual title is too long for me to type on this shit phone) Max Blecher - Adventures in Immediate Reality Henri Michaux - there's a collection of short texts in English, I forget the title Raymond Roussel - Impressions d'Afrique Gellu Naum - Zenobia
All this is mostly surrealist stuff from the first half of the 20th century, as is Mount Analogue. There's nothing occult or actually insane, so if you're into that you'd better check out other recommendations in this thread. Also, what this guy is trying to express and failing is (I think) that there's this fairly recent genre called "bizarro" lit, which is not surrealism or any of the above. It's shit but if you want to have a taste look up "Ass Goblins of Auschwitz" or something like that.
