10 Obscure, Thought Provoking Reads
There’s a good reason why most of these books aren’t familiar to the general public. They aren’t meant for everyone. But for someone with an open mind, they could contain valuable insight.
10. Sausagey Santa by Carlton Mellick III
No, there’s no literary significance to this book, it’s just hilarious. The most twisted Christmas story ever told. I can’t even begin to explain except to emphatically state that it’s not for kids. This book also makes a great introduction to the Bizarro literary movement going on right now. Opening line: “I never should have married a woman named Decapitron.” Example of Mellick’s skilled characterization: “I’m a wild man… I call my hairstyle “the sly guy” and I like to make guns with my fingers and point them at people when I walk down the sidewalk.” Best part: Both of those examples are on the first page and the story is that good all the way through.
9. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
This book is taboo and the author is a dirty old man. I don’t care. It’s still important. It’s a convincing romance, even if it is really messed up. This book doesn’t try to justify it’s content. Hubert, the protagonist realizes how horrible he is. But at the same time, you see that he really does love her and that makes the harm inflicted on Dolores so much more painful. Also, the writing is amazing. The fact English is only the author’s second language puts the vast majority of native English authors to shame.
8. Aurélia by Gérard de Nerval
This book is almost as hard to understand as it’s author- a man who parade a lobster on a blue ribbon through the Palais-Royal and eventually hung himself from an apron string he referred to as the garter of the Queen of Sheba (thank you for the trivia Amazon.com!). What I did gather was that Nerval was completely insane. He was also an inspiration for Proust, Artaud, and even the surrealist movement. Aurelia is a tribute to an unrequited love whom the author was completely obsessed with. At one point, she becomes a trinity. The reason this book is important is because it completely blurs the lines between dreams and reality.
7. Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice
The Vampire Chronicles are guilty pleasure for me. They’re just exiting books to read. This is one of the deeper entries into the series. Lestat, a powerful and very suave vampire, is abducted by Memnoch. The central part of the story is his debate with the devil. It’s nothing less than a journey from heaven, hell, and creation. In Memnoch’s version of the story God has no sympathy for mankind (having never experienced mortality) and therefore neglects them. For his disagreement, he was condemned to Hell, where is job is to teach the deceased what they’ve done wrong in life in order for them to be able to move on to heaven. I know Anne Rice is a terrible place to get theology, but this book really does offer some commentary on the human condition. At the end there is a hint that Memnoch’s entire story may have been deceptive and it leaves the reader pondering how impossible it is to truly know the mysteries of the universe.
6. Hell by Henri Barbusse
Voyeurism. If I were allowed to use one work summaries, that’s what I would say- but then again, people wouldn’t know what that meant anyway. Of course, the story is also a lot deeper than that. The premise of this book is that a man gets a room in a Paris boarding house and discovers that there’s a hole in the wall looking into another room. He stays in this room for years doing nothing but watching that room and it’s various owners. He sees every facet of human life. Some of the most powerful parts for me were the dying atheist’s Last Rites and of course the sex. Barbusse writes in the early 1900s French Decadent style, which is very beautiful to read, “an all you can eat steak buffet of words” according to my girlfriend. Finally, the protagonist returns to the real world even the reader can feel his head spinning. This book is a good reason for all of us to stop and think why we’re so obsessed with the private lives of other people- and then go take a cold shower.
5. It by Stephen King
Though Stephen King may never have heard the phrase “quality over quantity” he’s still penned a few classics in his time and this is my personal favorite of them. Like many of his other novels it’s full of violence, gore, metaphysical freak-outs, and the forces of unadulterated evil. It also has the bonus feature of taking place in the groovy 1950s, complete with cheesy monster movies, soda fountains, and radio-shows. Oh yeah, King does not skimp on all the gory details one would expect from a cataclysmic battle between good and evil. But what really sets this book apart is the characters. All the main characters are so fully fleshed out- he wasn’t wasting those twelve-hundred pages. You get to see them fight off Pennywise as kids and later adults. You really get to know those people and it’s gets to the point where putting the book down is as painful as picking it up. I’m going to say that this book ruined my life… READ IT NOW!
4. Journey to the End of the Night by Louis Ferdinand Céline
If I may be blunt, this author is a BAMF. He hates everyone and everything, and he hates them good. Words like “nihilistic”, “misanthropic”, and “explosive” often appear in reviews of this book. It’s brutally honest and soul-crushingly cynical. Supposedly it’s much better in the original French but I definitely got the gist by reading in English. This autobiographical book chronicles the author’s World War I experiences, his time in French occupied Africa, his experiences as a poor doctor in Paris, and is emigration to America. This novel was inspired by Cervantes, Dostoyevsky, and Nietzsche and inspired Sartre, Kerouac, and Nabokov. Plotwise, it’s a lot like Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer but not much more powerful (even if it does have less sex). Celine’s use of language makes his book all the more lethal… You feel frustration at the pointlessness of war, disgust at how rude people can be… you even feel grimy during the disease infested Africa portion of the book. Of course, the heart (not that it has one) of this book is the Journey, the existential importance of life’s events.
3. Citizen Power by Mike Gravel
No, the Democrats and Republicans don’t have all the answers. Not even together. In fact, they aren’t all that different from each other. But Mike Gravel is. This book is a full on assault on how the political system is now dominated by money and charisma. Now is not the place to get into Gravel’s political agenda, however, I think everybody needs to know his name whether or not they agree with him. He’s the man responsible for the Alaska pipeline, the release of the Pentagon Papers, and the end of the draft- and now he’s running for president. Lately his public antics have included the “Soulja Boy” dance and switching from the Democratic to the Libertarian party. Anyway, the main idea he proposes in this book is something called the National Initiative for Democracy. It would change the United States from a Republic to a Democracy by allowing every citizen to make and vote on laws.
2. If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino
If books are an important part of your life I promise you that you NEED to read this one. It makes you think hard on what books really are, and warps your mind in the process. This book begins with the iconic opening line “You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a winter’s night a traveler.” Then it starts to get weird. This book is about reading this book. It tells you just how you do it. After this second person chapter you actually read a portion of a book called If on a winter’s night a traveler and it just kind of dissolves. The book tells you that this is because your copy is defective and it describes your quest to find a new copy. You do, but it turns out to be a different book that’s also incomplete. Eventually you’re read the opening chapter of ten different books and uncovered a vast conspiracy from the book publishers. As if the plotting wasn’t convoluted enough, Calvino overwhelms you with his writing style. Every event that occurs in the various “book” you read is subtly related back to literature through Calvino’s literary tricks. There’s also the not-so-subtle criticisms the commercialization of writing as an industry occurring in the second person chapters. I know, you don’t know what I’m talking about. Read the book and find out.
1. Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut died recently, but I like to think about what he said in this book: “When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in a bad condition in that particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments.” But then again, in Man Without A Country he also said“If I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, “Kurt is up in heaven now.” That’s my favorite joke.”
You will think when you read this book because it covers so many subjects people don’t usually think about. Non-Linear time is a good example. And it’s also the best World War II book to feature alien abductions. Of course, the reason this book is so easy to read is Vonnegut’s delightfully sarcastic black-humor. Good stuff.
Liked it
The ones I’ve already read - good choices. I’ll have to seek out the others.
To the “not deep, but good fun” category, consider the book Confederacy of Dunces” by John Kennedy Toole.
Something you might want to check out is House of Leaves, I cant remember the authors name atm because its very foreign, but google it and youll find it
*ITS*.
Thanks guys.
And I’ve got a copy of “House of Leaves” somewhere, I just haven’t started it yet.
For a really deep but fun but still unique and clever book, try “The World According to Garp” by John Irving.
Adapted into a movie with robin williams in it, but the book is 10x better, in my opinion.
1) The progaginist of _Lolita_ is Humbert, not Hubert.
2) I’d add _They Crying of Lot 49_ by Thomas Pynchon.
Oh yes fantastic list. I mean IT by Stephen King, Lolita and Memnoch the Devil is sooooooo obscure and hard to find… I might have to comb a used book store to find those. For god sake, Obscure? IT was the best selling book of 1986.
It? They made a TV mini-series from the book. Which incidentally won an Emmy. Not obscure.
IT isn’t obscure? Oh really, geniuses? I guess that ‘obscures’ the legitimacy of the other 9.
Nonetheless, I think I know somebody I can go to for every single one of these novels…
IT isn’t obscure? Oh really, geniuses? I guess that ‘obscures’ the legitimacy of the other 9.
Nonetheless, I think I know somebody I can go to for every single one of these novels…
My apologizes for the double posting. The site informed me there was an invalid security string the first try. I suppose it lied.
If on a winter’s night a traveler is an amazing read. I don’t really want to call it a book. I’d add The Rings of Saturn, by W. G. Sebald, and if you’re philisophically inclined, Love’s Knowledge, by Martha Nussbaum.
Amen to Rings of Saturn + Crying of Lot 49.
Also, Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow is mind-alteringly good.
Did you actually read “Lolita?” The protagonist’s name is “Humbert,” in fact his full name is “Humbert Humbert,” so there’s no excuse for getting that wrong. Referring to Nabakov as a “dirty old man” is just slander and calling the novel “taboo” or “obscure” is plainly factually incorrect when it’s internationally highly acclaimed and readily available.
My humble apologies for the most heinous typo of dropping the “m” out of Humbert’s name. I loved Lolita, but from the subject matter I would expect people to take the book for being offensive.
Maybe it isn’t the most “obscure” list. I’ll at least grant that “Memnoch the Devil”, “It”, and “Slaughterhouse Five” definitely don’t fit that description. But my original audience for this list were people who’ve never read anything edgier than “Twilight” so I think it’s legitimate to say that not everybody has read these books.
And I’ve been meaning to read some Pynchon, and some Joyce, but I’m just not in the mood to have my mind raped just yet.
I probably should have included some Burroughs in my list though… At least one of his less popular books.
(sory if this appears more than once, but it’s not appeared at all yet)
Perhaps these measure up on the Obscurity Index, and are certainly thought-provoking
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.
Not really obscure, but less-well-known than Lolita. The devil comes to town and has fun with the literary circles of early Soviet-era Moscow. Meanwhile, in another time and place, Pontius Pilate has to deal with a mysterious social activist called Yeshua Ha-Notsri.
The Spire - William Golding.
All people read by Golding seems to be Lord of the Flies, but almost all his novels are stunning, and all very different. I could just as well have included The Inheritors, about the last tribe of Neanderthals, or Pincher Martin about a shipwrecked sailor trying to survive on a shard of rock poking out of the middle of the Atlantic. The Spire is about a medieval bishop trying to get a spire put on a cathedral built on marshy and unstable land. A lot more powerful than it sounds, with one sequence that’s the most nail-biting thing I’ve ever read.
Riddley Walker - Russell Hoban
The story of life in post-apocalypse Britain, in the language they might be speaking a thousand years after the collapse of our civilisation. Absolutely superb.
Smallcreep’s Day - Peter Currell Brown
A picaresque, surreal journey around a factory that seems to take up the whole world. They really don’t write them like this any more.
At Swim-Two-Birds - Flann O’Brien
Very funny, very Irish. Very post-modern, too, authors and characters mixing it up in the eponymous tavern. Also by Flann O’Brien - The Third Policeman; The Poor Mouth. Absolute genius - the grand-daddy of the style of Irish humour that more recently brought us Father Ted.
Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson - George Ivanovic Gurdjieff.
Fallen Angel Beezebub tells his Grandson Hussein about the insane inhabitants of planet Earth, while returning from his long exile from Heaven. More difficult to read than Dianetics, but with more (and better) jokes. However, Gurdjeffism is a lot cheaper than Scientology, and to the best of my knowledge less likely to end up in persecution and worrying midnight phone calls. Also, there’s formation dancing.
The Futurological Congress - Stanislav Lem
Lem’s best known for writing Solaris. Most of his stuff is a lot funnier than either film of that book, though. It turns out pretty much everything is a drug-induced hallucination, including the hallucinations. I think it might be the most devastating satire on capitalism that I’ve read from a writer behind the Iron Curtain, but I can’t say I’ve read that many. Lem’s also as astute a critic of the Soviet system (it’s amazing what science-fiction writers and pornographers can get away with, really).
Dog - Daniel Pennac.
Lovely book. It’s about a dog. Duh!
The God Beneath the Sea - Leon Garfield and Edward Blishen
The story of the the Greek gods, with superb Charles Keeping illustrations. They also wrote The Golden Shadow, the story of Herakles. Supposed to be for kids, but don’t let that stop you.
Them: Adventures with Extremists - Jon Ronson
Muslims fundamentalists, Randy and Rachel Weaver, David Icke, the Ku Klux Klan, Alex Jones and many others:British journalist Ronson meets them and asks them slightly bewildered questions. A fascinating investigation into what gets labelled as “extremism”.
Impro - Keith Johnson
Johnson was a director at the Royal Court who devised all sorts of theatre games, the kind of thing that Whose Line Is It, Anyway? is known for, except, to judge by his book, they’re not very good at it.
Don’t, Mr Disraeli - Caryl Brahms & S.J. Simon
A comic novel set in the cliches of what we think we know about Victorian England. All of it at the same time, apparantly. They also wrote the wonderful No Bed For Bacon, about Shakespeare.
The Dancers at the End of Time - Michael Moorcock
I mention this because it’s my favourite fantasy novel of all time. A lot funnier than Lord of the Rings, without being a parody. Also, features guest appearances from H.G. Wells, philanderer Frank Harris, the Devonian (or possibly Silurian) era and the End of the Universe.
How to Be Topp - Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle
The appallingly-spelled musings of a 1950s pupil at a very minor English boarding school.
And “Really Not Obscure But They Should Be Read”:
Good Omens - Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Heaven vs Hell and all that. Look at the authorial pedigree - who needs more than that?
Titus Groan / Gormenghast
The other great post-Second-World-War British fantasy epic, and as crepuscular and claustrophobic as Lord of the Rings is expansive.
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
A gigantic book about tennis, drug addiction, experimental cinema and other stuff. A book either to be loved fanatically or loathed beyond limit. It’s probably a good idea to work out into which camp you fall before starting the book, as there’s quite a lot of it. Kind of like Gravity’s Rainbow in a smiley-face t-shirt.
There are almost certainly others, but I should stop procrastinating now.
Thank you, I might check some of those out. Especially the Golding books. I loved “Lord of the Flies”
Obscure? Most of them, I’d say, are not obscure.
Lolita: Humbert Humbert, not Hubert.
Nice list, though. Thanks.
You seem to have missed the point of “Lolita” altogether. It is not a literal autobiography, and so to call the author a pervert is like calling Stephen King an axe-murderer or a vampire. Just makes you look like you don’t understand what fiction is. Also, to conclude that Humbert “really loves” Lolita makes it clear that you don’t understand what love is, either. One of the points of the book is to illustrate the uncaring, narcissistic idealization of the other that many people mistake for love because of its intensity — including, it seems, you.
Nabokov? Rice? King? Vonnegut? I don’t think the word “obscure” means what you think it means.
19. Hooray for people who haven’t already see me acknowledge my misspelling of Humbert!
20. Contrary to popular belief, I did get Lolita. I wrote this list thinking people would be scandalized by it’s content but it seems to be the most popular book I mentioned. And just because Humbert was narcissistic, sick, and abusive doesn’t mean there wasn’t some genuine affection behind it. He was a bad person. He was wrong. He wasn’t soulless. You’re doing Nabokov a great disservice- he was far to skilled a writer to make things that simple.
21. Yeah. I acknowledged that too. Keep in mind this list was originally written for High School students. These books could legitimately be considered obscure to the majority of them. In fact, given the bestseller craze, I still think I can fairly say most people haven’t heard of these books. Just because you happen to be literary minded doesn’t mean you’re the norm.
Rice’s Memnoch was a very good book. It was extremely thought proking and despite being heretical by portraying the devil as essentially good, if the entire book were true, it would change NOTHING as far as the Christian churches are concerned.
That book was a let-down for those looking for the escapist fantasy of The Vampire Lestat, but on it’s own merit, it’s an excellent read.
True. I didn’t feel it exactly worked as a “Vampire Chronicles” entry. You only needed that knowledge to understand the characters. Storywise, the heaven and hell thing stood on their own and were entertaining in their own way. This was probably also her only good book until “Blackwood Farm”, which was her last good book ever.
When I saw the link for this I thought If on a Winter’s Night better be on there. I’m writing my thesis on it right now…exhausting.
Love it. Got worried that you left out Vonnegut until I saw number 1. Vonnegut is one of the best, a lot to learn from him.
Ha, I know what you mean.
I wrote a essay on it for my “If on a winter’s night a traveler” for AP English class… It wasn’t too involved, but it got pretty long because of the amount of clarification required for anything to make sense. But after it was over with, everyone who read my essay wanted to read the book.
Interesting article
nice article
Sure, slip the three good books you’ve read in with some other crap
make it look like you’re smart, real accomplished
for the ‘uncultured rest’
yeah you’re really doing them a favour.
Stephen King’s “IT” is a total classic. Thanks for the read.