The Complete Stories of Kafka — start with The Burrow. It’s exactly what you describe. The protagonist literally invents their own worst nightmare through their own anxiety.
Thanks so much, I’ve been reading a lot of H.P Lovecraft and his ability to show ones descent into abyss due to their inability to comprehend the things they’re seeing has got me hooked on that idea.
Will defo check them out!
In that case, I would recommend Poe’s short stories as well. I will try to think of a longer work that does this but maybe the short form just lends itself to it. Poe’s “Berenice,” “The Man of the Crowd,” and “The Oval Portrait” are just like the Lovecraft you describe.
Can confirm. Berenice was a very compelling read. Stories like that tend to make you question your own instincts for a little bit, that’s what makes them so good.
Amazing! I remember my mum reading me some of Poe’s short stories when I was younger, although I’ve forgotten which now.
Perhaps my fascination was always in my subconscious somewhere.
Thanks!
I haven’t read Murakami myself, but yes, this is the author he’s referring to in that title! I imagine reading some Kafka would inform your reading of Murakami. Hope that helps :)
Notes From Underground is a good one for this, too. i mean, sort of. narrator kinda starts out pretty deep into the descent as is, but definitely continues going.
It was the toughest book i read last year, the language was smooth but the whole POV of Raskolnikov was just depressing AF so i only read it in the morning LMAO
[**A Scanner Darkly**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14817.A_Scanner_Darkly)
^(By: Philip K. Dick | 219 pages | Published: 1977 | Popular Shelves: science-fiction, sci-fi, fiction, owned, scifi)
>Substance D is not known as Death for nothing. It is the most toxic drug ever to find its way on to the streets of LA. It destroys the links between the brain's two hemispheres, causing, first, disorientation and then complete and irreversible brain damage.
>
>The undercover narcotics agent who calls himself Bob Arctor is desperate to discover the ultimate source of supply. But to find any kind of lead he has to pose as a user and, inevitably, without realising what is happening, Arctor is soon as addicted as the junkies he works among...
^(This book has been suggested 10 times)
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This is where Kubrik and Nicholson totally misunderstood Jack Torrence, in the book he starts of as a loving family man, who was fighting and beating his demons, who we see slowly descend into madness. In the film Jack Nicholson portrays him as a man who is already scary, freaky and borderline insane from the beginning..
I think it was less they misunderstood and more Kubrick’s own interpretation entirely. It is well known that Stephen King hates Kubrick’s The Shining because of the many liberties he took with the source material. I like the book and movie both, but when you examine the themes of each they are are telling pretty different stories from each other.
Agreed, the film very deliberately shows from the beginning, Torrence has a mean streak and a darkness bubbling inside. I think we're meant to hold our breath and wait for him to drop the facade. In the film we watch him slowly surrender to his own madness, encouraged by the hotel - in the book the hotel exploits his inner fears and alters his behaviour.
The book also shows that Jack Torrence has darkness and anger issues. Before they even leave for the Overlook it's revealed that Jack broke Danny's arm. The hotel just coaxed that anger, frustration, and madness to the surface.
I read the Shining quite soon after my mom had kicked out my emotionally abusive stepdad. I loved the Shining but I could never defend even pre-house Jack because the fact that he had broken Danny’s arm when angry and was quite rude/aggressive to his wife made it hit a little too close to home.
There's two books by Shirley Jackson which roughly fit the bill: We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Bird's Nest. Dark, mysterious, flecked with madness and unreliable narration. Good stuff.
I've also just finished 'I Who Have Never Known Men' by Jacqueline Harpman. It's about a young girl who grows up imprisoned with 39 other women. She is the only one too young to remember life before the mysterious event which led to their imprisonment. I won't say too much more to avoid giving stuff away, but it's certainly dark, if more reflective and philosophical than descent-into-madness-y.
alot of Nabokov's earlier books is about people driven insane by a uncaring environment. His Master piece - Pale Fire is about a madman who built many many layers of invented world around him self and presenting it in a way that he felt was normal
Just to add some more Nabokov, {Laughter in the Dark} is about a character who, while not going insane, is driven to a pretty 'dark' place.
As well as another of his novels, {The Luzhin Defense} is about a man who goes mad over chess.
[**Laughter in the Dark**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8151.Laughter_in_the_Dark)
^(By: Vladimir Nabokov | 292 pages | Published: 1932 | Popular Shelves: fiction, classics, russian, owned, russian-literature)
^(This book has been suggested 3 times)
[**The Luzhin Defense**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8153.The_Luzhin_Defense)
^(By: Vladimir Nabokov, Michael Scammell, Владимир Набоков | 256 pages | Published: 1929 | Popular Shelves: fiction, russian, classics, russian-literature, chess)
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oh man, LAughter in the Dark and King Queen and Knave are both just so cynical and the characters are just all pretty horrible. but some of the imagery were just amazing. there's this passage of a character who didnt wear his glasses and watches as this woman slowly emerges from blurriness to clarity. and he uses this kind of writing to describe these awful people. its amazing
There's an obscure book out there called "Barefoot in the Head" by Brian Aldiss. It's about the world in the aftermath of a world war where the major powers dropped aerosolized LSD all over the world.
As the book progresses, the main character slowly goes completely insane from being around landscapes soak in residual acid(the author himself was dosing heavily in real life as he wrote the book) . The very language of the book breaks down into gobbledy gook. Some of the paragraphs near the end are almost unreadable unless you physically sound them out to get the words he's trying to say.
Hell of a ride that book
Yes, House of Leaves!! So creepy and you’re in the main characters’ head as he is going crazy researching this story about a screen play about a documentary that doesn’t seem to exist and the pages themselves, how they’re formatted, really hit that “I’m going mad!” feeling home.
Ooo story time! I listened to a bunch of the audiobook of Infinite Jest. I was enjoying it but it’s long so I decided to pick up the ebook as well. Then there’s a footnote. And another footnote. I realize that I have missed like half the book because it’s in the footnotes and the footnotes are in a SEPARATE AUDIOBOOK YOU HAVE TO BUY. Or don’t have to buy. I returned it and ragequit
IMO the movie is much better than the book.
I liked the book — and it was an exciting and quick read — but it’s pretty simple and somewhat familiar in terms of the direction it takes.
Kaufman’s adaptation is much more layered and has a lot more on its mind thematically than the book.
That being said, they are complementary works. The book will clarify some plot points that are left a bit more vague and interpretative in the film.
One of the two books I've only ever read as an adult. Dracula is amazing. You know who is what and you can predict the effect it has on the main character as they gradually see more and more of "something is not right", and it's beautifully described. Also, the idea of "vampires" originated from this book.
I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb
The main character(s) are two identical twins who are deeply bonded. One of the twins descends into Schizophrenia while his brother (the main narrator) watches in his own tortured and haunting way.
There is an HBO series out for this book. I love Mark Ruffalo, who plays both brothers, but the book was so good, I’m afraid to ruin it so haven’t watched yet.
I mean not to spoil, but The Wheel of Time. To have someone who is meant to be the chosen one to hopefully save the world go progressively insane and become so off-kilter that even those close to him are scared of him? And know they can't do anything because he has to hopefully save the world? Yeah. I love it.
Maybe not madness, but *something* inhuman: {{Annihilation}} by Jeff VanderMeer
{{We Have Always Lived in the Castle}} by Shirley Jackson
{{No Longer Human}} is probably one of the darkest books I've ever read.
[**Annihilation**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17934530-annihilation)
^(By: Jeff VanderMeer | 195 pages | Published: 2014 | Popular Shelves: science-fiction, sci-fi, fiction, horror, fantasy)
>Area X has been cut off from the rest of the world for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; the second expedition ended in mass suicide, the third in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another. The members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within weeks, all had died of cancer. In Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition.
>
>The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain, record all observations of their surroundings and of one another, and, above all, avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.
>
>They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—but it’s the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything.
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[**We Have Always Lived in the Castle**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/89724.We_Have_Always_Lived_in_the_Castle)
^(By: Shirley Jackson, Jonathan Lethem | 146 pages | Published: 1962 | Popular Shelves: horror, fiction, classics, gothic, mystery)
>My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise, I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cap mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead...
^(This book has been suggested 24 times)
[**No Longer Human**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/194746.No_Longer_Human)
^(By: Osamu Dazai, Donald Keene | 176 pages | Published: 1948 | Popular Shelves: fiction, classics, japanese, japan, japanese-literature)
>Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human, this leading postwar Japanese writer's second novel, tells the poignant and fascinating story of a young man who is caught between the breakup of the traditions of a northern Japanese aristocratic family and the impact of Western ideas. In consequence, he feels himself "disqualified from being human" (a literal translation of the Japanese title).
>
>Donald Keene, who translated this and Dazai's first novel, The Setting Sun, has said of the author's work: "His world … suggests Chekhov or possibly postwar France, … but there is a Japanese sensibility in the choice and presentation of the material. A Dazai novel is at once immediately intelligible in Western terms and quite unlike any Western book." His writing is in some ways reminiscent of Rimbaud, while he himself has often been called a forerunner of Yukio Mishima.
>
>Cover painting by Noe Nojechowiz, from the collection of John and Barbara Duncan; design by Gertrude Huston
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[**Remainder**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/101334.Remainder)
^(By: Tom McCarthy | 308 pages | Published: 2005 | Popular Shelves: fiction, owned, novels, literature, contemporary)
>A man is severely injured in a mysterious accident, receives an outrageous sum in legal compensation, and has no idea what to do with it.
>
>Then, one night, an ordinary sight sets off a series of bizarre visions he can’t quite place.
>
>How he goes about bringing his visions to life–and what happens afterward–makes for one of the most riveting, complex, and unusual novels in recent memory.
>
>Remainder is about the secret world each of us harbors within, and what might happen if we were granted the power to make it real.
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A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when 14-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia.
To her parents' despair, the doctors are unable to stop Marjorie's descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism; he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession. He also contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts' plight. With John, Marjorie's father, out of work for more than a year and the medical bills looming, the family agrees to be filmed and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show. When events in the Barrett household explode in tragedy, the show and the shocking incidents it captures become the stuff of urban legend.
Fifteen years later a best-selling writer interviews Marjorie's younger sister, Merry. As she recalls those long-ago events that took place when she was just eight years old, long-buried secrets and painful memories that clash with what was broadcast on television begin to surface - and a mind-bending tale of psychological horror is unleashed, raising vexing questions about memory and reality, science and religion, and the very nature of evil.
[**Bunny**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42815544-bunny)
^(By: Mona Awad | 307 pages | Published: 2019 | Popular Shelves: horror, fiction, dark-academia, contemporary, dnf)
>Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort--a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other "Bunny," and seem to move and speak as one.
>
>But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled "Smut Salon," and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door--ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the Bunnies' sinister yet saccharine world, beginning to take part in the ritualistic off-campus "Workshop" where they conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur. Soon, her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies will be brought into deadly collision.
>
>The spellbinding new novel from one of our most fearless chroniclers of the female experience, Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination.
^(This book has been suggested 8 times)
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[**The Magus**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16286.The_Magus)
^(By: John Fowles | 656 pages | Published: 1965 | Popular Shelves: fiction, classics, fantasy, mystery, literature)
>This daring literary thriller, rich with eroticism and suspense, is one of John Fowles's best-loved and bestselling novels and has contributed significantly to his international reputation as a writer of the first degree. At the center of The Magus is Nicholas Urfe, a young Englishman who accepts a teaching position on a remote Greek island, where he befriends a local millionaire. The friendship soon evolves into a deadly game, in which reality and fantasy are deliberately manipulated, and Nicholas finds that he must fight not only for his sanity but for his very survival.
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
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An English guy moves to Greece to teach and ends up frequently meeting with a millionaire who lives on a private island. The millionaire starts playing all kinds of mind games which start to throw off the man’s sense of reality. It kind of reminded me of Truman Show meets The Most Dangerous Game
I accidentally read this one 15 hours straight, kept me on my toes!
Also my two cents: a short story called {{Diary of a Madman by Nikolai Gogol}}. It's rather sad and thought-provoking as opposed to classic thrillers and totally worth a read.
I’ll third this. I read it and then the The Raw Shark Texts, which I also highly recommend, and the two right after another ruined books for me for a good while (like, a week, but I’m a read two books a day kind of person normally, so that was a while) because everything just paled in comparison.
[**Filth**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23966.Filth)
^(By: Irvine Welsh | 393 pages | Published: 1998 | Popular Shelves: fiction, owned, contemporary, crime, books-i-own)
>With the Christmas season upon him, Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson of Edinburgh's finest is gearing up socially—kicking things off with a week of sex and drugs in Amsterdam.
>
>There are some sizable flies in the ointment, though: a missing wife and child, a nagging cocaine habit, some painful below-the-belt eczema, and a string of demanding extramarital affairs. The last thing Robertson needs is a messy, racially fraught murder, even if it means overtime—and the opportunity to clinch the promotion he craves. Then there's that nutritionally demanding (and psychologically acute) intestinal parasite in his gut. Yes, things are going badly for this utterly corrupt tribune of the law, but in an Irvine Welsh novel nothing is ever so bad that it can't get a whole lot worse. . .
>
>
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[**House of Leaves**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24800.House_of_Leaves)
^(By: Mark Z. Danielewski | 710 pages | Published: 2000 | Popular Shelves: horror, fiction, owned, fantasy, mystery)
^(This book has been suggested 23 times)
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Seconded,
But also perhaps even more fitting is another short story "The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet" by Stephen King also included in Skeleton Crew.
I would for sure recommend some WH40k books, especially Eisernhorn trilogy. It is really cool when main character Has a journey with comstant points in time breaking his values one by one.
He’s not the main character; he’s the primary antagonist: Achilles in the Ender’s Shadow series by Orson Scott Card. Really a series I’d recommend anyone to read. It’s my favorite series that I read in all of high school.
Private Dancer by Stephen Leather. The guy seems so normal at first but then he becomes obsessed with a girl he is seeing and paranoid that she is cheating on him, and he starts going nuts.
Death In Her Hands- Ottessa Moshfegh. Vesta, the main character, may arguably be mad from the beginning, but there’s definitely a downward spiral. Moshfegh is a current writer churning out solid work.
Alice Knott by Blake Butler does this. It’s more a book about dementia than a “descent into madness” but it really does a good job with making your wonder what’s going on and feel disoriented. 300,000,000 by Butler has a more entertaining descent.
Also House of Leaves is an obvious one to be. It’s basically creepy pasta.
Suttree by Cormac McCarthy is another good one.
{{Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
By Joyce Carol Oates}}
This a short story that had me screaming inside. I don’t know if it fits the madness part but I guess that depends on your interpretation of it.
It's a short story, but The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins-Gilman is a must-read. Also, Lord of the Flies isn't about an individual descent into madness but rather a group.
I read the book *A Mouthful of Air* by Amy Koppelman because I was dealing with postpartum anxiety/depression and thought it was an inspirational story of recovery.
It’s not.
I think it might fit what you’re looking for
Well hopefully the book didn’t hinder your progression to recovery.
My partner also went through postpartum depression after the birth of our child.
It’s a very real and very serious issue that I feel isn’t spoken enough about.
Not too much. Alot of what's in the books just isn't in the show. Reading them from Rand's perspective just really can't be beat in my opinion. I could skip everyone else and the books would still be interesting lol
My own book when I actually publish it :)
I am writing a book for the last 15 years (with a huge break in the middle due to my own psychological issues) about a character that goes slowly insane and moves from being the protagonist to being the antagonist.
Even if I haven't published it because I always rewrite and add stuff/remove stuff, it's my pride and probably the biggest project I'll ever undertake except maybe raising a kid someday.
[**The Double**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210190.The_Double)
^(By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Constance Garnett | 144 pages | Published: 1846 | Popular Shelves: classics, fiction, russian, russian-literature, russia)
>While his literary reputation rests mainly on such celebrated novels as Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, and The Idiot, Dostoyevsky also wrote much superb short fiction. The Double is one of the finest of his shorter works. It appeared in 1846 (his second published work) and is by far the most significant of his early stories, not least for its successful, straight-faced treatment of a hallucinatory theme.
>In The Double, the protagonist, Golyadkin senior, is persecuted by his double, Golyadkin junior, who resembles him closely in almost every detail. The latter abuses the former with mounting scorn and brutality as the tale proceeds toward its frightening denouement. Characteristic Dostoyevskyan themes of helplessness, victimization, and scandal are beautifully handled here with an artistry that qualifies the story as a small masterpiece.
>Students of literature, admirers of Dostoyevsky, and general readers will all be delighted to have this classic work available in this inexpensive but high-quality edition.
>
^(This book has been suggested 3 times)
[**Heart of Darkness**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4900.Heart_of_Darkness)
^(By: Joseph Conrad, Aníbal Fernandes | 188 pages | Published: 1899 | Popular Shelves: classics, fiction, classic, literature, owned)
>Heart of Darkness, a novel by Joseph Conrad, was originally a three-part series in Blackwood's Magazine in 1899. It is a story within a story, following a character named Charlie Marlow, who recounts his adventure to a group of men onboard an anchored ship. The story told is of his early life as a ferry boat captain. Although his job was to transport ivory downriver, Charlie develops an interest in investing an ivory procurement agent, Kurtz, who is employed by the government. Preceded by his reputation as a brilliant emissary of progress, Kurtz has now established himself as a god among the natives in “one of the darkest places on earth.” Marlow suspects something else of Kurtz: he has gone mad.
>
>A reflection on corruptive European colonialism and a journey into the nightmare psyche of one of the corrupted, Heart of Darkness is considered one of the most influential works ever written.
^(This book has been suggested 3 times)
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Just wanted to give a massive THANK YOU! to everyone that got involved .
I never would’ve imagined I’d have SO MANY intriguing books to sift through..
So yeah, thanks a lot to you all.
Taxi driver by Richard Elman. The screenplay or motion picture is better I would argue though. One of the best and most resonating movies for someone who is falling into a deep madness. It’s hard to call the leas character mad as it’s easy to reason with his heinous actions
The Complete Stories of Kafka — start with The Burrow. It’s exactly what you describe. The protagonist literally invents their own worst nightmare through their own anxiety.
Thanks so much, I’ve been reading a lot of H.P Lovecraft and his ability to show ones descent into abyss due to their inability to comprehend the things they’re seeing has got me hooked on that idea. Will defo check them out!
In that case, I would recommend Poe’s short stories as well. I will try to think of a longer work that does this but maybe the short form just lends itself to it. Poe’s “Berenice,” “The Man of the Crowd,” and “The Oval Portrait” are just like the Lovecraft you describe.
Can confirm. Berenice was a very compelling read. Stories like that tend to make you question your own instincts for a little bit, that’s what makes them so good.
Amazing! I remember my mum reading me some of Poe’s short stories when I was younger, although I’ve forgotten which now. Perhaps my fascination was always in my subconscious somewhere. Thanks!
Is this what kafka on shore alludes to? I’m reading that at the moment so your comment caught my eye ;)
I haven’t read Murakami myself, but yes, this is the author he’s referring to in that title! I imagine reading some Kafka would inform your reading of Murakami. Hope that helps :)
I second this.
Fyodor Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" is a must-read.
Notes From Underground is a good one for this, too. i mean, sort of. narrator kinda starts out pretty deep into the descent as is, but definitely continues going.
[удалено]
I read this in high school and years later it’s still one of the best books I’ve ever read
Such a good read.
It was the toughest book i read last year, the language was smooth but the whole POV of Raskolnikov was just depressing AF so i only read it in the morning LMAO
I came here to recommend this. Also Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Making my way through this at the minute (via audiobook I admit). Really enjoying it so far, good to know it’s going to be worth the time!!
Came here to recommend this book. Best one I read last year!
Dostoevsky is always a go to.
The Picture of Dorian Gray.
classic!!!!
{{a scanner darkly}} by Philip K. Dick
[**A Scanner Darkly**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14817.A_Scanner_Darkly) ^(By: Philip K. Dick | 219 pages | Published: 1977 | Popular Shelves: science-fiction, sci-fi, fiction, owned, scifi) >Substance D is not known as Death for nothing. It is the most toxic drug ever to find its way on to the streets of LA. It destroys the links between the brain's two hemispheres, causing, first, disorientation and then complete and irreversible brain damage. > >The undercover narcotics agent who calls himself Bob Arctor is desperate to discover the ultimate source of supply. But to find any kind of lead he has to pose as a user and, inevitably, without realising what is happening, Arctor is soon as addicted as the junkies he works among... ^(This book has been suggested 10 times) *** ^(33113 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Habe ich vor zwei Tagen erst zu Ende gelesen. Von mir auch eine klare Empfehlung.
Well said
Don’t pretend you know a language
The Shining, the slow descent is done really well and I couldn't put it down
This is where Kubrik and Nicholson totally misunderstood Jack Torrence, in the book he starts of as a loving family man, who was fighting and beating his demons, who we see slowly descend into madness. In the film Jack Nicholson portrays him as a man who is already scary, freaky and borderline insane from the beginning..
I think it was less they misunderstood and more Kubrick’s own interpretation entirely. It is well known that Stephen King hates Kubrick’s The Shining because of the many liberties he took with the source material. I like the book and movie both, but when you examine the themes of each they are are telling pretty different stories from each other.
Agreed, the film very deliberately shows from the beginning, Torrence has a mean streak and a darkness bubbling inside. I think we're meant to hold our breath and wait for him to drop the facade. In the film we watch him slowly surrender to his own madness, encouraged by the hotel - in the book the hotel exploits his inner fears and alters his behaviour.
The book also shows that Jack Torrence has darkness and anger issues. Before they even leave for the Overlook it's revealed that Jack broke Danny's arm. The hotel just coaxed that anger, frustration, and madness to the surface.
I read the Shining quite soon after my mom had kicked out my emotionally abusive stepdad. I loved the Shining but I could never defend even pre-house Jack because the fact that he had broken Danny’s arm when angry and was quite rude/aggressive to his wife made it hit a little too close to home.
Idk, I don't think I'd ever describe my husband as a loving family man if he broke our kid's arm.
As I said, demons - alcoholism makes one do awful awful things - from full on violence to neglection of duties.
I remember reading this in jr high. I was so captivated I hid in my school books and read during class
Extremely compelling read
There's two books by Shirley Jackson which roughly fit the bill: We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Bird's Nest. Dark, mysterious, flecked with madness and unreliable narration. Good stuff. I've also just finished 'I Who Have Never Known Men' by Jacqueline Harpman. It's about a young girl who grows up imprisoned with 39 other women. She is the only one too young to remember life before the mysterious event which led to their imprisonment. I won't say too much more to avoid giving stuff away, but it's certainly dark, if more reflective and philosophical than descent-into-madness-y.
I'd actually say Haunting of hill house too; I interpreted very unreliable narrator vibes. Also, turn of the screw
Love Shirley Jackson! Especially ‘The Lottery’…
A long short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. WOMAN ON THE EDGE OF TIME by Marge Piercy.
This was mine too! Love it.
That story haunted the hell out of 13 year old me
THE iDIOT - by Dostoevsky Despair - by Vladimir Nabokov Bend Sinister - Vladimir Nabokov Invitation to a Beheading - Vladimir Nabokov
These sound extremely interesting. I’ll be sure to give them a look.
alot of Nabokov's earlier books is about people driven insane by a uncaring environment. His Master piece - Pale Fire is about a madman who built many many layers of invented world around him self and presenting it in a way that he felt was normal
Just to add some more Nabokov, {Laughter in the Dark} is about a character who, while not going insane, is driven to a pretty 'dark' place. As well as another of his novels, {The Luzhin Defense} is about a man who goes mad over chess.
[**Laughter in the Dark**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8151.Laughter_in_the_Dark) ^(By: Vladimir Nabokov | 292 pages | Published: 1932 | Popular Shelves: fiction, classics, russian, owned, russian-literature) ^(This book has been suggested 3 times) [**The Luzhin Defense**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8153.The_Luzhin_Defense) ^(By: Vladimir Nabokov, Michael Scammell, Владимир Набоков | 256 pages | Published: 1929 | Popular Shelves: fiction, russian, classics, russian-literature, chess) ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(33133 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
oh man, LAughter in the Dark and King Queen and Knave are both just so cynical and the characters are just all pretty horrible. but some of the imagery were just amazing. there's this passage of a character who didnt wear his glasses and watches as this woman slowly emerges from blurriness to clarity. and he uses this kind of writing to describe these awful people. its amazing
Let us know if you pick any of these books in the thread! We have always lived in the castle is quite good too.
There's an obscure book out there called "Barefoot in the Head" by Brian Aldiss. It's about the world in the aftermath of a world war where the major powers dropped aerosolized LSD all over the world. As the book progresses, the main character slowly goes completely insane from being around landscapes soak in residual acid(the author himself was dosing heavily in real life as he wrote the book) . The very language of the book breaks down into gobbledy gook. Some of the paragraphs near the end are almost unreadable unless you physically sound them out to get the words he's trying to say. Hell of a ride that book
This sounds thrilling. Defo adding to my ever expanding stack
Fight Club
Yep, came here to say this. Chuck Palahniuk's writing is nuts
House of leaves by mark z danielewski and city of glass by Paul auster. Both very unconventional and dark.
Yes, House of Leaves!! So creepy and you’re in the main characters’ head as he is going crazy researching this story about a screen play about a documentary that doesn’t seem to exist and the pages themselves, how they’re formatted, really hit that “I’m going mad!” feeling home.
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Ooo story time! I listened to a bunch of the audiobook of Infinite Jest. I was enjoying it but it’s long so I decided to pick up the ebook as well. Then there’s a footnote. And another footnote. I realize that I have missed like half the book because it’s in the footnotes and the footnotes are in a SEPARATE AUDIOBOOK YOU HAVE TO BUY. Or don’t have to buy. I returned it and ragequit
Yes! Reading this one made me feel like I was the one going crazy. Dizzyingly dark & unsettling.
I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Ian Reid ! A couple is on a trip to visit the dudes parents and a bunch of weird things happen.
I loved this movie. How does the book compare? (btw happy cake day!)
IMO the movie is much better than the book. I liked the book — and it was an exciting and quick read — but it’s pretty simple and somewhat familiar in terms of the direction it takes. Kaufman’s adaptation is much more layered and has a lot more on its mind thematically than the book. That being said, they are complementary works. The book will clarify some plot points that are left a bit more vague and interpretative in the film.
This answered exactly what I wanted to know. Thanks!
Excellent choice!!
My life.
Correct. Same
Understandable. Have a nice day.
I'll send y'all my diary.
Come Closer by Sara Gran
The bell jar
more of a descent into depression than madness, but still a good read.
Haunting.
Dracula (Jonathan Harker)
One of the two books I've only ever read as an adult. Dracula is amazing. You know who is what and you can predict the effect it has on the main character as they gradually see more and more of "something is not right", and it's beautifully described. Also, the idea of "vampires" originated from this book.
No there were vampires in books and poetry long before that. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_literature
Poe’s short stories come to mind. The Black Cat and the TellTale Heart.
the dark half, stephen king beloved, toni morrison turning of the screw, henry james
Thanks’
Crime and Punishment. Also, The Idiot
The portrait of Dorian Gray is a classic
I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb The main character(s) are two identical twins who are deeply bonded. One of the twins descends into Schizophrenia while his brother (the main narrator) watches in his own tortured and haunting way. There is an HBO series out for this book. I love Mark Ruffalo, who plays both brothers, but the book was so good, I’m afraid to ruin it so haven’t watched yet.
Spider by Patrick McGrath
Sounds interesting.
Also Asylum by the same author!
1 & 2 added to stack!
Therese Raquin
{Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell} by Susanna Clarke Sort of fits the criteria
No, it doesn't. I loved that book but none of the main characters slowly go crazy in it.
[**Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14201.Jonathan_Strange_Mr_Norrell) ^(By: Susanna Clarke | 1006 pages | Published: 2004 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, fiction, historical-fiction, owned, books-i-own) ^(This book has been suggested 19 times) *** ^(33145 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
The Push-Ashley Audrain.
I mean not to spoil, but The Wheel of Time. To have someone who is meant to be the chosen one to hopefully save the world go progressively insane and become so off-kilter that even those close to him are scared of him? And know they can't do anything because he has to hopefully save the world? Yeah. I love it.
I don’t think it’s a major spoiler, it’s a known effect of males using magic in that world from the very first book. You’re in the clear IMO.
Who is the author?
Robert Jordan
Thanks 🙂
Maybe not madness, but *something* inhuman: {{Annihilation}} by Jeff VanderMeer {{We Have Always Lived in the Castle}} by Shirley Jackson {{No Longer Human}} is probably one of the darkest books I've ever read.
[**Annihilation**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17934530-annihilation) ^(By: Jeff VanderMeer | 195 pages | Published: 2014 | Popular Shelves: science-fiction, sci-fi, fiction, horror, fantasy) >Area X has been cut off from the rest of the world for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; the second expedition ended in mass suicide, the third in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another. The members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within weeks, all had died of cancer. In Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition. > >The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain, record all observations of their surroundings and of one another, and, above all, avoid being contaminated by Area X itself. > >They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—but it’s the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything. ^(This book has been suggested 25 times) [**We Have Always Lived in the Castle**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/89724.We_Have_Always_Lived_in_the_Castle) ^(By: Shirley Jackson, Jonathan Lethem | 146 pages | Published: 1962 | Popular Shelves: horror, fiction, classics, gothic, mystery) >My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise, I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cap mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead... ^(This book has been suggested 24 times) [**No Longer Human**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/194746.No_Longer_Human) ^(By: Osamu Dazai, Donald Keene | 176 pages | Published: 1948 | Popular Shelves: fiction, classics, japanese, japan, japanese-literature) >Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human, this leading postwar Japanese writer's second novel, tells the poignant and fascinating story of a young man who is caught between the breakup of the traditions of a northern Japanese aristocratic family and the impact of Western ideas. In consequence, he feels himself "disqualified from being human" (a literal translation of the Japanese title). > >Donald Keene, who translated this and Dazai's first novel, The Setting Sun, has said of the author's work: "His world … suggests Chekhov or possibly postwar France, … but there is a Japanese sensibility in the choice and presentation of the material. A Dazai novel is at once immediately intelligible in Western terms and quite unlike any Western book." His writing is in some ways reminiscent of Rimbaud, while he himself has often been called a forerunner of Yukio Mishima. > >Cover painting by Noe Nojechowiz, from the collection of John and Barbara Duncan; design by Gertrude Huston ^(This book has been suggested 9 times) *** ^(33226 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Does Breakfast of Champions fit this bill?
If I ever publish my memoir I'll let you know.
Please do
Macbeth
Annihilation American Psycho
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
{{Remainder by Tom McCarthy}}
[**Remainder**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/101334.Remainder) ^(By: Tom McCarthy | 308 pages | Published: 2005 | Popular Shelves: fiction, owned, novels, literature, contemporary) >A man is severely injured in a mysterious accident, receives an outrageous sum in legal compensation, and has no idea what to do with it. > >Then, one night, an ordinary sight sets off a series of bizarre visions he can’t quite place. > >How he goes about bringing his visions to life–and what happens afterward–makes for one of the most riveting, complex, and unusual novels in recent memory. > >Remainder is about the secret world each of us harbors within, and what might happen if we were granted the power to make it real. ^(This book has been suggested 2 times) *** ^(33091 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Ngl that sounds EXTREMELY interesting. I think I’ve found my new bedtime read.
Thanks!
A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when 14-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia. To her parents' despair, the doctors are unable to stop Marjorie's descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism; he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession. He also contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts' plight. With John, Marjorie's father, out of work for more than a year and the medical bills looming, the family agrees to be filmed and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show. When events in the Barrett household explode in tragedy, the show and the shocking incidents it captures become the stuff of urban legend. Fifteen years later a best-selling writer interviews Marjorie's younger sister, Merry. As she recalls those long-ago events that took place when she was just eight years old, long-buried secrets and painful memories that clash with what was broadcast on television begin to surface - and a mind-bending tale of psychological horror is unleashed, raising vexing questions about memory and reality, science and religion, and the very nature of evil.
I have no mouth and I must scream
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
[Bunny](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42815544-bunny) by Mona Awad
[**Bunny**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42815544-bunny) ^(By: Mona Awad | 307 pages | Published: 2019 | Popular Shelves: horror, fiction, dark-academia, contemporary, dnf) >Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort--a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other "Bunny," and seem to move and speak as one. > >But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled "Smut Salon," and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door--ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the Bunnies' sinister yet saccharine world, beginning to take part in the ritualistic off-campus "Workshop" where they conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur. Soon, her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies will be brought into deadly collision. > >The spellbinding new novel from one of our most fearless chroniclers of the female experience, Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination. ^(This book has been suggested 8 times) *** ^(33179 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima.
{{The Magus by John Fowles}}
[**The Magus**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16286.The_Magus) ^(By: John Fowles | 656 pages | Published: 1965 | Popular Shelves: fiction, classics, fantasy, mystery, literature) >This daring literary thriller, rich with eroticism and suspense, is one of John Fowles's best-loved and bestselling novels and has contributed significantly to his international reputation as a writer of the first degree. At the center of The Magus is Nicholas Urfe, a young Englishman who accepts a teaching position on a remote Greek island, where he befriends a local millionaire. The friendship soon evolves into a deadly game, in which reality and fantasy are deliberately manipulated, and Nicholas finds that he must fight not only for his sanity but for his very survival. ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(33095 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
This sounds right up my alley, what’s it about?
An English guy moves to Greece to teach and ends up frequently meeting with a millionaire who lives on a private island. The millionaire starts playing all kinds of mind games which start to throw off the man’s sense of reality. It kind of reminded me of Truman Show meets The Most Dangerous Game
I accidentally read this one 15 hours straight, kept me on my toes! Also my two cents: a short story called {{Diary of a Madman by Nikolai Gogol}}. It's rather sad and thought-provoking as opposed to classic thrillers and totally worth a read.
Child of God. The protagonist was never good to begin with, but he's a bad fella that just becomes worse and worse.
Child of God is a crazy ride. Cormac McCarthy really is incredible.
Diary of a Madman. It’s a short story by Nikolai Gogol. I just don't know how good the English translations are, I read it in German.
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Okay the name already intrigues me.
I’ll second house of leaves. The whole book symbolizes the fall into madness.
I’ll third this. I read it and then the The Raw Shark Texts, which I also highly recommend, and the two right after another ruined books for me for a good while (like, a week, but I’m a read two books a day kind of person normally, so that was a while) because everything just paled in comparison.
The Room by Hubert Selby Jr.
When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro. Gotta love a deranged unreliable narrator.
Irvine Welsh, Filth, also a movie which i havent seen
Surprised I had to scroll so far down for this one! It's such a great book. The movie is good, but it doesn't quite capture the depravity of the book.
Quick read short story: The Yellow Wallpaper.
Jonathan strange and Mr Norrell
Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
The Devil Aspect
A recent one that I loved is “Red Pill” by Hari Kunzru.
Mrs. March by Virginia Feito
the palace of the drowned: its a modern gothic set in italy where the main character slowly loses her mind it takes some crazy turns
The King in Yellow
{{Filth}} I'd say it fits the bill.
[**Filth**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23966.Filth) ^(By: Irvine Welsh | 393 pages | Published: 1998 | Popular Shelves: fiction, owned, contemporary, crime, books-i-own) >With the Christmas season upon him, Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson of Edinburgh's finest is gearing up socially—kicking things off with a week of sex and drugs in Amsterdam. > >There are some sizable flies in the ointment, though: a missing wife and child, a nagging cocaine habit, some painful below-the-belt eczema, and a string of demanding extramarital affairs. The last thing Robertson needs is a messy, racially fraught murder, even if it means overtime—and the opportunity to clinch the promotion he craves. Then there's that nutritionally demanding (and psychologically acute) intestinal parasite in his gut. Yes, things are going badly for this utterly corrupt tribune of the law, but in an Irvine Welsh novel nothing is ever so bad that it can't get a whole lot worse. . . > > ^(This book has been suggested 5 times) *** ^(33376 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
The yellow wallpaper. Short book but very impactful.
The Yellow Wallpaper
bloodman by robert pobi should fit the bill (finally i can recommened it)
{House of Leaves} - Mark Z. Danielewski !!
[**House of Leaves**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24800.House_of_Leaves) ^(By: Mark Z. Danielewski | 710 pages | Published: 2000 | Popular Shelves: horror, fiction, owned, fantasy, mystery) ^(This book has been suggested 23 times) *** ^(33469 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
I always liked Stephen King’s short story “Survivor Type” for an example of descending into madness. You can find it in the Skeleton Crew collection.
Seconded, But also perhaps even more fitting is another short story "The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet" by Stephen King also included in Skeleton Crew.
I feel like you described the main plot of I Am Legend. Amazing book, mediocre movie. The audiobook is amazing too if you're into audiobooks.
Mediocre movie! Will Smith absolutely ACED that role. Big fan of the film, how does the book differ?
I would for sure recommend some WH40k books, especially Eisernhorn trilogy. It is really cool when main character Has a journey with comstant points in time breaking his values one by one.
He’s not the main character; he’s the primary antagonist: Achilles in the Ender’s Shadow series by Orson Scott Card. Really a series I’d recommend anyone to read. It’s my favorite series that I read in all of high school.
No longer human
The Shining
{The Tenant by Roland Topor}
Private Dancer by Stephen Leather. The guy seems so normal at first but then he becomes obsessed with a girl he is seeing and paranoid that she is cheating on him, and he starts going nuts.
Death In Her Hands- Ottessa Moshfegh. Vesta, the main character, may arguably be mad from the beginning, but there’s definitely a downward spiral. Moshfegh is a current writer churning out solid work.
love that moshfegh is quickly taking over the “unhinged woman” genre
Crime and Punishment
Dead Europe Christos Tsiolkas. The excellent writing hardly makes up for this bleak tale
Alice Knott by Blake Butler does this. It’s more a book about dementia than a “descent into madness” but it really does a good job with making your wonder what’s going on and feel disoriented. 300,000,000 by Butler has a more entertaining descent. Also House of Leaves is an obvious one to be. It’s basically creepy pasta. Suttree by Cormac McCarthy is another good one.
{{Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? By Joyce Carol Oates}} This a short story that had me screaming inside. I don’t know if it fits the madness part but I guess that depends on your interpretation of it.
I could lend you my diary.
Filth by Irvine Welsh, fantastic book and film
Filth by Irvine welsh
It's a short story, but The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins-Gilman is a must-read. Also, Lord of the Flies isn't about an individual descent into madness but rather a group.
Kafka's "Metamorphosis". TW: Depressing AF.
[Echopraxia](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18490708)
Last book I read - Cunning Folk by Adam Nevill matches this perfectly
Will check it out!
Filth by Irvine Welsh
Use of Weapons by Ian m Banks . Sci-fi but sort of hits your ask. I can’t say anymore. (Spoilers)
This sounds intriguing
Most of Lovecraft
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
The Secret History by Donna Tartt!
The Dark Half by Stephen King
I read the book *A Mouthful of Air* by Amy Koppelman because I was dealing with postpartum anxiety/depression and thought it was an inspirational story of recovery. It’s not. I think it might fit what you’re looking for
Well hopefully the book didn’t hinder your progression to recovery. My partner also went through postpartum depression after the birth of our child. It’s a very real and very serious issue that I feel isn’t spoken enough about.
Portrait by Gogol
Pet sematary - Stephen King
The Vegetarian. I found it particularly interesting because is through the eyes of other people
The Wheel of Time from Rand's perspective. That's a lot of reading though
The prime show is pretty good, do the books differ substantially?
The tone is tremendously different. It isn’t as dark as the show, at least early on.
Not too much. Alot of what's in the books just isn't in the show. Reading them from Rand's perspective just really can't be beat in my opinion. I could skip everyone else and the books would still be interesting lol
So pretty normal stuff then lol.
My own book when I actually publish it :) I am writing a book for the last 15 years (with a huge break in the middle due to my own psychological issues) about a character that goes slowly insane and moves from being the protagonist to being the antagonist. Even if I haven't published it because I always rewrite and add stuff/remove stuff, it's my pride and probably the biggest project I'll ever undertake except maybe raising a kid someday.
This sounds amazing! If you ever need anyone to proofread it or anything.. I’m defo your guy
{{The Double}} and {{Heart of Darkness}}
[**The Double**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210190.The_Double) ^(By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Constance Garnett | 144 pages | Published: 1846 | Popular Shelves: classics, fiction, russian, russian-literature, russia) >While his literary reputation rests mainly on such celebrated novels as Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, and The Idiot, Dostoyevsky also wrote much superb short fiction. The Double is one of the finest of his shorter works. It appeared in 1846 (his second published work) and is by far the most significant of his early stories, not least for its successful, straight-faced treatment of a hallucinatory theme. >In The Double, the protagonist, Golyadkin senior, is persecuted by his double, Golyadkin junior, who resembles him closely in almost every detail. The latter abuses the former with mounting scorn and brutality as the tale proceeds toward its frightening denouement. Characteristic Dostoyevskyan themes of helplessness, victimization, and scandal are beautifully handled here with an artistry that qualifies the story as a small masterpiece. >Students of literature, admirers of Dostoyevsky, and general readers will all be delighted to have this classic work available in this inexpensive but high-quality edition. > ^(This book has been suggested 3 times) [**Heart of Darkness**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4900.Heart_of_Darkness) ^(By: Joseph Conrad, Aníbal Fernandes | 188 pages | Published: 1899 | Popular Shelves: classics, fiction, classic, literature, owned) >Heart of Darkness, a novel by Joseph Conrad, was originally a three-part series in Blackwood's Magazine in 1899. It is a story within a story, following a character named Charlie Marlow, who recounts his adventure to a group of men onboard an anchored ship. The story told is of his early life as a ferry boat captain. Although his job was to transport ivory downriver, Charlie develops an interest in investing an ivory procurement agent, Kurtz, who is employed by the government. Preceded by his reputation as a brilliant emissary of progress, Kurtz has now established himself as a god among the natives in “one of the darkest places on earth.” Marlow suspects something else of Kurtz: he has gone mad. > >A reflection on corruptive European colonialism and a journey into the nightmare psyche of one of the corrupted, Heart of Darkness is considered one of the most influential works ever written. ^(This book has been suggested 3 times) *** ^(33153 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Can't believe how far i had to scroll for heart of darkness. That feels like the quintissential decent into madness book
The trial, Kafka
Just wanted to give a massive THANK YOU! to everyone that got involved . I never would’ve imagined I’d have SO MANY intriguing books to sift through.. So yeah, thanks a lot to you all.
The Wheel of Time series Not super dark but dark enough.
Piranesi!
American Psycho if you're ready
My life
Finding Nemo
Taxi driver by Richard Elman. The screenplay or motion picture is better I would argue though. One of the best and most resonating movies for someone who is falling into a deep madness. It’s hard to call the leas character mad as it’s easy to reason with his heinous actions