Or, he suffered from PTSD from his war years.
Related: A perfect day for bananafish bothered me.
And, of course, The Red Pony!
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You reminded me of the song “Easy Day” from the band Bananafishbones!
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Wow!
I’m not sure if this ‘f*cked me up’, I don’t think any book has done that, but this is certainly a series I remember loving.
Except not very well, as I have been trying to remember details (like, the name, author, plot, bloody anything) for a number of years. It was so vague that I didn’t really have enough to search on and conversations with people never led anywhere.
Then you mentioned metal skull caps and tripods and bingo! So, thank you.
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Well, years before I read the fictional Tripods series which I knew was fiction but still gave me the willies, I read a book about the supposed UFO abduction of Barney and Betty Hill. That was before I really understood that non-fiction books can be completely or partially false. I had nightmares about being abducted by aliens, though no daytime fears of the same. I don’t remember how I as a 3d grader or so, maybe forth grade (yes, each post is about a book I read earlier and earlier, where I was in more and more over my head) I came to have a ufology book meant for adults. But later when I finally realized UFOlogy is BS I became a bit more cynical and I don’t think of cranks as being harmless.
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For me it was Imperial 109 (mentioned previously).
That reminds me, I read Communion and some of the descriptions left me scared s**tless. And that was as a grown ass-adult!
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The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind , by Julian Jaynes. The Voice of God as the inspiration for human action, when it was actually the other hemisphere talking to the other hemisphere of the brain. Called into question god, visions and why we no longer have latter day revelation.
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It’s funny because I read Ayn Rand as an impressionable teenager and I distinctly remember thinking “no, something’s not quite right about this philosophy” at the time…
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The Day After came out when my dad was stationed at Guantanamo Bay. We watched it in class at the Gitmo DoDD school. Surreal and --as far as Movies That Fucked Me Up-- thatd be the one. Sorry for going off thread
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i read Bukowski’s “Women” and “Last Night On Earth” (then eventually all his other stuff) and thought I could get away with drinking alcoholically but not become an alcoholic.
Didn’t work out so hot. Bein a drunk, for me, wasn’t poetic or amusing. It was pointless years of squander and slow death.
I’d have found my way to the bottom with or without Buk – but i used sophomoric admiration of his better poems to justify the fuck out of a lotta appallingly bad choices.
( “Find what you love and let it kill you.” --Buk
“Fuck you, Bukowski.” --Me)
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Finally, Bukowski makes the last post! I looked through this whole thread waiting for somebody to mention him, I read parts of ham on Rye in 10th/11th grade and thought wow that’s gnarly. Not for me . Like an extreme dispirited version of Kerouac , no hope , everything bleak. I couldn’t read Kerouac now but still find the romanticism appealing versus total burn out darkness .
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The Face Book.
But there’s a part of Native Son that really takes the cake for traumatizing me and shaping my world view.
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I’m reading it right now. Fascinating but I’m glad to be reading it past the halfway point in my life.
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Likewise.
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I was surprised how many of these books I have read. I think I’m okay, I thought these deserved a mention for a bit of a genre shift. Still very much on theme.
Deborah Spungen’s - I Don’t Want To Live This Way
Disturbing to read such a personal reflection. It’s Music Biography and True Crime but it is also something very different.
Hermann Hesse - Beneath The Wheel (The Prodigy) & Steppenwolf.
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And extremely homophobic.
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I thought it was the coolest book when I was in HS. Read The Fountainhead, too. Then I took a critical thinking course and grew up.
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My brother didn’t stick to booze. I have about a dozen Bukowski books I took from his apartment after he died.
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Riddley Walker (Russel Hoban) is kind of a mindfuck, though not in a horrifying way
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The Denial Of Death from 1973, a copy of which can actually be seen briefly in the movie “Annie Hall”.
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