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More books that really are just horrible

Started by madhair60, August 08, 2019, 03:21:16 PM

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QDRPHNC

Quote from: DukeDeMondo on August 12, 2019, 07:13:02 PM
They also published The Gates Of Janus, Ian Brady's analysis of serial murder. Features an afterword from the aforementioned Peter Sotos, which Brady demanded be removed from future editions. It wasn't removed, but the paperback edition does contain Brady's thoughts on the matter. 

I read Gates of Janus, but don't have much memory of it one way or the other (although I suppose the fact that it's written by Brady is horrible enough). It's a murderers somewhat insipid insight into other murderers. If I recall, Sotos really put the boot in with the afterword.

ASFTSN

Quote from: bushwick on August 13, 2019, 11:08:59 AM
No but he was the 3rd member of Whitehouse for a while. Around that time did a CD produced by Steve Albini called Buyer's Market which is just an audio collage of interviews with abuse victims, takes all sorts, eh. My mate watched Whitehouse play in Leeds years and years ago and Sotos started pushing people in the crowd, my mate had a brawl with him while they played...apparently one of the things that put him off being in the group. He can dish it out but he didn't like it up him!

That's interesting because (and I'm not a huge Whitehouse expert beyond playing a couple of CDs every now and then) I thought I remember reading that they actually kicked him out because he was turning their shows into full on fights.

I'd have loved to have been present at one of those (I think...). I've only seen them once in a sanitised setting where they were on a proper stage and everything.

fatguyranting

#32
I've been collecting Sotos books for over a decade now. Including some very obscure no-ISBN numbered limited signed editions from a number of one shot US publishers. The quality of his work really varies but some has definite value when it comes to putting a mirror to the media and the way they handle child abuse cases. The whole thing is a construct I think. People I know who have had contact with him say he's an intelligent man who doesn't present as creepily as you'd expect. I'm sure someone on here had dinner with him once and confirmed this. There's also footage online of him giving a talk where he goes somewhere towards discussing him motivation.

That said the books are often deeply disturbing and I'd bet there would a lengthy discussion at the office of the director of public prosecutions if someone sent in a copy demanding action.

Surprised no one had mentioned 'The Room' by Selby? A dark read that stays with you for ages.

thenoise

Quote from: bushwick on August 13, 2019, 02:34:50 PM
Everyone raves over the new version of CE but I'm not that bothered. Now he's got a bird and the creepiness is tempered a bit I can't see the point any more lol. I'm pretty sure William is as straight as a die to be honest. He used to teach NLP/pick up artist techniques to suckers in Edinburgh a few years ago - my mate Gilham (sure it was him) uncovered this info and put it on the Susan Lawly forums. Then I read a funny thing about him trying to use said techniques with a sexy chick in a bar and getting blown out. I am fascinated by the Whitehouse lads but rarely feel the desire to listen to them these days. Did they both go to public school? William did, did he not?

(sorry for offtopic)

Oh haha yeah I remember that, some ghastly website offering guidance on chatting up birds from Prof Bennett or something, haha. I've seen a speech by bennet somewhere or other where he teaches NLP techniques to pick up girls and how the girls have to use different techniques etc. It wasn't without interest, and I can sort of see the links to later day Whitehouse lyrics.

Phillip Best went to Nailsea school, as he recorded the cassette 'Public Attack 3' there. It's rough as fuck.

bushwick

I used to have a fanzine called King Krown and Kountry from early 80s by the Broken Flag lot (think I've lost it which is a shame as it will be valuable to the right person). It's total trenchcoat industrial culture proto edgelord stuff, serial killers atrocities "will to power" etc but is notable as a teenage Besty writes an article about how he no longer masturbates coz it does nothing for him anymore, that's the general gist. Real mad period piece but kinda prescient with the hard edginess and the NoFap vibes. Wish I could find it.

thenoise

Ha ha, amazing. I used to have a link to all of the Come Org Kata magazines online but they seem to be down now. It's pretty amateurish and sub-Pure stuff, but William Bennett's record reviews are a absolute scream. I'd love to read Phillip Best's first zine, which I think was called 'Intolerence'? - at least he had the excuse of actually being a teenager when he produced it. There was a bit in the Ultra video (Come) where he was on about his parents stopped his pocket money when they came across it.

jobotic

A proper novel, rather than horror or edgelord child abuse nonsense, that is horrible but very well written is the Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas llosa. It's about the last days of Trujillo, the dictator of the Dominican Republic and the aftermath of his assassination. He had the same capriciousness as Stalin mixed with the same sexual depravity as Beria, a real charmer. The scenes as his loathsome son Ramfis takes revenge on the plotters in various torture chambers really are just horrible.

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: fatguyranting on August 14, 2019, 01:40:07 PM
I've been collecting Sotos books for over a decade now. Including some very obscure no-ISBN numbered limited signed editions from a number of one shot US publishers. The quality of his work really varies but some has definite value when it comes to putting a mirror to the media and the way they handle child abuse cases. The whole thing is a construct I think. People I know who have had contact with him say he's an intelligent man who doesn't present as creepily as you'd expect. I'm sure someone on here had dinner with him once and confirmed this. There's also footage online of him giving a talk where he goes somewhere towards discussing him motivation.

That said the books are often deeply disturbing and I'd bet there would a lengthy discussion at the office of the director of public prosecutions if someone sent in a copy demanding action.
Re: "the whole thing is a construct"...it's the same excuse that people made for edgelord sites before they started producing QAnon and mass-murderers. A quick glance at his bibliography indicates he's not exactly moved on in his interests (he doesn't appear to have described any serial killers as a "genius" in a while, I'll give him that).

marquis_de_sad

I could never get through any of Sotos's books. His later work is still horrible but in a less teenage look-at-me sort of way, and I can see what he's trying to do, artistically. Still, what's the point of reading something so bleak and depressing?

QDRPHNC

Quote from: marquis_de_sad on August 15, 2019, 01:23:29 PM
I could never get through any of Sotos's books. His later work is still horrible but in a less teenage look-at-me sort of way, and I can see what he's trying to do, artistically. Still, what's the point of reading something so bleak and depressing?

As I get older, I find myself asking this more and more frequently.

bushwick

I just finished The Insurrectionist by Andrew McCoy. Not as brutal as Atrocity Week for most of the book but deserves to go in this thread. Soldier of fortune dude helps a group of revolutionaries stage a revolution in South Africa. The book reminded me of the film Man Bites Dog, in that it's violent and entertaining and you go along with it all up to a point, until one particular scene that really sickens you and reminds you that you're complicit as a viewer/reader. There's a scene where a band of black rebels ransack the house of a racist white family and fuck em up, including a wee baby. Structured like so many horror novels I've read so I saw it coming - as soon as the paragraph started and they describe the old lady and her family, nothing to do with the rest of the story, I actually started whooping out loud coz I knew it was gonna be a horrible bit.
An interesting footnote in the book - the author (who apparently has some military background) states how he doesn't think apartheid will end in South Africa without military intervention from Russia or America. Written in 1979 and not prescient but I guess that's what a lot of people thought then eh.

gilbertharding

Quote from: QDRPHNC on August 08, 2019, 09:58:37 PM
I find Martin Amis' output - what I've read of it at least - mostly horrible. Bleak for the sake of bleak, like an adolescent acting all dark to shock their parents.

Kingsley Amis, on the other hand, I love.

There was a great programme on BBC4 Extra the other week, where Martin and Kingsley Amis were interviewed together - in about 1988.

It's somewhere in the middle of this mess of shit: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008qlm

QDRPHNC

Quote from: gilbertharding on September 30, 2019, 05:02:25 PM
There was a great programme on BBC4 Extra the other week, where Martin and Kingsley Amis were interviewed together - in about 1988.

It's somewhere in the middle of this mess of shit: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008qlm

Very interesting, cheers for that.

I'm very partial to much of Irvine Welsh's stuff but I found Filth to be lacking any redeeming qualities. The main character is such a horrible cunt and the pages are just crammed with his tedious internal monologue. It's telling that the reader misses nothing at all on the pages that are cut through with the intestinal worm psychoanalyzing him.