Kindle Chronicles: Top 5 weird books!

So I've been reading a lot about Darren Aranofsky's new film mother! which comes out this weekend. I have no desire to watch that film, since Black Swan was enough Aranofsky for my liking. That film was weird. One of my favourite critics online called it 'horror ballet porn'!

While I am sure his films have some amazing deep meanings, the main result of this internet binge is that it got me thinking about some of the weirdest books I have ever read! As a former Lit student, there are some books I have read that just made my brain hurt, or were just plain weird but I loved them anyway. So what else could come of these musings but a blog post?

So, in my objective opinion (MY opinion! Obviously read the books yourself to see what you think!) and no particular order, here are the top 5 weirdest books I have ever read in my life!

1.The Golden Notebook (1962) by Doris Lessing

This book is the story of Anna, and the four notebooks she uses to record her life. I think the main issue I had with this book is that the narrative is very erratic, in the way it floats from one notebook to another, without much of an actual plot! And it's a long book too! Since I'm not sure what the novel was supposed to be about, I couldn't even analyse what sort of meaning it was supposed to put forward!

2. Crash (1973) by J.G. Ballard

This was a divisive book in terms of me and some of my friends. They really enjoyed it, mainly because it's pretty filthy. Now I am not a prude, but some of the stuff in this book just made me think 'what is the point in all this?' It could be interpreted in how people try and express their sexual desires, but some of is just so weird I wanted to smack my head against the wall!

3. Trainspotting (1993) by Irvine Welsh

Now I understand the film is a bit of a 90s classic, and I love Danny Boyle because of Slumdog Millionaire and the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony. But the book was just a bit confusing for me. I get that it's about drugs and is trying to show the effect of drugs on the human psyche, but I just couldn't grasp this one! I think I found the narrative a bit jarring as well.

4. Poor Things (1992) by Alaisdair Grey

Now this book was weird, but I LOVED it! Yes really! I read the whole book in a day, and was very passionate about it during theory lectures. It was about this woman Bella Baxter, and provided all these different themes of life, identity and memory in a Victoria setting. The Victorian element is what sells me on it. Bella is quite an erratic person, and the plot doesn't really have a start and end point. In this case, it worked for me, although when I finished the book I laughed as to how absurd the entire novel was!

5. The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) by James Joyce

I remember seeing a statue of James Joyce in Dublin and wincing a bit. I get that he's one of the iconic authors of Irish literature, and the above book is a biographical one in some sense. I may be bending my own rules here as well since its not so much weird, but I just found it a bit confusing. I couldn't even finish the novel! I think if I want to learn about James Joyce I will read a bio about him. I did learn a bit about him when I visited the Irish writers museum in Dublin as well!

I would be intrigued to see if my views are shared in terms of some of these novels. None are substantially modern, so it would interest me to see if they all have a legacy still today, regardless of film adaptations. The novels have to be considered on their own (hence why people moan about film adaptations so much and how they don't do the book justice). 

I think I prefer my Victorian classics at this time, and I plan to re-read Pride and Prejudice soon!