SDMB - Straight Dope discussion

You guys have been talking about Denise Mina lately, so at the used bookstore today I picked up a copy of her novel Field of Blood and skimmed the first chapter. It was about the murder of a toddler, written from the toddler's perspective. I put the book back on the shelf.

I just won't read fiction about child abuse. I also won't read about serial killers. Generally I avoid crime novels altogether, particularly if they're in a modern-day, realistic setting. I don't mind murder and mayhem so much in an obviously fictional universe or in a historical setting. But I'm not entertained by reading about scenarios that are similar to what I might read about in the news. (Although honestly I don't read a lot of that either; not about murders and child kidnapping and missing white women.)

Is there a particular kind of fiction that you avoid, because it disturbs you?

Yikes, thanks for the warning! I can't read about kids being hurt. Likewise, I can't read gore for its own sake. (I can handle a bit of gore if there are other worthy things about the book). True crime is another thing I avoid.

Speaking of kids being hurt, there is a chapter in Stephen King's Salem's Lot that I just can't cope with at all. I'll read the book but I have to skip the part with the girl who hits her baby. Of all the things he's written, I find that far and away the most disturbing. And I rarely feel up to putting myself through Pet Sematary.

As for Mina, Garnethill is really holding my interest and isn't too descriptive about the bloody parts (though I'm not finished yet).

There are a lot of books I avoid because I think I would find them very disturbing. I didn't read The 13th Tale because of the incest. I didn't read Un Lun Dun and Abarat because of the grotesqueries. I avoid horror, pedophilia, cannibalism, and generally things that would be considered "really weird." I don't want the nightmares!

I don't read pointless gore/violence/horror. I'm also with Dung on avoiding true crime. There's enough of that in the news without treating myself to the details.

If the violence and unpleasantness is relatively minor part of a broader and meaningful story, I can generally deal with it, though.

Dang! I was looking forward to Field of Blood, but I'll pass.

I've lost my tolerance for depravity. I love Joe Lansdale, but stopped reading Lost Echoes very early, when . . . nope, there's no way to describe it without giving everyone nightmares.

No pedophilia, child abuse, incest*, and if there's rape, it better not be written as a sexual encounter.

I can accept some explicit gore if it fits the writer's style or the subject of the book. I don't expect delicacy in Southern Gothic.

*Although there was one book -- I've forgotten the title -- that made me rethink incest. The brother and sister were so damaged by their childhood that their relationship made sense -- there really was no one they could relate to in any meaningful way except each other. The story had a sad ending -- I really wanted them to go away together, someplace where nobody knew them.

I was just about to start a topic like this, hee.

For me, it's ANYTHING to do with killing cats. As I was reading a description for one of the monthly read books, I stopped reading once I saw the words "dead cat". This goes for movies too, and I'll leave the room if any sort of animal is about to be tortured/killed in an inhumane manner. I've worked rescue for too long to have any sort of tolerance & have torn a few strips off people who think it's fun to yank my chain over this. (My husband jokes that I am so hypersensitive about this because I was a cat in a past life.)

Alas, I have a strong stomach for all of the above, and I LIKE serial killers! Comes from reading all those horror novels. Although IRL, I'm the nicest person, really, I have certificates and everything!

I don't like to read child torture or pedophilia that makes it sound like the child is at fault. But honestly, the thing that I read that bothered me the most (for years...umm, decades, actually) was from East of Edan by Steinbeck, of all things.

I'm much more likely to toss a book at a wall for literary faults, like spelling/grammar errors, clumsy writing, stilted dialog or things like having characters act out of character to suit some "higher purpose" of the writer's (I'm looking at you, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe).

So, to move this discussion beyond what gives us nightmares, what literary faults make you THUMP a book up against an innocent wall?

Well, wait a minute - what was the thing that bothered you from "East of Eden"?

i'm the same way with the cat killing! and really, any time somebody loses a pet (or someone who loves as unconditionally as a pet) is really hard for me. i can't think of many literary references for my aversion to pet-loss (maybe when harry loses hedwig and dobby in the last harry potter books, or the separation of children from their daemons in the golden compass), but that scene in i am legend when will smith is holding his dying dog in his arms as the animal loses its mind... that was harder for me to watch than the entire saw series.

which probably means i'm a bit of a freak. give me blood and gore and murder and whatever violence you can think of, but just don't kill anyone's beloved animal companion.

that being said, i also found pet semetary to be one of the scariest books i've ever read. in part because i would be tempted myself to go down that same road.

Tracy, Pet Semetary WAS one of the scariest books even if you don't get freaked out by beloved animal deaths!

bup wrote "Well, wait a minute - what was the thing that bothered you from "East of Eden"?"

Ok. Disclaimer: It's been more than 20 years since I read it, and closer to 30 than I'd like to admit. Memory may be faulty.

There's a passage in the book where the Chinese cook, can't remember his name, let's call him Hop Sing (because it was something very stereotyped like that.) is telling about his life. His parents were in a Chinese work camp, and because they didn't allow women, his mother was disguised as a man. Everything went well until she became pregnant, then enviably someone discovered she was a she and yelled WOMAN. They all attacked her, and "out of the mess that was left" was baby Hop Sing. But it was all right, because they all felt so guilty about it that he became the camp pet and they all took care of him and fed him.

There was this underlining feeling in the book that they couldn't help it, after all they were just Chinese. It wasn't only the horrible story that bothered me; it was the racism and worse the inter-race racism. (Yup, that's right boss, we’re only Chinese, we can't help ourselves.) Hop Sing just bought into this idea that these men were good to him even though they all killed his mother.

That's what bothered me for 20+ years, silly, huh?

Speaking of disturbing books - there's a thread in CS now about "A Child Called It" (it's a memoir, sortof, about a severely abused child). That book was all over the bookstores when my kids were little. I can't even stand to look at the cover of it.

I've got a strong stomach for most things. It's not the violence or gore that bothers me, it's a specific kind of terror and sadism that I can't stand, such as child abuse and torture. I love Tarantino movies, for example, but I will never watch torture porn, like the Saw movies. (The cop scene in Reservoir Dogs is the hardest Tarantino bit for me).