November 20th, 2009 / 1:26 pm
Snippet
Some say Thomas Pynchon got nabbed of the 1974 Pulitzer for Gravity’s Rainbow due to a majority of the presiding panel’s distaste for his scene where our hero eats feces out of the ass of a prostitute (not to mention a very particular description of what sort of whose anatomy the protruding waste reminds our hero of). Indeed, it’s a pretty hard scene to shake after reading. What are some of the scenes in books that are most indelibly in your mind, and what do you think it is about them that makes them stick there?
Tags: gravity's rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
Wow, I love this question! I will have to think about my answer and come back to answer.
reply
I’d have to say Selby’s Last Exist to Brooklyn @ the end of “The Queen is Dead” story you have a transsexual performing oral sex on a john who still has some other transsexual’s feces his ____.
reply
November 20th, 2009 / 2:22 pmbl pawelek—
a moorad – we think alike!
The last 20 pages of Selby’s Requiem For A Dream. All hell breaks loose on all characters, and everyone’s dream is crushed.
reply
November 20th, 2009 / 2:23 pmcmr—
I gotta go with Tralala from the same book. The way she starts out so on top of her hustle, and then ends with like 60 dudes making the rounds on her, and little kids pissing on her… and everyone laughing out loud and drinking beers and just having an amazing time while this girl is covered in blood and piss and cum… it’s just the perfect story in my opinion.
Selby has a way with these things.
reply
November 20th, 2009 / 2:27 pma moorad—
yeah – that one is just as vivid…you can almost smell that scene when you read.
reply
“Index” was the first thing I ever read by Sotos and the scene where a pregnant hooker gets a man to put cigarettes out on her stomach really got to me.
The entire Numb chapter from DC’s “Frisk” floored me and caused to fall in love with Dennis’s writing.
One particular scene in “The 120 Days of Sodom” messed me up pretty bad. A libertine ties a boy to a tree, castrates him, and carves a whole where his penis used to be. He then fills the hole with hot lead and fucks the hole.
DC’s “The Sluts” really made me cringe all the way through the entire book. No just the castration scene–ALL of it.
And, last, Matthew Stokoe’s “Cows” is one of the only books to actually me me feel nauseous. It had an unusually descriptive and, therefore, potent shit-eating scene.
reply
November 20th, 2009 / 1:44 pma moorad—
holy shit
reply
November 20th, 2009 / 1:57 pmJPaul—
seriously.
reply
November 20th, 2009 / 2:20 pmJesse Hudson—
I meant “hole”, of course.
reply
This scene from Blood Meridian
The following day they rode past the ruins of the old hacienda at San Bernardino. On that range they saw wild bulls so old that they bore Spanish brands on their hips and several of these animals charged the little company and were shot down and left on the ground until one came out of a stand of acacia in a wash and buried its horns to the boss in the ribs of a horse ridden by James Miller. He’d lifted his foot out of the near stirrup when he saw it coming and the impact all but jarred him from the saddle. The horse screamed and kicked but the bull had planted its feet and it lifted the animal rider and all clear of the ground before Miller could get his pistol free and when he put the muzzle to the bull’s forehead and fired and the whole grotesque assemble collapsed he stepped clear of the wreckage and walked off in disgust with the smoking gun dangling in his hand. McCarthy, 224
reply
I think the reason I remember these scenes is because, whereas I don’t have a strictly physical reaction to most writing, these scenes (and these particular authors’ writing) caused a very distinct physical reaction–and I remember these scenes because the physical reaction I had to them causes me to remember them almost as though they happened to me personally instead of just events that occurred in a book.
reply
Dude, spoiler.
reply
infinite jest – when don gately is trying to orchestrate the re-parking of ennet house tenant’s cars and the three canadians show up looking for randy lenz. everything that ensues.
this might be my favorite writing ever–the whole scene. it’s remarkable simply for how much is happening all at once (how many characters are present, the complexity of the task, the pressure of time, the context of lenz’s wrongdoing, the misunderstanding between gately and canadians, the need responsibility gately feels for his fellow recovering addicts–it goes on and on).
i’ve never read anything that comes close to capturing the frantic feeling these pages gave me. not to mention how difficult it is to write “crowd scenes” in general.
reply
November 20th, 2009 / 2:24 pmdavidpeak—
to add just a little: in generic terms w/r/t writing novels, this scene, in my mind, is the form at its best–the sheer amount of story threads, character backgrounds and setting details that went into making this one scene explode, how dfw sets it all up so a beloved character’s life is “at stake,” it just floors me how he makes it all happen.
reply
November 20th, 2009 / 4:41 pmdan—
IJ came to mind for me as well — the anecdote about the girl who would nightly endure her dad putting a Raquel Welsh mask on her comatose sister and then “diddling” her. I seem to recall the use of “diddle” was especially abrasive as it accrued . . .
reply
November 20th, 2009 / 10:21 pmLandon—
so good
and a high-heel spike through the Nuck’s effin eye
reply
in adam rapp’s the year of endless sorrows there a scene where homon’s girlfriend gets an abortion and runs out of the dr’s office after they’ve started. the rest of the abortion happens in the elevator.
pretty brutal.
reply
from neal stephenson’s Quicksilver, isaac newton has got a rod deliberately stuck into his eye cavity next to his eye and is pushing it against his eye to make his eye more ovular shaped and measuring how it affects the way he sees.
reply
November 20th, 2009 / 2:25 pmdarby—
i meant to say egg shaped, not ovular. duh.
reply
November 20th, 2009 / 3:35 pmJesse Hudson—
uggh. That made me squirm. I hate anything to do with eyes, knees, or Achilles heels.
reply
The bit from In Watermelon Sugar where inBoil and his gang cut off their ears and then their fingers and there is one drunk fellow who keeps trying to cut off his ear, but is too drunk to remember that he already cut it off. That whole scene.
reply
the first story from Haunted tells about a guy that would sit on the bottom of a pool and masturbate as the drain sucked on his asshole. One time it sucked his large intestine inside out. the section of 2666 where the police officers are sitting around talking about the number of different types of rape there are, and come to the conclusion of about fifteen, and one or more involve cutting a hole in the victim to fuck. the section is like three pages long.
reply
November 20th, 2009 / 3:09 pmJesse Hudson—
Hmmm… I’ve been meaning to read 2666. This gives me more of an incentive to do so.
reply
November 20th, 2009 / 3:09 pmRawbbie—
the first one I actually quit reading it for a minute. the weird part about reading a book is you can’t just close your eyes for a minute like a movie, because the words will still be there when you open them again.
I live near Juarez, so 2666 is like a book that happens in my backyard, and those events happened in my newspaper to some extent…
reply
November 20th, 2009 / 3:34 pmJesse Hudson—
How disturbing are the long descriptions of the murders of the women? I’ve heard that that particular portion of the book really bothered some people.
reply
November 21st, 2009 / 2:20 pmNick—
It bothered me because I thought it wasn’t “productive,” if that makes sense. I thought he was using real murders for somewhat cheap effect. (I also didn’t like the rest of the book.)
That said, there is a scene where some criminals are rape-torture-murdered in prison that is revolting, physically nauseated me.
November 21st, 2009 / 8:35 amalan—
I went to see Palahniuck read that story (don’t ask) to a large crowd at Barnes and Noble and I got a little lightheaded. At the end he asked if anyone had fainted and in fact someone had.
I told my friend and she went to see him read it the next day the next day at Columbia, where the reading had to be interrupted and EMS was called in.
Apparently it happens every time.
reply
Early in Will Self’s Great Apes, the artist, in a drug-fueled haze, has sex with his girlfriend and at some point in the middle of it, he realizes he’s fucking a chimpanzee. And then he realizes he’s a chimp, too.
reply
The point in Iain Banks’s “The Wasp Factory” where we learn what, specifically, caused the protagonist’s brother to lose his sanity. The image disturbed me so much I nearly threw the book across the room out of shock.
It’s a particularly visceral image, and it aligns neatly with some of my own phobias…
reply
November 20th, 2009 / 3:32 pmJesse Hudson—
Wow, what a book. That ending threw me for a loop. I’m still not too sure how I feel about it.
reply
November 21st, 2009 / 1:19 amAngi—
Totally second this.
reply
The baby roasting on the spitfire grill in “The Road.” Mostly because, a few chapters before when the father and the son see the pregnant woman walk by with three men you get this teeny glimmer of hope that maybe just maybe, life will somehow go on. I love when authors toy with your emotions like that.
I heard this scene is missing form the movie version. Fuck that. If you’re gonna go devastating, you gotta go balls-out.
reply
November 20th, 2009 / 5:25 pmRichard—
that’s a good one, fresh in my memory, that really got to me too
reply
November 21st, 2009 / 10:36 amce.—
Same. There are a lot of scenes in The Road like that–like when they go down into the basement and find the captives. That one got me, too.
Looking forward to the movie coming out this week, but not looking forward to seeing how they bastardized the book. From the trailer, it already looks like they show how the world came to be how it was, which is one of my favorite things about the book, that it doesn’t really give that away, not to mention, it looks like some Day After Tomorrow B-roll footage. But, I’m holding out hope.
reply
November 21st, 2009 / 11:30 amdave erlewine—
from the road where they walk down to the basement and there is a stumpy man, still alive (following ce on this one…yeah, that image is indelible)
the scene in the things they carried where he remembers not being able to pull his friend out of the shit field
the scene in the things they carried where he remembers the kid pulling the hat off his cancer-ridden friend … and how her face/head looked without the hat
final image of jim shepard’s fidel castro pitcher story
the glazed look of a dying soldier in owen’s dulce et decorum est
i think about these scenes/images far too often
reply
November 21st, 2009 / 1:05 pmce.—
yeah, dave. there are actually a lot of scenes from Things They Carried that stick with me. the guy shooting the oxen after his friend. when he describes the younger soldier stepping on the landmine. i think those are from the same story, actually. i remember reading that collection and wondering why the title story is always the one anthologized; it’s a good story, but there are better in the collection.
reply
November 21st, 2009 / 4:06 pmdave erlewine—
indeed there are, christopher. the whole collection is amazing. i really like in the lake of the woods a lot too. in the things they carried, i think “speaking of courage” is my favorite. fuck that is great.
November 21st, 2009 / 6:23 pmce.—
yeah. damn. i just went and pulled that book off the shelf to read the story again. so good.
November 23rd, 2009 / 8:39 amdavid erlewine—
ha, i did the same yesterday. the lines about his father fighting his own wars and watching baseball resonate as well as his interactions with the guy behind the intercom. i love how norman wants to impress the girl with his ability to tell time without checking his watch.
interesting how almost all of these scenes involve violence and sex in some way. i guess following the pynchon example.
reply
the rat entering the girl via the toy rat tube in american psycho- american psycho scenes are kinda hold hat by now- but that one goes up there
reply
November 20th, 2009 / 5:26 pmRichard—
that was the one i was going to post up – when he saws her in half and then the rat that he had just put up her pussy comes climbing out of the sawed in half upper, half ,the stomach – the only book to make me gag ,but i haven’t read all of the wonderful suggestions up here yet
good lord
reply
November 21st, 2009 / 2:26 pmNick—
Love that book and scene. When I re-read it now I skip the murder scenes, but when I first read them I had something like the SNL reaction… “Really?…. REALLY??”
reply
just read this ‘YA’ book, Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse where the girl throws a bucket of hot kerosene on her mom’s pregnant body on accident then burns her own hands trying to save the mom and the fetus. my imagination made it more real than the actual description, but still.
reply
The scene at the end of Wizard of Oz when Dorothy taps her heels together and gets to go home.
reply
November 20th, 2009 / 5:28 pmRichard—
lol
oh, i’d add in a scene from a jack ketchum book, either Offspring or Off Season about an incestuous family living in a cave (cannibals of course) who break into a cabin, and kill a woman, but not before the slice open her belly and rip the fetus out
messed up stuff
reply
November 20th, 2009 / 5:29 pmdavidpeak—
oh man i loved off season
reply
November 20th, 2009 / 6:10 pmJesse Hudson—
Off Season! Another great one! I haven’t read the second one, Offspring. Is it good?
Oh, there’s a scene in Gonzalez’s “Survivor” where a man fucks an infant to death and then, if I remember correctly, eats it.
reply
November 20th, 2009 / 6:15 pmJesse Hudson—
Oh, and has anyone read Edward Lee? “The Bighead” is probably one of the funniest/grossest things I’ve read in the horror genre. These two rednecks beat an old lady up on the side of the road and rip out the tube that leads to her colostomy bag. Then, of course, they fuck her in that hole. And then they crack open her skull and shit on her brain. …..Maybe I shouldn’t be saying that’s a “funny” book.
November 20th, 2009 / 6:55 pmRichard—
good is a relative term when it comes to ketchum – i heard he takes things pretty far, so i wanted to experience that – much more than i’d ever write, i think and i do write darker stuff – then again, some of blake’s stuff he read recently was pretty dark, but in a more “literary” fashion – The Girl Next Door is the one Ketchum’s known for, very disturbing that one
i went through a phase where i’d read Ketchum’s work, and then another more innocent book at the same time, i was feeling dirty
November 20th, 2009 / 7:38 pmMatthew Simmons—
I think I’ll miss you most of all, Shyacrow.
reply
at the end of the floating opera there’s a part where the narrator, with whom i identify strongly, is about to commit anarchy, something horrible, and he smiles. just the idea of him smiling felt like it came from the base of my spine and was vivid like a dream. at first it was barth’s face, but when i looked closer (in my mind’s eye or whtvr) it was my face – so, yikes
the matching haircuts in hemingway’s garden of eden because they’re described with such precision, although i guess most everything is in that novel, and it’s just such a powerful idea
and of course the battle scene in blood meridian because duh
reply
The gang of German war children in The Kindly Ones. The scene when they club and dismember the chaffeur especially. While other members of the gang are casually raping in the background.
reply
Kosinski’s “Painted Bird”: scene involving a rake beating and a internal broken bottle.
The violence in that book is so well described, the visual it created for me was much too real.
Though, I was much more unsettled by the skinning of a live rabbit in the same book.
reply
November 20th, 2009 / 6:58 pmjh—
I can’t recall the page immediately, one of the vignette/short chapters in Kozinzki’s Steps has a similarly horrifying sequence. You should definitely read that if you haven’t already.
reply
November 20th, 2009 / 7:12 pmjoe—
i have and can’t recall it either. i’ll have to check later.
reply
here are two that are indelibly in my mind:
-the scene in ij when gately is robbing the house and gags the owner and ties him up in the chair and the whole description of the guy dying because of his stuffed nose due to a cold. i think this sticks with me because of how hilarious i remember it was as i read it, even though the guy is dying. i think dfws description and long sentences and so on added to that effect. i think ‘timing’ was a huge part of that scene in my mind.
-the sequence in the butcher boy when he kills the woman with the bolt gun. this was a book i read early in my reading ‘career’ and so its always stuck with me just because of its uniqueness, how it surprised me. id never read violence like that before. i think if i were to go back and reread it, id probably say, ‘this isnt as gruesome as i remember’
reply
i had a hard time shaking the end of nick antosca’s FIRES. that fire scene was pretty fucking intense. well done nick.
reply
November 21st, 2009 / 11:31 amdave erlewine—
indeed, the end of FIRES is wonderful
i haven’t had a cup of coffee without thinking about that book
reply
November 21st, 2009 / 2:28 pmNick—
I just read through all the comments above and was most flattered/slightly embarrassed to get to these… thanks, guys!
reply
also, suzanne burns, TINY RON, where little tiny ron is 18 inches tall and his wife is full size and he crawls in a bird cage and makes her carry him around in it. fucking intense. the whole story was pretty fucking spectacular…
reply
Could someone post another cute puppy pic now please.
reply
November 21st, 2009 / 12:40 amRyan Call—
i might be able to soon…
reply
Is it just me, or does anyone else read these scenes and just think of the Aristocrats joke?
reply
the Underworld prologue, especially where the guy and the boy turn against one another – so well written and so damn sad/real
the sad ass narrator in tobias w’s “the poor are always with us” – he reminds me of me, if i were rich
the ending paragraph of tobias w’s “the rich brother” – one of my favorite stories and just a perfect ending…i think about it nearly every time i turn my car around
reply
November 21st, 2009 / 1:08 pmce.—
all your talk of tobias w. makes me think of Bullet in the Brain. that entire story is a scene that sticks with me.
reply
November 21st, 2009 / 4:05 pmdave erlewine—
oh yeah
great piece in EG, man. wow.
reply
November 21st, 2009 / 5:27 pmce.—
appreciate it, man.
Wow, nobody has mentioned “Hogg” by Samuel Delany so far? That is the only book I’ve ever thrown away after I read it–not because I hated it, but because I couldn’t get the thought out of my head of bringing someone home on a first date and having them idly open the book while I was in the bathroom or something. I also just didn’t want it near me.
reply
November 21st, 2009 / 3:11 pmJesse Hudson—
Haha, That is the only book that has upset me so bad that I threw it across the room. But I was angrier at it than I was disturbed by it for some reason.
reply
November 23rd, 2009 / 8:58 amdavid erlewine—
anytime i see a book thrown across the room i think about the story in arthur bradford’s “dogwalker” where the “bad guy” tries to intimidate the narrator by throwing some books across the room. great image.
reply
every page, every word of joy williams ‘the changeling’. that whole book is a word fuck of joy wonder proportions.
reply
Another one that recently engraved itself in my head was “Brand New Cherry Flavor” by Todd Grimson. I wrote a whole post about it: http://brothercyst.blogspot.com/2009/10/brand-new-cherry-flavor.html There’s a rape by zombies that’s only heard about second-hand but stuck with me like shuddery horror, and many scenes of sudden, casual grotesque brutality that, unusually, don’t create a sense of increasing numbness but of increasing sensitivity.
reply
Is the point of this thread that by the time I was halfway through it I was numbed to the descriptions? But more to point: My own contributions would have been McCarthy’s baby on the spit
– to not have that in the movie has to be a joke
and the scene, relatively early in Rainbow, where Slothrop squiggles through the loo. What’s wrong with me that I can’t finish that book, but I CAN finish Vineland?
reply
One scene that completely threw me was in Sula, when Eva bathes Plum in kerosene and sets him on fire. Jesus.
reply