The Literature of Cruelty.

[Coa]

Recently translated to English graphic novel - Beautiful Darkness, it contains many themes that correspond to this thread, little treasure.

Beautiful Darkness: Fabien Vehlmann, Kerascoët, Helge Dascher: 9781770461291: Amazon.com: Books

 

Beautiful Darkness: Fabien Vehlmann, Kerascoët, Helge Dascher: 9781770461291: Amazon.com: Books

"You've seen countless stories about cute little creatures living secretly in our world, but you've never read one like Beautiful Darkness. It's a world that's as adorable as it is cruel, where life is beautiful but also cheap, and where death is omnipresent.”—io9

[Knygathin]

Quote Originally Posted by Mark Cooper

Also, I'd highly recommend the Bible. Children being torn to pieces by bears at the command of the Lord Jehovah are only the tip of the iceberg.

Add to that the Koran!

Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, are closely related Middle East social cultural phenomena, superstitions, that have no place in European Western society.

[MTC]

I'd like to recommend this book by Susan Sontag:

[ChildofOldLeech]

- I believe Lykiard's translation is pretty much universally held to be the superior of the two; based on my own readings I personally found it to be far stronger than the other translation as well.

[Liam Barden]

All of Georges Bataille's fiction . . . Blue of Noon, L'Abbe C, Story of the Eye, My Mother, Madame Edwarda, The Dead Man, The Impossible . . . And The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima. Both writers laugh with the unity and affirmation of cruelty and eroticism, horror and the divine, beauty and nihility. If you want cruelty and a beautiful narrative, I recommend Georges Bataille and Yukio Mishima over Marquis de Sade and Comte de Latreamont.

120 Days of Sodom bored the #### out of me, especially once I'd finished jerking off . . . and Latreamont . . . well I only got halfway through Les Chants de Maldoror before I put it back on my shelf . . . it just wasn't to my taste . . . I may pick it up again in the future.

"I teach the art of turning horror into delight" - Georges Bataille

[Pharpetron]

I keep meaning to read some of Bataille's fiction. I read his Erotisme and thought it was fantastic, particularly in the way it linked cruelty and violence with the religious and mystical pursuit of transcendence.

I don't think any library devoted to the literature of cruelty would be complete without the stories of Paul Bowles. Cruelty, both subtle and flagrant, probably constitute his central concern in his best stories, such as "The Delicate Prey" and "A Distant Episode" and "Allal".

[Kevin]

Octave Mirbeau's "Torture Garden."

[Spiral]

Quote Originally Posted by With Strength I Burn

Which English translation of Lautreamont's Maldoror is better: Lykiard or Knight?

I don't know, but this may help you

The Bricoleur: The English Translations of Maldoror

interestingly the previously recommended version by Lykiard is his least favourite, but in some ways seems the most accurate

[Liam Barden]

Two more came to mind.
The Genius of Assassins: Three Dreams of Murder in the First Person by Michael Cisco, and Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine.
The cruelty of Celine isn't desiderata of riven flesh, but an invective hatred of everything that exists. I've never read a book as intensely harrowing and strangely humorous as Journey to the End of the Night.
I only finished reading this book a couple of weeks ago and feel I need to re-read it before I begin Celine's other novels. I'm surprised the forum dedicated to Celine on TLO is so void of discussion.

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE

[ToALonelyPeace]

I find The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things to be particularly cruel. Though with someone here saying they got bored reading 120 Days of Sodom , I'm not sure if it's suitably cruel or not.

There's also Raise The Red Lantern by Su Tong.

Both meet my criteria for cruel literature: the characters know they've no hope from the beginning to end, and things only get worse for them.