Vomit Enducing Literature

Okay, so a friend told me that the book 120 Days of Sodom would be a great book to read if I was looking for a horror novel that focuses on torture. "OH!" I thought, "What a grand idea!! Just what I need for my project!! I shall give it a look!!"

........big mistake.

What I got from reading this book was a prime example of literature that can literally make me sick to my stomach.

Now let me reiterate: I LOVE BEING SCARED. I love suspense and terror and zombies and ghosts and all the gore that comes along with it. I have watched gruesome horror movies—filled with everything from fingernail ripping to skinning alive. I have sat through all the Saw films and countless zombie movies with scarcely a bit of damage to my psyche. I have read a ton of Stephen King books and have watched all the films based on those books without feeling the least bit queasy.

I could not get past the first three chapters of this book without quite literally wanting to vomit. 

120 Days of Sodom was the most disgusting, horrible thing I have ever experienced. After reading a mere few chapters of this monstrosity, I needed a few cups of tea, a warm shower, and a long walk just to wash away my disgust. And when I tried to pick the book up again, I found that I couldn’t.

120 Days of Sodom is a novel by the French writer and nobleman Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade (The man who literally put the "Sade" in "sadism". No kidding. The word was created to describe the acts committed in this book), written in 1785. It tells the story of four wealthy male libertines who resolve to experience the ultimate sexual gratification in orgies. To do this, they seal themselves away for four months in an inaccessible castle with a harem of 46 victims, mostly young male and female teenagers, and engage four women brothel keepers to tell the stories of their lives and adventures. The women's narratives form an inspiration for the sexual abuse and torture of the victims, which gradually mounts in intensity and ends in their slaughter.

source 

What I have learned from this book are the most disgustingly gruesome acts one could ever commit on another human being, written in a simple, matter of fact format that scares me even more than the acts committed. The fact that someone could write these kinds of things and present them in the same way they would recite the recipe for his mother’s bests crème brulee is truly disturbing and a glance into the minds of the clinically insane.

I will probably be taking that matter of fact approach when it comes to the main villainess describing her tortures, but that’s about it. I do not plan on using sexual torture at all in my story (for I find it ultimately grotesque) and my descriptions will not be as brutal.

So if you want to read the most disgusting book in known history, read 120 Days of Sodom. If  have less than an iron stomach, I’d stick to King and Koontz for your horror fix.

 READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!!  ---> Click to read 120 Days of Sodom

What I'm reading this week

The Conqueror Worm

By Edgar Allen Poe

Lo! 'tis a gala night
         Within the lonesome latter years!
       An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
         In veils, and drowned in tears,
       Sit in a theatre, to see
         A play of hopes and fears,
       While the orchestra breathes fitfully
         The music of the spheres.

       Mimes, in the form of God on high,
         Mutter and mumble low,
       And hither and thither fly-
         Mere puppets they, who come and go
       At bidding of vast formless things
         That shift the scenery to and fro,
       Flapping from out their Condor wings
         Invisible Woe!

       That motley drama- oh, be sure
         It shall not be forgot!
       With its Phantom chased for evermore,
         By a crowd that seize it not,
       Through a circle that ever returneth in
         To the self-same spot,
       And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
         And Horror the soul of the plot.

       But see, amid the mimic rout
         A crawling shape intrude!
       A blood-red thing that writhes from out
         The scenic solitude!
       It writhes!- it writhes!- with mortal pangs
         The mimes become its food,
       And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
         In human gore imbued.

       Out- out are the lights- out all!
         And, over each quivering form,
       The curtain, a funeral pall,
         Comes down with the rush of a storm,
       While the angels, all pallid and wan,
         Uprising, unveiling, affirm
       That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
         And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

(source)

My Setting

My pictures for setting reference. 

The Castle (???)

The Prison inhabited by a spirit of the castle. The prisons is where the main charater first experiences a truely terrifying ghost. 

The Torture Chamber

The Dark Hallway

The Entrance

(All images acquired by google.)

Horror fiction is a genre of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural. The genre has ancient origins which were reformulated in the eighteenth century as Gothic horror, with publication of the Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole.

Synopsis:

The Castle of Otranto tells the story of Manfred, lord of the castle, and his family. The book begins on the wedding-day of his sickly son Conrad and princess Isabella. Shortly before the wedding, however, Conrad is crushed to death by a gigantic helmet that falls on him from above. This inexplicable event is particularly ominous in light of an ancient prophecy "That the castle and lordship of Otranto should pass from the present family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it." Manfred, terrified that Conrad's death signals the beginning of the end for his line, resolves to avert destruction by marrying Isabella himself while divorcing his current wife Hippolita, who he feels has failed to bear him a proper heir. However, as Manfred attempts to marry Isabella, she escapes to a church with the aid of a peasant named Theodore where Manfred cannot touch her. Manfred orders Theodore's death while talking to the Friar Jerome, who ensured Isabella's safety in the church. When Theodore removes his shirt to be killed, Jerome recognizes a marking below his shoulder and identifies Theodore as his own son. Jerome begs for his son's life, but Manfred says that Jerome must either give up the princess or his son's life. They are interrupted by a trumpet and the entrance of knights from another kingdom who want to deliver Isabella. This leads the knights and Manfred to race to find Isabella first. Theodore, having been locked in a tower by Manfred, is freed by Manfred's daughter Matilda. He races to the underground church and finds Isabella. He hides her in a cave and blocks it to protect her from Manfred and ends up fighting one of the mysterious knights. Theodore badly wounds the knight, who turns out to be Isabella's father, Frederic. With that, they all go up to the castle to work things out. Frederic falls in love with Matilda and he and Manfred begin to make a deal about marrying each other's daughters. Manfred, suspecting that Isabella is meeting Theodore in a tryst in the church, takes a knife into the church, where in fact, Matilda is meeting Theodore. Thinking his own daughter is Isabella, he stabs her. Theodore is then revealed to be the true prince of Otranto and Matilda dies, leaving Manfred to repent. Theodore becomes king and eventually marries Isabella because she is the only one who can understand his true sorrow. source

 

Focuses on the villain, his horrible actions, and the punishment for his crimes.

Villain is doing horrible things for his own self-gain.

A supernatural curse that decides the horrific fate of the main character

Takes place in a medieval castle, involves royalty

Involves a horrifying chase with prospect of death and doom

They describe the prince’s death as him being “dashed to pieces” which is a very violent and graphic image to place upon the mind. To any reader the prospect of this image would be terrifying and gruesome, even without a vivid description. I will be using horrifying scenes like this to frighten the reader in my story, as well as the dark and brooding setting to create a threatening atmosphere.