scary/weird moments

[fragileconciousness]

Sort of in the vein of Erin Leigh's "Something's behind me" post, I'm gonna try and start a most 'disturbing/frightening moment' conversation. I'm sure everyone agrees that Erin's moment does a great job of messing with your head, but for me it was the Pekinese story(p. 265-268). Normally I would avoid mentioning or describing events that happen in the middle or towards the end of the book, but since that story doesn't really have any implications on plot, and since I gave the page numbers to warn readers still before the story, I earn the right to speak freely! Now I wouldn't even really consider myself an animal person by any means, but the warped description and horrific conclusion of this particular story bothered me more than any supernatural, traditional scary passages.

[Sintina]

I agree! The Pekinese thing just pissed me off while I was reading it!!! It was like the most emotional moment I had in the book! One other thing that freaked me out was when I was cracking the code in P.'s rape letter... every word came slowly... then sentences formed... frightening sentences about the ultimate fear we all have of institutions and the way these places treat our family... one letter at a time... one word at a time...

It just freaked me out. images/smiles/icon_sad.gif

[OriginalIdea]

I first heard about the book through a friend that I had, at the time, been introduced to only hours before. Davey recognized in me a mind that would adore this book, and I do. At the time (still actually) Davey had been loaning his copy of the book to a friend of his, Jon (someone else I met that day; I've since become really good friends with the two of them). Now, I asked Davey if I could borrow the book and he said I could certainly have it as soon as Jon was finished. I soon, also, underwent the task of acquiring my own copy. During the time I waited, however, I found I didn't have the patience to wait for my own copy. Since the group of us were taking a trip out of town, I was spending the night at Jon's for alacrity in departure. That night I was really, really sleepy and was only able to read most of the Introduction. The scenario of an out-of-town trip repeated itself a couple of times. Turns out the bookstore had accidentally marked the order for a paperback copy, so I had to reorder (I knew that the HEX code was not in the paperback and did not want to risk other absences); I had to wait even longer for my own copy. I decided this time, I would spend the night reading this book, feeling (pleasantly, really) aggravated with anticipation.
This resulted in me reading at a house not mine. That night I came across pp. 24-25, the excerpt from Heidegger's Sein und Zeit and the subsequent translation.
One might pass off what happened here as a simple coincidence, and it probably was. But coincidence or not, whatever deeper meaning one might or might not want to assign to this episode, I found it interestingly unsettling that I was to read this passage while not at home.

While I'm dishing out names, I might as well mention that my name's Wes.