# What have you read that made you physically ill? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 17, 2001, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-have-you-read-that-made-you-physically-ill/76729 "2001-08-17T14:17:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![katiekilldare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/838e76/32.png) [@katiekilldare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/katiekilldare)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2001, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-have-you-read-that-made-you-physically-ill/76729/41 "2001-08-19T16:40:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Eutychus55 \* > \*\ ***American Psycho** … especially the last torture and murder scene (you know … the one with the rat and the Habittrail tube.) It almost seems as if the author is taking pride in his invention. Truly horrendous. \*\* While crammed in the backseat on a road trip, a friend of mine said, “Here. Read this.” It was a passage from **American Psycho** (where he does in his old college girlfriend). So uncool. It made me physically sick (I didn’t yak, but I made plenty of “ugh” sounds), and I still can’t forget it. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2001, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-have-you-read-that-made-you-physically-ill/76729/42 "2001-08-19T17:57:21Z")
> [@](#): > > There is a 3 page, lovingly detailed description of a nose job in a Thomas Pynchon novel (I think it’s V, but I’m not sure; it’s been a while) that made me truly ill. It took me three tries to get through it (I was reading it for a class) though I’m not sure why. I’m usually not squeamish about that sort of thing, but for some reason it really got to me. Definitely _V_ - and the same example that came to my mind when I saw the thread title. **robinh** ’s surprise at the reaction it produced is much the same as mine. I’ve no idea why it’s quite so _uniquely_ upsetting. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2001, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-have-you-read-that-made-you-physically-ill/76729/43 "2001-08-19T18:08:35Z")
Anyone remember the opening scene to _Rose Madder_ where the man beats his wife so badly that she aborts? Easily the most riveting opening passage I’ve read in ANY popular fiction work! :puking smilie: ---
**Author:** ![CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crankyasanoldman/32/11670_2.png) [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrankyAsAnOldMan)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2001, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-have-you-read-that-made-you-physically-ill/76729/44 "2001-08-19T18:35:33Z")
I was once reading a graphic description of liposuction in a women’s magazine. I nearly passed out. I feel faint just remembering that, the description of the cannula being rammed repeated under the skin, ripping and loosening the fat… Another that comes to mind is the scene in “Misery” (the Stephen King book) when the captor crushes the writer’s anklebones with a sledgehammer. Oooooooh my. ---
**Author:** ![panzermanpanzerman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9bcb4/32.png) [@panzermanpanzerman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panzermanpanzerman)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2001, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-have-you-read-that-made-you-physically-ill/76729/45 "2001-08-19T20:13:09Z")
Put me down for some Holocaust stuff, here and there. And also the little I’ve read about the horrific murders of two young girls committed by Karla Holmolka and Paul Bernardo–the two creepiest criminals ever, IMO. Also, there was a recent news story about, oh, well… Here: [http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/000918/rebirth.htm](http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/000918/rebirth.htm) And a book called “Broken Child” by Marcia Cameron. I didn’t exactly have a model childhood either, but her story was horrific and left me depressed for weeks. Happy reading. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2001, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-have-you-read-that-made-you-physically-ill/76729/46 "2001-08-19T20:44:40Z")
A short story by Franz Kafka called “In the Penal Colony.” It’s on the list of short stories–department-approved-- that my Comp. students can write about for their research paper. I should never tell them that it grosses me out. All that does is make them choose to write about it just to get my goat. 😉 It’s about an explorer who is told in clinical detail about an apparatus for slow execution. All I feel like saying is that it involves a series of needles, inscription, and it takes a llooooooonnnnng time for the condemned person to die. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2001, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-have-you-read-that-made-you-physically-ill/76729/47 "2001-08-19T20:46:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by JohnT \* > \*\*Anyone remember the opening scene to _Rose Madder_ where the man beats his wife so badly that she aborts? Easily the most riveting opening passage I’ve read in ANY popular fiction work! > > :puking smilie: \*\* Oh God, yes, I remember that vividly. And then the creep says to her, “You can always have another one.” :eek: ---
**Author:** ![The\_Mermaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a183cd/32.png) [@The\_Mermaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Mermaid)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2001, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-have-you-read-that-made-you-physically-ill/76729/48 "2001-08-19T22:42:18Z")
I can’t remember the name of the book but it was written by a Jewish doctor who was a prisoner in Auschwitz. He was trying to explain a lot of things that happened but it seemed more of a confession or a request for forgiveness or at least as an illustration of how far some people would go to save their families and in turn themselves. Since he was educated he was allowed to live but only to help carry out some truly sick and horrifying “experiments” on the other prisoners. I believe they may have spared his family members initially or more correctly threatened to have them tortured-- as an incentive to make him work. He recounts some lead asshole’s fascination with twins and the many tortures that were perpertrated on them. Especially prized were twin babies that were born in the camp. I literally was only able to read about 50 pages before I had to throw up. I never read another word of the book and I had recurrent nightmares about it for years. But the sickest thing is that I can not throw the book away. It is packed away in a closet and serves as a silent reminder to never forget about those poor unfortunates. It’s like I would be denying their existance if I destroyed the accounts of their lives–no matter how excrutiating it was for me to read about, it could never compare to them having lived and died it. I guess I am literally at a loss for words in trying to describe how that book affected me but I am at no loss for feelings—curiousity, disgust, sorrow, dispair, hatred, grief and something undefinable. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2001, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-have-you-read-that-made-you-physically-ill/76729/49 "2001-08-19T23:42:00Z")
Add me to the list of folks grossed out by the handcuff scene in “Gerald’s Game.” I don’t think I’ve ever been able to finish that scene–I usually get about halfway through and then skip past it to the rest. Other than that, a number of books by Graham Masterton, an underrated British horror author who makes Stephen King look like Dr. Suess in terms of violence. Particularly “Ritual,” which involves self-cannibalism in the name of a bizarre religious cult (the climactic scene involves a kitchen full of young people hacking off various parts of their bodies and ingesting them until they finally die) and “Black Angel,” which contains some extremely stomach-churning murder descriptions. ---
**Author:** ![Drastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Drastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drastic)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2001, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-have-you-read-that-made-you-physically-ill/76729/50 "2001-08-20T01:04:21Z")
Most of the last half of **1984** left me faintly queasy, with a peak at the climactic speech where Winston really starts to cave in. “…a boot, stamping on the face of humanity, forever,” or close to that. Other items: An article about the mutilations and atrocities in Sierra Leone. Just…jesus wept, the things people will do to each other. Along the same lines: a transcript of the final moments in Candace Newmaker’s life. That one made me go kneel by the toilet. On a more up note: a book from an M.D. about the major organs, and how they have been viewed in the past. It was a pretty interesting read, but each section started off with an anecdote from his time as a surgeon. The bit about the liver involved a young lady who had been in a car wreck; the steering wheel had slammed into her torso in such a way that the shock ruptured her liver, and he went into good detail about how a third of it was hanging by shreds of skin, with blood pouring out when they opened her up. The point that nausea surged up in me was how, thinking quickly, he stopped the bleeding by reaching into the body cavity, grabbing the spurting vessels, and _squeezing_. Had to stop reading for awhile and put my head down. The operation saved her life and she recovered just fine, though. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2001, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-have-you-read-that-made-you-physically-ill/76729/51 "2001-08-20T15:32:06Z")
Another vote here for “American Psycho.” I wasn’t able to finish that one; after about 2/3 of it I felt it was poisoning my life and finishing it wouldn’t be worth it. Also, the mutilation scenes in “Misery.” I was so creeped out by those I had trouble watching the scenes in the movie, which turned out to pretty tame. ---
**Author:** ![HerMajestyLorna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/7cd45c/32.png) [@HerMajestyLorna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HerMajestyLorna)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2001, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-have-you-read-that-made-you-physically-ill/76729/52 "2001-08-20T21:05:12Z")
Native Son by Richard Wright freaked me out to no end when Bigger was cutting off Mary’s (?) head and stucking it in the furnace…\ And also when he bashed in his girlfriend’s face with a brick. ugh ---
**Author:** ![Dijon\_Warlock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a9a28c/32.png) [@Dijon\_Warlock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dijon_Warlock)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2001, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-have-you-read-that-made-you-physically-ill/76729/53 "2001-08-21T10:18:32Z")
Picked up a copy of the [**Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonolgy**](http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=18W0FGJNTB&mscssid=C9A7294C7U4Q9J0U2X4CNUH1WX1L2LAE&isbn=0517362457) several years ago, and some of the transcripts in there were downright chilling. Everything during the witch interrogations was itemized (so the interrogators could get paid), and you can find things like (from memory, book’s at home): 9am-10am: Stretching on rack 10am-11am: Burning with hot irons 11am-12pm: Eyes put out with skewers 12pm-12:30pm: Break for lunch 12:30pm-1:30pm: Disemboweling Etc. All very official and bureaucratic. The ease with which they could go from something so horrid to something so prosaic was almost the worst thing about it. ---
**Author:** ![Kakkerlak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bb73d2/32.png) [@Kakkerlak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kakkerlak)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2001, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-have-you-read-that-made-you-physically-ill/76729/54 "2001-08-21T18:40:34Z")
I’ve been very disturbed by Stephen King, and by Piers Anthony’s “different” fiction, and of course by on-purpose gore like American Psycho. But only one passage of one book actually made me kneel and vomit; the opening prologue of William Manchester’s autobiography “Goodbye Darkness”. ---
**Author:** ![Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4da419/32.png) [@Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gala_Matrix_Fire)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2001, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-have-you-read-that-made-you-physically-ill/76729/55 "2001-10-23T02:49:40Z")
**The Painted Bird** by Jerzy Kozinski had some thoroughly disgusting stuff, but I can’t remember whether or not it made me physically ill when I read it. When I stumbled a notebook in a box after my husband and I moved in together, and found it was a journal chronicling his love affair with another woman while he was dating me–that literally nauseated me. ---
**Author:** ![GreatKingRat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@GreatKingRat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreatKingRat)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2001, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-have-you-read-that-made-you-physically-ill/76729/56 "2001-10-23T03:23:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The Mermaid \* > **I can’t remember the name of the book but it was written by a Jewish doctor who was a prisoner in Auschwitz.** Eyewitness Auschwitz. Very graphic part about soapmaking made me queasy. ---
**Author:** ![Chanteuse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de053/32.png) [@Chanteuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chanteuse)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2001, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-have-you-read-that-made-you-physically-ill/76729/57 "2001-10-23T06:59:54Z")
I never read the book and only saw this one scene in the movie “Lord of the Flies,” but I was sickened for a long time afterward. It was the scene where the fat kid (Piggy, I think his name was) gets up on the rock with the conch shell (I think this was supposed to give him the floor) and these two boys push a boulder onto his head and he lays dead on the rock with staring eyes and bloody face… Gave me the shudders for weeks and I never wanted to see the movie at all after that–nor read the book, for that matter. Ditto on Del’s execution in “The Green Mile.” The scene was grosser in the book than it was in the movie, if you can imagine that. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2001, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-have-you-read-that-made-you-physically-ill/76729/58 "2001-10-23T11:15:12Z")
I think the reason this made me so queasy was because it was an eyewitness account of something that happened to a real person. _Black Hawk Down_, about one of the raids on Mogadishu, where one of the soldiers gets a bad leg wound and the doctor is digging around inside the guy’s upper thigh because his femoral artery has snaked back up into his pelvis. Oh yeah, and **Cranky** , in the movie _Misery_, Annie cured Paul of running away with a sledgehammer, but in the book she used an axe. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2001, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-have-you-read-that-made-you-physically-ill/76729/59 "2001-10-23T12:25:46Z")
I don’t know if this qualifies me as sick, or what, but I’ve read several of the books mentioned here, and I haven’t been physically ill by any of them. If I _had_ to list something, though, it would have to be “Cruel Sacrifice” by Aphrodite Jones. It’s the true story of a thirteen year old girl named Shanda Sharer who lived in my hometown, and was kidnapped, brutally beaten, and murdered by some teenage girls over a potential lesbian love triangle. Among the cruelties inflicted were her being hit in the head several times with a tire iron, being _sodomized_ with a tire iron, and set on fire _while she was still alive_. This is a fascinating read, but it gets a little descriptive. That’s the closest I’ve ever come, and all it elicited from me was a “huh. That’s sick.” Even though I knew some of the people involved. ---
**Author:** ![Mogwei22](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@Mogwei22](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mogwei22)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2001, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-have-you-read-that-made-you-physically-ill/76729/60 "2001-10-23T13:44:44Z")
Another vote for **American Psycho**. I read it on the T to and from work…I couldn’t contain my disgust at some points and had to wonder if the commuters around me noticed the blood draining out of my face. I remember **The Jungle** by Upton Sinclair being mighty nasty as well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-have-you-read-that-made-you-physically-ill/76729.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-have-you-read-that-made-you-physically-ill/76729.md?page=4)