Sebastian Kirsch: Blog

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It occurred to me yesterday that all the books I’m reading currently are about (or contain) mental illnesses and psychoses. I didn’t plan it that way, I wasn’t even aware of this fact when I bought the books, found them or when they were given to me as a gift:

• Matt Ruff: Ich und die anderen (Matt Ruff: Set this house in order) was given to me by an uncle of mine for christmas; it’s about two people who suffer from dissociative personality disorder, ie. they have multiple personalities.
• David Sedaris: Naked details the author’s obsessive-compulsive childhood, among other topics.
• Chuck Palahniuk: Fight Club was made into a major movie starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. The story revolves around a disillusioned young insurance clerk meeting a guy named “Tyler Durden", who introduces him to various “fringe activities", leading him from harmless pranks to a full-scale terrorist attack. In the end, “Tyler Durden” turns out to be a facet of the protagonist’s own mind.
• Bret Easton Ellis: American Psycho is already a classic, giving a first-person account of the life of a serial killer: Well-to-do yuppie, works on Wall Street, murders people at night.

Seperately, all those books are a good read, but all four at once are pretty hard to stomach. I picked something lighter to read in addition to those four, and I’ll put some of them on hold, I think.