Novels about obsession

[revolvenotevolve]

Anyone recommend books about obsession from either perspective?
Thanks !!

Damage is the first that comes to mind

You could try Penny Hancock Tideline and she has a new one out shortly The Darkening Hour, both have creepy, obsessional types in them and are a wow for evoking river life (Thames) which adds to the tense atmosphere. Hope that helps

Engleby - Sebastian Faulkes
The Collector - John Fowles
Perfume - Patrick Suskind
The first 3 that came to mind.

I second Perfume.

And The Ass Saw The Angel - Nick Cave
The Atrocity Exhibition - J G Ballard
Umbrella - Will Self

I came on to say Perfume too, I loved that book.

Notes on a scandal
Lolita

Damage is the best one I've read, brilliant.

Asylum by Patrick McGrath.

Enduring Love - Ian McEwan

Love Penny Hancock's tideline...

What about The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman - though short story/novella rather than novel

Mann, Death in Venice

Great Expectations is partly about a carefully cultivated obsession.

Anna Karenina perhaps, and Terese Raquin. Perhaps Madame Bovary too. Obsession seems to supply the force of a lot of 'love' stories.

God yes, forgot about Enduring Love.

As already mentioned, The Collector is great too especially as it is written from both the obsessive and the obsessee's perspectives.

Thomas Mann's Dr Faustus.

Jean Cocteau - Les Enfants Terribles

Possession - AS Byatt - one of my favourite books ever (just don't watch the film with Gywneth!)

What a great topic, revolve :) I came on here to recommend Enduring Love too - got beaten to it. It's a must read. Absolutely brilliant, and terrifying in its intensity.

Can't say I saw any obsession in Anna Karenina which I read just last month.

yy Lolita and The Collector

Misery?

That's interesting Cote. I did wonder if I was wrong to mention it -- it is a long while since I read it. I was thinking of the fact that Anna stakes everything on her relationship with Vronsky, clinging to it even when it is clearly something wholly destructive. But then perhaps her attachment to a relationship ultimately productive of misery and suicide is as much to do with social features as with her state of mind. I can't remember well enough.

Ah yes, lots here I was going to suggest.

Pefume, The Collector etc.

Also Wuthering Heights?

And a fave of mine: A Kind of Intimacy by Jenn Asworth. Hilarious and disturbing first person narrative of obssession with a next door neighbour!

Room by Emma Donoghue

A Secret History by Donna Tartt.

Affinity by Sarah Waters is a good one.

Also, Good Behaviour by Molly Keane. Has a very unreliable narrator which is always fun

I love an unreliable narrator!!!!

How about We Need To Talk About Kevin? In many ways the Mother is utterly obssessed with her son!

Also, lots of crime fiction is based around an obsession with discovering the truth, which is a very human motive, I think.

Being really vague here but the one that was serialised on ITV a few months ago - about the young man from the 'rough' background who went to a good Uni and made friends with the young man from very pukka background who got the girl etc.....Fast forward to a steamy weekend in the Summer at the pukka one's house - other guy (teacher by now methinks?) comes with his girlfriend/wife, still very jealous with feelings for pukka one's wife...ends in murder....[hmm for not being terribly well described) - I can remember that again it's one with an unreliable narrator...