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Originally Posted by Pookie

Moving the discussion from the Baker's Dozen thread, what is a cult novel?

What are some of your favourite novels that you would consider to be 'cult'.

Tokolosh's definition:

"cult" is something of general crappy qualities that somehow manages to be really good and gain a "cult" following.

what is a cult novel? p.k. dick comes to mind-- a brilliant mind, wrote with his feet due to bad wives/need to pay several alimonies/being in a total hurry/addicted to amphetamines.

but with the general decline of english prose im thinking he's moving in our perspective closer to the belles lettres.

a lot of what starts as "cult" becomes mainstream as the public's tastes change. i'm thinking of john waters, he may have been a "cult" filmmaker back in the day, but in the XXI century he stands as a towering american classic-- well not yet perhaps but when i buy TCM with my illicitly-acquired fortune, everyone will get a weekly diet of pink flamingos, female trouble, and multiple maniacs.

[...]

edit:

re-thinking about this, it occurs to me that something does not need to be "generally bad, but bearing some good qualities" in order to be "cult". "scorpio rising" comes to mind-- very good quality stuff, just weird enough for the general public that has a small following confining it to "cult" movie status.

as for novels.. nothing comes to mind at the moment, and it's not like i have the day to sit and ponder this.