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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Who should I be reading?

16:34 / 28.06.06

In terms of comics and music, I feel like I know what I like. I'd like to expand this to literature. I'm looking for what might be considered pretty experimental, or at the very least, modern. I'm just looking to see who in the literary world is the equivalent of some of these folks:

comics - mostly Anders Nilssen & Kramer's Ergo type stuff, also Sammy Harkham, Chris Ware, and the D&Q folks.

music - John Zorn, Radiohead, Eugene Chadbourne, Laurie Anderson, Velvet Underground, Tom Waits, and of course CocoRosie.

Given, these are not all I like, I still dig the rock and roll, but these are the kinds of things I'm looking for in lit. I'd also like to limit it to fiction, if possible.

People I've asked have said James Joyce, Borges, but I'm looking for others. I've read the other post about Fowles, so I'm going to check him out, but I'm looking for other ideas.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

17:03 / 28.06.06

Well, now is about the time I mention Nabakov's Pale Fire. That one of his specifically to start with -if you're looking for experimental, I think it's one of the best such novels I've ever read. It's structured as a poem with annotations by an acquaintance of the poet, and there's a kind of (this isn't the word, but will have to do for now) sadness about it as well that stops in from being bogged down in its own brilliant cleverness. Basically, it's a lovely fictional puzzle, because all the information you need is in the introduction and the rest is a joyous filling in of gaps.

Cloned Christ on a HoverDonkey

18:41 / 28.06.06

I feel I have to mention House Of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski at this point, too.

You'll either think it pure genius or hate it passionately - either way you'll remember it for a long time.

I won't go into any detail, but if you're looking for experimental, then this book certainly fits the bill.

19:26 / 28.06.06

Thomas Bernhard: Correction
William Gaddis: Agape Agape (Good starting point for all of his other works. If you're into John Zorn, Eugene Chadbourne, et al. this is probably right up your alley since the man gets pretty pissed off about the "masses" and their inability to appreciate the nuances of "real art" or whatever. Entertainment v. Art, etc. Makes alot of references to the Greeks, Nietzsche, alot of other subjects. Dont know if you're into that or not...)
If you haven't already, you should probably check out Stanislaw Lem, HP Lovecraft, and Philip K Dick and even though he doesn't fit into the science fiction/fantasy genre....... George Saunders.

All Acting Regiment

20:12 / 28.06.06

Experimental / modern / post-modern / whatever fiction. Help a brother out!

First, yes yes, please read Nabokov.

Secondly, it sounds as if you're just getting into books, and if so, can I just say that while it's great to be into the tags listed above, remember that literature outwith the bounds of "postmodern" or "experimental" etc. is still rich...I say this because I know people who will simply not pick up a Hardy or a Shakespeare or a Melville, not through a critical dislike, but because it's not wacky or zany enough, and I think they miss out.

20:23 / 28.06.06

Secondly, it sounds as if you're just getting into books, and if so, can I just say that while it's great to be into the tags listed above, remember that literature outwith the bounds of "postmodern" or "experimental" etc. is still rich...I say this because I know people who will simply not pick up a Hardy or a Shakespeare or a Melville, not through a critical dislike, but because it's not wacky or zany enough, and I think they miss out.

Oh, and that too.

21:52 / 28.06.06

Doris Lessing "Briefing for a Descent into Hell".
There's a brief passage here,
but really it's a much bigger book than that, such a grand theme rapped up in an enjoyably diverse book. Fair enough, I haven't read it in years, nor ever studied it critically but wow, definitely one of the best things I've ever read. The story basically chronicles the recovery of an amnesiac patient the narrative wavering between his skewed delusional inner-world and the real one.

02:02 / 29.06.06

I can't believe someone beat me to a Gaddis recommendation. Ouch. I would not recommend Agape Agape, however. Far more accessible, yet experimental, is his National Book Award-winning tragicomic novel Carpenter's Gothic. It's funny, it's short and it's quite dense. Not as dense as The Recognitions, but hey. I would recommend the aforementioned Recognitions if you want a serious, serious 1000 page challenge. It's hard work, but it pays off.

Oh, and that one guy, what's his name? Pynchon. Yeah, him, too. Gravity's Rainbow.

Also, The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner. Very difficult, rather experimental and beautifully complex.

09:02 / 29.06.06

Anything by Martin Amis.

10:10 / 29.06.06

Some suggestions...

BORIS VIAN ... 'Foam of the Daze' and 'Heartsnatcher' are the two most readily available translations of his books. Dreamy, surreal tales about love with a great sense of humour.

DONALD BARTHELME ... I love these short stories written mostly in the 60s and 70s and now published as 'Sixty Stories' and 'Forty Stories'. A bit like Vonnegut, a bit like Beckett. He sometimes used collage in his stories to great effect. Very funny and sad and his use of langueage was fantastic.

KOBO ABE ... Great japanese novels with surreal humour and plenty of Kafkaesque body and social horror. In 'Kangaroo Notebook' the narrator finds himself turning into a plant and sets of on a journey to hell. 'The Box Man' tells of a guy who shuns the outside world and goes to live in a cardbord box. All his novels are well woth tracking down. 'The Woman in the Dunes' is his most famous and his best.

RUSSELL HOBAN ... The man is a genius. Read 'Riddley Walker', then 'The Medusa Frequency' then,'Fremder' then keep going until you you've read them all and you get pissed off because the guy is well into his 80s now so there might not be many more left. Boo.

13:29 / 29.06.06

Quote= Secondly, it sounds as if you're just getting into books, and if so, can I just say that while it's great to be into the tags listed above, remember that literature outwith the bounds of "postmodern" or "experimental" etc. is still rich...I say this because I know people who will simply not pick up a Hardy or a Shakespeare or a Melville, not through a critical dislike, but because it's not wacky or zany enough, and I think they miss out.

Not at all, I'd say that I'm pretty well read in literature like Shakespeare, Melville, etc. etc. In fact I'd say if you went into a bookstore, I've probably read the entire "literature" section in terms of the classics and more modern classics (on the road, salinger stuff, etc.)

But so far, excellent replies! I'll have enough reading to last me for quite a while, keep them coming!

14:54 / 29.06.06

If you're well-read in literature, then just go directly to Christopher Logue's soon-to-be-completed, decades-in-the-writing "War Music" (more info HERE). You WILL enjoy it, even if you usually stray far from poetry.

foolish fat finger

20:40 / 29.06.06

if you like Tom Waits, I recommend checking out Charles Bukowski, who Waits has gone on record as being very influenced by. in fact, I hear a lot of his songs as being like potted Buk stories set to music.

you could start with a few poems- there's plenty on the net, (like this one). or short stories- Tales of Ordinary Madness is good. his debut novel 'Post Office' is widely considered his classic; I'd also highly recommend 'Hollywood', which is a very amusing telling of the making of the movie he scripted, 'Barfly'.

17:05 / 02.07.06

I've been enjoying the hell out of Steve Erickson's books lately. Experimental narratives with clear and concise writing. I'd recommend Rubicon Beach to start.

15:35 / 03.07.06

Mary Gaitskill.

18:01 / 03.07.06

Mary Gaitskill.

Why?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

20:03 / 03.07.06

Doesn't count as either modernist or post-modernist, but I think you could do a lot worse than Lautreamont's Les Chants De Maldoror. Not only a wicked piece of proto-Surrealism, its latter section does deconstruction like nobody before or since.

It's also a damn good read, which is the most important thing.

22:17 / 03.07.06

BS Johnson. Christie Malry's Own Double Entry is by turns surreal and grotesque, but always funny, and very sad at the same time. I described it to someone as a "60s working class red-brick American Psycho". It's better than the Ellis; tighter, less up itself.

Other things he's noted for: House Mother Normal, which is, I believe, about a nursing home, from the point of view of seven voices within it - the last of which is the house itself. The Unfortunates, which comes in a box or bag with each chapter bound seperately, so it's somewhat nonlinear; Alberto Angelo, which I own but haven't read, and is best described as "that book with the hole in the pages". Johnson takes foreshadowing to its logical conclusion: cutting a hole to see what will happen in the future. It works.

Seven books he wrote, before he killed himself in the 70s. Terribly sad; a remarkably, unusual voice, and important in British postmodern writing, imho.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

10:06 / 04.07.06

Can't believe I didn't say Dhalgren, about which we also have a handy thread. A masterpiece of experimental fiction, a masterpiece of science fiction, fuck, just a masterpiece of fiction, really.

It begins

to wound the autumnal city.
So howled out for the world to give him a name.
The in-dark answered with wind.

but rapidly becomes more coherent, though no less beautiful.

17:38 / 04.07.06

If someone likes Radiohead, Eugene Chadbourne, Laurie Anderson, Velvet Underground, Tom Waits, etc., and wants to find authors reminiscent of them, I would say that person would probably find Mary Gaitskill enjoyable.

Also Adele Olivia Gladwell and James Havoc.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

20:00 / 04.07.06

James Havoc? Really?

20:18 / 04.07.06

I think Virginia Woolf's 'Orlando' is a good example of entertaining modernist fiction. It's experimental in that the main character, of whom the book is supposed to be a mock biography, morphs between different genders whilst retaining the same identity and also lives for about 400 years.

23:15 / 04.07.06

Well, if one is really looking for outré, experimentalist, breaking-the-rules work, it's hard to come up with a more idiosyncratic author than James Havoc. He's definitely not for everyone, but definitely outside of most all categories or boundaries.

23:41 / 04.07.06

I was thinking of Barthelme as well...

If you want to get into a kind of 'out there' branch of poetry, look into concrete & visual poetry. Some of it's very bad, but some is great. My favorite is bpNichol, a Canadian poet who wrote in the 60s-70s, he also made comics and short fiction, as well as performing in a sound poetry group and writing several episodes of Fraggle Rock. He's not very well known, but wading through a Google results page of his name would be a fun way to spend an afternoon.

More recently, there's another Canadian poet named Darren Wershler-Henry, who was influenced by Nichol. He made a great tribute book called Nicholodeon that I own and adore. Some of his poetry is more traditional... but he's also interested in online communication and so starting to do things with hypertext and whatnot.

06:58 / 05.07.06

Well, if one is really looking for outré, experimentalist, breaking-the-rules work, it's hard to come up with a more idiosyncratic author than James Havoc. He's definitely not for everyone, but definitely outside of most all categories or boundaries.

Are you actually, you know, him?

10:59 / 05.07.06

Magnus Mills. Especially The Restraint of Beasts and All Quiet On The Orient Express. Bleak, brutal and magnificent.

And I second Bukowski, even tough it might not be what youre after in terms of genre etc, you should really check him out. Reading Bukowski is like taking a crap. It smells but its oh so wonderful.