I'll just agree with a few of yours for right now instead of coming up with my own. House of Leaves was definitely an appropriate response -- reading that at about age 16 was definitely a game changer, as I'd been thinking about trying to write along the lines that Danielewski took to an artful extreme. Of course he would outdo me again a few years later with Only Revolutions.
Around the same time, I read Ulysses. And even having read only excerpts I'd be inclined to add Finnegans Wake to the list, for I can't imagine anything being much like that book in scope or execution.
Illuminatus! Yeah. I read that one comparatively late, and Wilson's other books had rather changed my life well before I got around to any of his fiction, but this one is definitely a model for conspiracy fiction -- it's a true prototype of cultural farce, I guess, and I've read a few things from decades later that owe a lot to its ideas.
I'm also in agreement with Pale Fire as a rare book. I can't imagine fiction really ever getting better than that.
Can't think of much else to add off the top of my head, except maybe Nick Cave's first novel, And the Ass Saw the Angel. Good thread, though.
Around the same time, I read Ulysses. And even having read only excerpts I'd be inclined to add Finnegans Wake to the list, for I can't imagine anything being much like that book in scope or execution.
Illuminatus! Yeah. I read that one comparatively late, and Wilson's other books had rather changed my life well before I got around to any of his fiction, but this one is definitely a model for conspiracy fiction -- it's a true prototype of cultural farce, I guess, and I've read a few things from decades later that owe a lot to its ideas.
I'm also in agreement with Pale Fire as a rare book. I can't imagine fiction really ever getting better than that.
Can't think of much else to add off the top of my head, except maybe Nick Cave's first novel, And the Ass Saw the Angel. Good thread, though.
I couldn't get through Only Revolutions, a friend of mine called it Vogon poetry. I'm sure it has its rewards, but it defeated me.
And yes, I thought of And the Ass Saw the Angel, it's a contender, but there are other works of modern gothic with similar content and structure, though lacking Cave's prose. The Wasp Factory by Ian Banks, for example.
*MySmiley*
Indeed, I marry them in their unlawful bed, with an open heart I affirm the true right of any man and woman to their dark slobbering nights which are rare enough, and against which too many laws conspire.
Indeed, I marry them in their unlawful bed, with an open heart I affirm the true right of any man and woman to their dark slobbering nights which are rare enough, and against which too many laws conspire.
Rare and unique books
- 21/04/2012 07:12:20 PM
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I would have to think for more but...
- 21/04/2012 09:56:03 PM
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I bought that Jarry book a week ago off of your mention of it here.
- 02/05/2012 03:51:46 AM
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Re: I bought that Jarry book a week ago off of your mention of it here.
- 02/05/2012 03:36:34 PM
1012 Views
Re: Rare and unique books
- 29/04/2012 06:35:49 PM
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Re: Rare and unique books
- 30/04/2012 10:11:42 PM
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A few more (only my own opinion)
- 29/04/2012 07:27:18 PM
1557 Views
Re: A few more (only my own opinion)
- 30/04/2012 10:44:09 PM
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Re: A few more (only my own opinion)
- 01/05/2012 01:35:11 PM
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Murakami as New Weird? *NM*
- 02/05/2012 04:08:31 PM
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Eh, it's the kind of spec fic that's hard to place but I think it kind of fits on the continuum *NM*
- 02/05/2012 08:53:45 PM
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Finch is quite good, but it's really the third book in a sequence
- 02/05/2012 09:23:01 PM
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