The weirdest books ever

Breakfast Of Champions.

Here is a condensed version, sadly not capturing Vonnegut's narrating style: This is America. America is weird and full of dickheads. A man named Kilgore Trout and very ugly legs travels to deliver a speech. A crazy man named Dwayne Hoover meets up with Trout after approximately 200 pages of weirdness, cynicism, and comments about penises. Finally, Hoover meets Trout, he gives him a copy of his book that is a letter from the creator of the universe to the reader, informing Hoover that he is the only real human being and everyone else is a robot. Dwayne goes on a rampage and assaults everyone on sight. The book ends with Trout actually meeting the author.

How fail of me D:

edited 8th Apr '11 6:15:12 PM by snowfoxofdeath

Huh. That comment about Flatland reminded me of a book I once ran across (which I cannot, for the life of me, remember the title of). It involved a dimension-hopping Sherlock Holmes (and Watson, naturally) ending up in Flatland. It was utterly surreal- Holmes used makeup to disguise himself (a circle in Flatland) as a 'woman' (a straight line in Flatland @.o), and Frankenstein's Monster (a huge, irregular shape) got loose in there somehow as well... it was one of the weirder pieces of fiction I've encountered.

This was an actual published work, by the way, although where I found it, I have no idea. Voracious and omnivorous reading habits and a poor memory for titles are working against me here >.>

Here is a condensed version, sadly not capturing Vonnegut's narrating style: This is America. America is weird and full of dickheads. A man named Kilgore Trout and very ugly legs travels to deliver a speech. A crazy man named Dwayne Hoover meets up with Trout after approximately 200 pages of weirdness, cynicism, and comments about penises. Finally, Hoover meets Trout, he gives him a copy of his book that is a letter from the creator of the universe to the reader, informing Hoover that he is the only real human being and everyone else is a robot. Dwayne goes on a rampage and assaults everyone on sight. The book ends with Trout actually meeting the author.

You forgot to mention the felt-pen drawing of a beaver, swiftly followed by a felt-pen drawing of a beaver.

Gravity's Rainbow. Full stop.

edited 11th Feb '11 2:45:17 AM by red223

Why? What's it like?

A giant Postmodern Mind Screw with 400 characters, a ludicrously complex plot, endless symbolism and numerous bizarre sequences which were probably written on drugs (the author has admitted this, actually).

I read it as a Joyce-style Modernist novel. But then a lot of people claim Joyce as postmodern so whatevs yo.

A lot of people would be wrong, then.

House Of Leaves is most certainly the Most Triumphant Example. Hell, you aren't even sure who the author is or whether or not the description of the book on the inside flap is actively trying to deceive you. The Jury's still out on whether or not all the praise it claimed it received was actually true.

A lot of people would be wrong, then.

I happen to agree with that opinion, but bear in mind that postmodernism and modernism are far from fixed, precise genres.

Debate rages on how to even classify them - certainly a simple chronological system is inadequate, stylistic tics and features are necessarily shared by each. A lot of the difference is in the attitude, which is almost impossible to ascertain objectively.

So I'd consider the view that it's modernist a subjective one, personally, rather than a simple "anyone who disagrees is wrong" fact.

Eh, fair enough. Personally, I've always seen Joyce tagged as Modernist and Pynchon as Postmodernist but whatever.

Here's another weird one: Samuel Beckett's Molloy trilogy. The last one, The Unnamable...well, I guess it's about the closest anyone's come to writing a novel without characters, plot or setting.

For a book that seemed to be proclaimed as Postmodern and an example of an author that joined Fuentes (magical realism), 2666 seems to be rather...vanilla. It's intriguing, but I haven't had much mindscrew as any other the authors Bolaño is being compared to. Not to say it's not engaging and beautiful....now, I've read about 200 pages in so far....

edited 16th Feb '11 12:42:14 AM by red223

Pure Dead Wicked. Because incubating clones in a duck carcasse that end up being born as red coloured, small versions of the series' teenagers is totally not surreal.

The book Hylozoic, by Rudy Rucker. Basically, it's about a future where a talking pitchfork from a higher dimension brings everything to life,and then aliens invade, and there's a giant flying space whale that carries midgets in its tongue that rescues the protagonists, and then they go to another dimension populated by giants dressed in Rennaisance clothing... and the whole book's like that.

It's actually pretty good, though.

I'll have to nominate a YA novel by Norwegian author Tormod Haugen (now deceased), Skriket fra jungelen ("The Call of the Jungle"). It starts out as a vaguely science-fictional thriller wherein a mysterious organisation kidnaps children and does... something to them to steal their emotions, leaving them as Empty Shells. Fanciful, but not all that weird for a science fiction/fantasy/thriller novel for teens.

Then, about two thirds through, the good guys save the imprisoned kids, and their Power Of Imagination causes a jungle to grow in urban Norway and cover the buildings. The novel has been full of jungle and Tarzan imagery until then, so it doesn't come completely out of nowhere, but it always struck me as quite the Shocking Swerve.

edited 9th Mar '11 5:05:01 AM by DoktorvonEurotrash

The Third Policeman.

Choose a post-modernist book. Any post-modernist book.

^ Depends on how you define the term—Typewriter in the Sky, for instance, is arguably postmodern but still manages to be straightforward.

How can there be 43 posts, and not a single one mentioning Naked Lunch by William S Burroughs?

...

Well, in that case I nominate Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan.

Well, can't disagree with that nomination.

The Illuminatus Trilogy did weird things to my brain for about a week after reading it. Of course, we all know the real winner is Finnegans Wake, but every one who's made it to the end has gone gibbering insane.

edited 19th Mar '11 7:05:24 PM by Roman

Blood Meridian's ending is enough to qualify, but I may as well say the whole book.

Blood Meridian is indeed pretty weird. Beautifully written, but... I'm still not sure I understand what it was about.

It is also a very good read. Recommended.