What is the strangest-but-still-enjoyable novel you have read?

J-Pod by Douglass Coupland. It has a special kind of demented about it.

I liked what House of Leaves was trying to do, but I didn't really enjoy it as a novel. Have you read The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall? It's quite good and gets a lot of comparisons with HOL.

Theo

A Million Little Pieces by James Frye,

not only does he break pretty much every writing rule in it, but it does an interesting job of putting you in the MC's POV, and it is a warped and twisted POV.

Mel...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Froth_on_the_Daydream

-cb

I recently read A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay.It's certainly enjoyable,but I will need to do some research, to understand what it's actually about. Anybody out there who knows the book, I would be grateful for their insight.

I think Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban is amazing. It's written in a sort of future speak, and I suspect I wouldn't have persisted with it were it not my bloke had put it into my hands like it was a holy relic. Very glad I did though. One of those books you close feeling amazed and looking at the world around you with different eyes. Acid in book form.

Tailchaser's Song, by Tad Williams. Most definitely an odd one. About a cat who goes on an adventure exploring the loss of his soul mate and the sudden disappearances of cats (and dogs) with no trace and finds himself in a bizzare quest of daring, starvation, and discovery.

It's where I got hooked to Tad Williams. This guy made an entire culture, complete with language, theology, gods, festivals and traditions, and storytelling revolving around cats!


His Otherland series is also a bit on the odd side.

Pale Fire. A poem by a fictional poet analysed by a fictional scholar/lunatic.

Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins, is the first thing that comes to mind.

My vote is The Man Who Invented Florida, a Doc Ford adventure by Randy Wayne White.

It features hippies, skinny dipping, sex, rest home, Native Americans, Everglades National Park, healing water, and a murder mystery. Wacky, but fun.

The moment I started thinking about this question, I realized that some might think me odd: my personal top five probably includes House of Leaves, Ulysses and Little, Big. All strange, all fantastic.

First thing that comes to mind is Geek Love, by Katherine Dunn. About circus carny people who are trying to breed freak kids for their sideshows. Still, one of my favourite books....takes you to places you never thought you'd go to....

"If On A Winter's Night A Traveler" by Italo Calvino. It's a book about a person reading "If On A Winter's Night A Traveler". But it's also another book at the same time. Ish.

ooh, I LOVE On a Winter's Night. One of my top 5 books. I'm always recommending it to people, I should get a royalty commission

Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje.
It's not strange in a freaky way.
It's just a unique kind of narrative.
It's a fictionalized biography of a musician who is known as one of the founders of the jazz movement. The guy was homeless for much of his life so the information on him is sketchy. Ondaatje relied on interviews and newspaper articles as much as he could, and then used poetry and fiction to fill in the missing pieces. It's one of my favorite books of all time.
I bought it during college in 1987 after serving Michale Ondaatje drinks at a Canadian Writers Festival that I helped organize on campus. It was pretty cool. I got to meet all the authors as an organizer, and then serve them and collect tips as a bartender. Not a bad deal.

naked lunch, i suppose.

though at the age i read it, a clockwork orange held a certain bizarre power.

Lanark by Alasdair Gray. What Kafka might have written had he been Glaswegian.

Willard And His Bowling Trophies by Richard Brautigan. Then again, most of his stuff has this charming WTF-ery about it.

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

The Claverings, by Anthony Trollope.

Trollope is the great hoary master of voluminous Victorian novelists, enormously prolific and popular in his day, not exactly unknown but little appreciated in these latter times. A couple of years ago, I decided to give one of his many novels a try, and picked this one completely at random from among the throng, just for a look.

Wound up enjoying it thoroughly. Quiet and dated stuff, to be sure, no dragons, vampires, zombies or universe-destroying, but Trollope had an accurate eye and ear for human beings and their vices, foibles, strengths and weakness. Not sorry at all that I read it.

caw

The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, by George Saunders. It's a short novella, and quite possibly the funniest thing I've ever read, albeit how bizzare it really is; it's like reading a cartoon, and it even includes illustrations too.

Don't shoot me, but…The Host.

It was weird, confusing, and just…strange.

But when it was over, I liked it.

I know.

incognitopress said:

First thing that comes to mind is Geek Love, by Katherine Dunn. About circus carny people who are trying to breed freak kids for their sideshows. Still, one of my favourite books....takes you to places you never thought you'd go to....

Click to expand...

Ditto...you beat me to it.
One strange and awesome work of fiction, bizarre in the extreme, beautifully written.
Not for the faint of heart.

Geek Love

dgiharris said:

A Million Little Pieces by James Frye,

not only does he break pretty much every writing rule in it, but it does an interesting job of putting you in the MC's POV, and it is a warped and twisted POV.

Click to expand...

As long as you clearly classify it as fiction.

caw