One thing I want to do when I’m in New Zealand for a month (did I mention that? Oh, I did. Okay.) is get out of my fucking skull a bit. And to do this I need some seriously good books. The sort of things that will radically change my perception of the world so I see it all anew. In the past books like Haruki Murakami‘s Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Paul Auster‘s New York Trilogy and Don Delillo‘s Underworld have done this for me so you get the sort of idea. Big novels of that ilk. Intellectual but readable.
So I’m ploughing through Amazon but all I’m coming up with is more Auster, more Murakami and more Delillo. I’ve obviously been out of the book trade too long as inspiration isn’t striking. So bearing in mind the sort of shit I’m after, got any suggestions?
(Actually, Cormac McCarthy hasn’t been tried yet. I’ll add that to the list.)
Probably stating the obvious, but you’d probably suit a good bit of Neal Stephenson.
Have you read Jonathan Lehman? ‘Fortress of Solitude’ and ‘Motherless Brooklyn’ might well be up your alley. David Eggers? Douglas Coupland?
Stephenson – possibly. Which one?
Loved Letham’s Fortress. Might give Brooklyn a go. Probably had my fill of Eggers and Coupland I tend to find a little light. Not bad, just not taking a sledgehammer to my brain.
I reckon you’d like China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station and The Scar. I don’t know the books you’ve mentioned, so I could be way off the mark.
Also, I can never recommend Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea books highly enough. Originally a trilogy, but there are now five of ‘em plus a short story collection.
I was about to suggest Stephenson. I’ve only read three of his but Cryptonomicon was probably the most perception-changing.
i right enjoyed Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo – a little florid in description at times, but in the end that helps. – Some Philip K Dick (just reread the man in the high castle) & Wilkie Collins’ Moonstone is jolly good (those were the last 3 books I read – so the best I can do for recommendation)
‘T.A.Z’ by Hakim Bey
Anything by Robert Anton Wilson, but i’d suggest ‘Quantum Psychology’ or ‘Cosmic Trigder One’
And finally ‘Dancer at the End of Time’ by Michael Moorcock.
I liked Perdido Street Station, but I suspect you’ll bang through it pretty quickly. Same with Dancers at the End of Time – loved it, but you’ll polish it on the way over before they’ve even brought out the little packets of peanuts. I’d suggest Wilson and Shea’s Illuminatus Trilogy but I suspect you’ve already read it. You could try Foucault’s Pendulum. It’s the book you’d think the Illuminatus Trilogy is parodying, if only it had been written 20 years before and 20 years after.
If you want something hefty you can beat a bit of big depressing SF. Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars books are terrific, and I enjoyed Stephen Baxter’s Evolution (which is in a similar vein to Olaf Stapleton’s Last and First Men).
I’m between big depressing SF books right now but Miss Smilla’s Feeling For Snow seems to be doing it for me at the moment. You could also go for that if you want some more “literary” (but screw you and the Jeanette Winterson horse you rode in on if you do).
There’s a new Douglas Coupland book out sometime around now if he’s your cup of tea?
Having said that, I though his last one (j-pod) was pretty awful. Of his recent stuff Hey Nostradamus is magnificent and worth a read.
What about Neuromancer by William Gibson?
Any chance of doing a post on this subject after your trip, ie. when you’ve read some of these to give us some feedback?
Probably a bit “popular” but David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas messes with your head in a Murakami way. Also Michel Faber’s Under The Skin and his short stories The Farenheit Twins stand out as the most thought provoking things I’ve read in a long time. I recently read Crime And Punishment after spending years being put off by it’s “classic” status, but it was fantastic and I’d recommend it. Is Fortress of Solitude good? I must find it..
Might be worth looking at some nineteenth-century novels? They’re only a pound each. Dickens’s Bleak House finally brought me into the Dickens fold. Also Faulkner and Scott Fitzgerald…?
In retrospect, yeah, Perdido Street Station isn’t an “intellectual” book, though it lingered in my head long after I’d finished it.
Zen & The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance was one of those worldview-changing books for me, dunno if you’ve read that.
Three classics that you owe it to yourself to read if you haven’t already: Nineteen Eighty-Four; Brave New World; A Clockwork Orange.
Done much Shakespeare? I re-read Macbeth and Hamlet earlier this year for the first time in 20 years and got so much more out of them.
If you going for Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World, you should read Yevgeny Zemyatin’s We at the same time.
Seconding Lucy, anything by David Mitchell (though I preferred Black Swan Green to CA).
I think the most mindblowing (in the true sense of the word, not just ‘wow’) book I’ve read in the last ten years was Mark Z. Danielewski’s House Of Leaves. It pretends to be a horror novel (and it is quite scary), but it’s way beyond genre.
“way beyond genre”
Rol, you’re one of the last people I’d expect to say something like that.
No one seems to have recommended Thomas Pynchon’s “Gravity’s Rainbow”?
That is definitely sledgehammer material though probably not your cup of tea.
Another sledgehammer author you would probably not like is Réné Guenon, in particular his two polemics, “The Crisis of the Modern World” and “The Reign of Quantity and Signs of the Times”, which explain how the Western world his a nightmarish deformation as seen from a “traditionalist” point of view.
With this devolving into the typical “Stuff I like” list thread, I’ll weigh in y asking if you’ve got around to reading your B:INS Best Annual Brummie competitor’s “What Was Lost” yet. It really is as magnificent as it’s cracked up to be. Ice and warmth co-exist within it without cancelling each other out.
By golly, that’s a lot! Thanks people! In order then..
Cryptonomicon I have a vague memory of hearing bad things about, but I’m prepared to give it a go.
I read Dick’s Man in the High Castle and loved it (specifically how he alluded to what had happened to Africa but never said what it was, making it all the more horrific). Wasn’t sure what to follow it up with though. So a PK Dick suggestion would be good.
I’ve probably had my fill of RAW with the two trilogies to be honest. Never read any Moorcock though. I wonder what his recent London books are like (Mother London, etc)?
Foucault’s Pendulum I always assumed was too heavy but maybe I’m ready for it. One for the list.
Not desperate for Big SF right now. Which might mean I need to read some.
I loved the first two David Mitchell books and should really investigate his later stuff. But I’m also keen to stretch out to authors I’m not that familiar with.
I have a blind spot on anything more than 100 years old but Fitzgerald is intriguing. He keeps cropping up on my radar.
Nineteen Eighty-Four; Brave New World; A Clockwork Orange – no-brainers I haven’t read (or at least in 1984′s case, not for a very long time) so they should go on the list. Not that BIG though.
Making a note of Yevgeny Zemyatin’s We because it means nothing to me and should therefore be investigated.
House Of Leaves has been on my shelf since publication (I’ve got the US edition with the blue ink for each mention of “house”) and ain’t going anywhere in a hurry. Then again, this might be the perfect time to try it. heavy though, in weight…
Gravity’s Rainbow – again, something I’d assumed was beyond me but I might be ready for now.
There’s a copy of What Was Lost in the Amazon warehouse with my name on it. Should have it next week!
And yes, I’ll be blogging about this. I owe you that at least.
That’s probably enough to be going on with but feel free to keep suggesting stuff and talking about it.
Cryptomonicon is a great 300 page story told over 900 pages :p
I found myself skipping large chunks of it. It might be useful for fighting off muggers :)
If you have never read Moorcock then his Jerry Cornelius stuff is going t blow your mind and put it back together is strange new ways :D
“Zen & The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance was one of those worldview-changing books for me”
I tried and failed to finish this but thanks for reminding me to get it back off the shelf.
Philip K Dick: Go for Ubik, and if you feel brave follow that up with the “Valis” trilogy, that’ll keep you out of trouble for a while.
Pynchon: Definitely Gravity’s rainbow (and also go for Foucault’s pendulum). Have you read catch 22?
Olaf Stapledon: read Starmaker! it’s a classic.
What about a bit of Dostoyevsky? I hear the brothers karamazov is rather good, not read it myself mind but crime and punishment was a hell of a read.
Foucault’s Pendulum is dense, but not necessarily heavy.
I like Martian Timeslip, and Valis is bonkers, but if you want a PKD recommendation ask Tony on Saturday.
Do you Ellroy? American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand are vast, sprawling, wonderful, dense, crazy novels. They’ll keep you busy.
A stroll along my own bookshelves remind me how much I enjoyed Mario Vargas Llosa – Who Killed Palomino Malero? or Death In The Andes, perhaps. They’re not physically hefty, but they’ll take you somewhere else. JG Ballard’s is good at that too, pick anything of his.
Last suggestions and then I’ll shut up. Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness and Mary Gentle’s Golden Witchbreed. They’re both first contact, pretty hard SF, utterly elsewhere, and yet deeply true. Choose one, and do the other a couple of years later.
Things that aren’t that dense but are still mind changing. How about: Borges, “Fictions” (short pieces); Pynchon, “The Crying of Lot 49″, which is the same as “Gravity’s Rainbow” but in 200 pages or so; “The White Castle” by Orhan Pamuk, which again is a short novel but tips you into a vertiginous whirlpool of infinityness.
An intermediate density/difficultyness Pynchon would be “V.” which has all the craziness qualities with a more lucid writing style than “Gravity’s Rainbow”; pesonally I prefer “V.”
Why bother with “Cryptonomicon?” “The Diamond Age” wasn’t bad or there’s always “Snow Crash”.
I read Capote’s In Cold Blood during the Summer after having seen both recent film versions. It was a genuinely gripping read. In the same ‘new journalism’ vein, Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff about the early US space program is a very good non-fiction read as well.
As others have pointed out, 1984 is terrific and for Dickens I’d go for the much ignored Dombey and Son.
Dave
Noticed that you had put up the NO MUSIC DAY manifesto and that leads me to recommend Bill Drummond’s book 45.
I reckon you’ll love it.
He’s a genius – massive inspiration.
Also recommend the Spacemen 3 biog by Erik Morse. Hilarious.
I studied Auster’s New York Trilogies for my postmodernism dissertation along with Martin Amis and in particular a book called ‘Money: A Suicide Note.’ If you enjoyed Auster you may like Amis.
See you tomorrow in the next class.
““way beyond genreâ€?
Rol, you’re one of the last people I’d expect to say something like that.”
Why’s that, Jez? Ah, if it sounded like I was dissing genre, that’s not how I meant it. Just that HOL didn’t fit the category – or *any* category comfortably. I love genre, me.