I want a book that makes absolutely zero sense. One scene the main character is chilling, the other they're floating in a weird pink dimension while talking to a glowing orb of light, the next they're face to face with a stone archway too big for reality, with a lush jungle behind it. Just absolute craziness, like a fever dream, and yet the book is beautifully well written. Is there anything like this out there?
by ObsiGamer
36 Comments
Oh easy {{House of Leaves}}
Anything by Gene Wolfe, I would start with the book of the new sun
The Old Testament Bible. The main character has divine powers and morally, is all over the place.
Possibly, Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin?
The Hearing Trumpet, Leonora Carrington
The Third Policeman by Flann O’brien fits your description! It definitely is not the weirdest I have read, but definitely the most dreamlike. Please note some version have a forward at the start before the actual book starts, and if you see one do NOT read it as it spoils the entire book.
Maybe…
Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Pretty much anything by Kafka
I love magical realism so a few come to mind!
* When I Sing Mountains Dance by Irene Solá.
The telling of an event from the perspectives of the rain, the mountain, witches, a man, mushrooms, and so much more. Really magical & poetic prose.
* Mood Indigo by Boris Vian.
An avant garde French romance where a woman becomes sick on her honeymoon with a water Lilly in her lung and can only be kept alive by being surrounded by flowers. Her husband is desperate to keep her alive. It feels like a fever dream.
* Naked Lunch by Burroughs.
It’s pretty controversial, covers a lot of “taboo” topics, but feels like this to me, in a dark, nightmarish way. Shows the many facets of addiction. Things and events melt and distort into something completely different at a snap.
Kafka by the shore
Ubik by Philip K. Dick (confusing, reality-bending)
The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro (like swimming through an anxiety dream where you can’t get your footing on the logic but dotted with poignant/emotional moments)
Little, Big was dreamlike for me. Semi-linear storyline with interjections and asides.
Abarat by Clive Barker
You may have to look on ebay to find the illustrated version, but it’s a fantasy place where each hour of the day is represented by an actual island. It’s kind of YA, but it’s still a beautiful world with interesting creatures.
*Hawksmoor* by Peter Ayckroyd, if by ‘dream’ you mean ‘nightmare.’
Kafka by the Shore
*total oblivion, more or less*
*Scorch Atlas*
*Memories of the Future*
*Piranesi* – Clarke
The Last House on Needless Street
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Two Italo Calvino books come to mind: Invisible Cities & If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler.
Also, Time’s Arrow by Martin Amis.
The Master and Margarita comes close IMO
Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh
Magic realism is a great genre.
My fave: The Wind Up Bird Chronicle – Murakami
Project Pope Clifford D Simak.
Going bovine
No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood makes zero sense, but not in a vaporwave way. I’d still recommend it. I read it a couple of years ago and remember what it felt like to read it, but nothing that it actually said.
Bunny
Empire of the Senseless by Kathy Aker….have fun
Vita Nostra
Lincoln in the Bardo
Slaughterhouse-Five
No One is Talking About this by Patricia Lockwood. It’s written in a really weird way, with very very short scenes that feel dreamlike or nightmarish or just confusing. It doesn’t make any sense to me.
jesus and john by adam mcomber
Much of that happens almost verbatim in Leonora Carrington’s The Stone Door.
“The Unconsoled” by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Hike by Drew Magary was pretty damn trippy
Ice by Anna Kavan.
Read it last week for the first time. The writing immerses you in a fever dream from start to finish. Apparently the author was hooked on heroin while writing it.
The Manual of Detection
If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller
Rouge by Mona Awad, it has a very surreal atmosphere. Haven’t tried her other works, but enjoyed this one.
Valis by Philip K Dick