I just finished Audition and loved how it starts out in a place where everything is clear and logical, but then as it moves along, reality gets more and more malleable, so it's not clear by the end what is “true” at all. I'll definitely be reading more by her, so if her other novels are similar (or not) please let me know!
Other novels that fit what I'm looking for:
We Do Not Part by Han Kang where you start out in a realistic Seoul before encountering a blizzard where the narrator’s reality gets more and more uncertain.
The Extinction of Irina Rey by Jennifer Croft where the book deals with the impossibility of accurate translation both in terms of language and personal bias.
Universal Harvester by John Darnielle (and his other novels to a lesser extent) where all the pieces of the mystery feel like they are misaligned so even at the end everything can't quite fit together.
What I'm NOT looking for:
Stream of consciousness or experimental novels like Jealousy by Alain Robbe-Grillet or To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. These create uncertainty because the reader is never grounded in time or place so they're never sure what is true. In the kind of slippery novels I’m looking for, they fool you into thinking you understand reality only to undercut it.
Speculative fiction or magical realism like Piransi by Suzanna Clarke or The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera. Here if events don't quite add up, it feels like it's because you don't quite understand all the rules of the world the novel inhabits. In contrast, the kind of slippery novels I’m looking for seem to take place in the world as we know it.
Short stories. I rarely have the patience for short stories these days. Novellas are okay but not preferred.
Thanks in advance!
by HooverGaveNobodyBeer
4 Comments
Many of Philip K Dick’s books have this theme, the most prominent probably being `A Scanner Darkly`
A Separation, by Katie Kitamura
Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern might work for you.
Also, Interstitial Fiction is one term for what you’re looking for, so take a look at some lists for that.