The Experimental Fiction Depository

Quote Originally Posted by In A Dark Light

Quote Originally Posted by James Quote Originally Posted by In A Dark Light I might as well start us off. Here's a piece from the aforementioned Joseph S Pulver, 'The Unmistakeable Shape of Night's River'. The Unmistakable Shape of Nights River, by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. | Lovecraft eZine This is a good example of the type of experimental fiction that leaves me cold, and I am partial to stream of consciousness fiction when handled in a certain way. I wish the author well as at least they're trying, but I found that irritating to finish reading, and all I got from it was the impression the writer really wanted to impress people and let them know how hip and with it they are, but it came across as sort of.. hollow and embarrassing to me? Perhaps I'm more conservative than I realised, but I like it when Justin Isis attempts similar material. I've come across Justin Isis work before, though I've never actually read any. The titles of his work suggest something within the realms of 'Bizarro', which is a genre I can't get along with, even though I enjoy the experimental. Is his work actually in this line, or should I give him a shot?

Justin Isis doesn't do bizarro. His work is more in tune with Japanese Modernists, French Decadents and New Wave SF authors.

You should read him. He is an important writer.

[In A Dark Light]

Quote Originally Posted by Nirvana In Karma

Quote Originally Posted by In A Dark Light Quote Originally Posted by James Quote Originally Posted by In A Dark Light I might as well start us off. Here's a piece from the aforementioned Joseph S Pulver, 'The Unmistakeable Shape of Night's River'. The Unmistakable Shape of Nights River, by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. | Lovecraft eZine This is a good example of the type of experimental fiction that leaves me cold, and I am partial to stream of consciousness fiction when handled in a certain way. I wish the author well as at least they're trying, but I found that irritating to finish reading, and all I got from it was the impression the writer really wanted to impress people and let them know how hip and with it they are, but it came across as sort of.. hollow and embarrassing to me? Perhaps I'm more conservative than I realised, but I like it when Justin Isis attempts similar material. I've come across Justin Isis work before, though I've never actually read any. The titles of his work suggest something within the realms of 'Bizarro', which is a genre I can't get along with, even though I enjoy the experimental. Is his work actually in this line, or should I give him a shot? Justin Isis doesn't do bizarro. His work is more in tune with Japanese Modernists, French Decadents and New Wave SF authors. You should read him. He is an important writer.

I shall add him to my reading list.

[Speaking Mute]

Bizarro definitely isn't a catch-all label, but since most Bizarro publishers are open to otherwise unclassifiable fiction many authors who don't engage in the South Park/Adult Swim stream of toilet humor and pop culture references characteristic of the genre end up getting lumped in by association. Jeremy Robert Johnson, for example, may even count himself as a Bizarro author, but his writing and subject matter is in the vein of body horror, splatter punk, and New Wave SF. The only connection he seems to have to the stuff I'd consider just crass and stupid like the Ass Goblins of Auschwitz is the Bizarro label.

[In A Dark Light]

Quote Originally Posted by Speaking Mute

Bizarro definitely isn't a catch-all label, but since most Bizarro publishers are open to otherwise unclassifiable fiction many authors who don't engage in the South Park/Adult Swim stream of toilet humor and pop culture references characteristic of the genre end up getting lumped in by association. Jeremy Robert Johnson, for example, may even count himself as a Bizarro author, but his writing and subject matter is in the vein of body horror, splatter punk, and New Wave SF. The only connection he seems to have to the stuff I'd consider just crass and stupid like the Ass Goblins of Auschwitz is the Bizarro label.

That which you describe above is exactly the sort of thing I try to avoid. There's an enormous difference, to my mind, between the Avant-Garde and Bizarro.

[Nemonymous]

As someone was kind enough to mention my work above, I wrote here in 2013 this summary about my earlier stuff in this connection:-
The Avant Garde and Me | THE LAST BALCONY: On the Essex Edge

[Speaking Mute]

Quote Originally Posted by In A Dark Light

Quote Originally Posted by Speaking Mute Bizarro definitely isn't a catch-all label, but since most Bizarro publishers are open to otherwise unclassifiable fiction many authors who don't engage in the South Park/Adult Swim stream of toilet humor and pop culture references characteristic of the genre end up getting lumped in by association. Jeremy Robert Johnson, for example, may even count himself as a Bizarro author, but his writing and subject matter is in the vein of body horror, splatter punk, and New Wave SF. The only connection he seems to have to the stuff I'd consider just crass and stupid like the Ass Goblins of Auschwitz is the Bizarro label. That which you describe above is exactly the sort of thing I try to avoid. There's an enormous difference, to my mind, between the Avant-Garde and Bizarro.

I certainly agree, but even then, I wouldn't dismiss something labelled Bizarro out of hand - Johnson's Extinction Journals is often cited as one of the key works in the genre; I'd definitely recommend it to Ballard, Ellison, and Burroughs fans. I've also heard Kevin Donihe's House of Houses is really good, although I haven't gotten around to reading it.

[In A Dark Light]

Though I haven't read it myself, I would imagine that Alan Moore's 'Jerusalem' counts as experimental fiction.

Recently I have read Jordan Krall's 'Aeon', which felt vaguely Ligottian in its presentation of a city, though not necessarily in any other regard. Also, Thomas De Quincey's 'On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts', which could be viewed as being experimental, for its being presented as a lecture being given to a fictional society.

[xylokopos]

Perhaps you would enjoy delving into Theory - Fiction, stuff like Negarestani's Cyclonopedia and Nick Land's post-academic writing. I saw stream of consciousness authors/novels mentioned; to those I would add Kerouac's The Subterraneans and everything writen by Laszlo Kraznahorkai, but I would like to state that Kerouac and Kraznahorkai hate fullstops for entirely different reasons.

One of the forefathers of Greek Surrealism, Andreas Embeirikos, wrote a 9 volume pornographic epic called the Great Eastern. He wrote it in an erudite and official version of modern Greek that was never actually spoken.

Roland Topor was a genius when it came to experimental fiction, but I think most of his work is still untranslated in English and even in French, a lot of it is hard to track down - we are talking pornographic puzzles for the incarcerated, books with one letter or one word per page, etc.

I find a lot of old authors practically unclassifiable, even if they had nothing to do with movements such as Surrealism, OULIPO, Theory-Fiction, etc. One of my favorite unclassifiable books is Beasts, Men and Gods by Ossendowski, which is fiction and botany and mysticism combined with autobiography and travelogue and a dozen other things.

[In A Dark Light]

Cyclonopedia had actually been on my radar, but I couldn't quite work out what it was about. Not to the extent that I felt safe buying a copy anyway.

[In A Dark Light]

I'm probably preaching to the converted with this recommendation, but basically anything published by gn0me books is worth reading as experimental fiction. I particularly enjoyed 'Songs from the Black Moon', which, in its dark verse, felt reminiscent of a Ligottian view of the cosmos.

gnOme | anonyma, pseudepigrapha, apocrypha