Fiction_L Archives Experimental Fiction Dates: 4/22/02,2:17 PM  through  4/23/02,3:52 PM  (18 postings) Search for: Select one or more indexes to search: 2008-current     2006-2007     1996-2005    (Matches from each index will be displayed separately in the results page.) Return to April 2002 thread menu   |   Fiction_L Archives Menu

FROM: "Jennifer Crenshaw" <crenjen@hotmail.com>
REC'D: 4/22/02, 2:17 PM

I am compiling a list of "experimental" fiction titles -- ones in which the
writer has played with the form. We ran a thread a few months ago on
unusual fiction, but that played more to content. So far I've included:

Griffin and Sabine series by Bantock
This Is Not a Novel by Markson
House of Leaves by Danielewski
Ella Minnow Pea by Dunn
Ringing for You by Grouse
Naked Came the Manatee by Hiassen et al
Natural Suspect by Bernhardt et al
Green Mile by King

If you know of others please let me know.

Thanks,

Jennifer L. Crenshaw
Pickens County Library System


_________________________________________________________________
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
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FROM: "Smith, Jeff" <Jeff.Smith@marshall.usc.edu>
REC'D: 4/22/02, 2:17 PM

Nicholson Baker's "VOX" is a novel consisting entirely of a single phone
conversation. Is that the kind of thing you would count as "experimental"?

Jeff Smith

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Jennifer Crenshaw [mailto:crenjen@hotmail.com]
>Sent: Monday, April 22, 2002 12:02 PM
>To: Fiction_L
>Subject: Experimental Fiction
>
>
>I am compiling a list of "experimental" fiction titles -- ones
>in which the
>writer has played with the form. We ran a thread a few months ago on
>unusual fiction, but that played more to content. So far I've
>included:
>
>Griffin and Sabine series by Bantock
>This Is Not a Novel by Markson
>House of Leaves by Danielewski
>Ella Minnow Pea by Dunn
>Ringing for You by Grouse
>Naked Came the Manatee by Hiassen et al
>Natural Suspect by Bernhardt et al
>Green Mile by King
>
>If you know of others please let me know.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Jennifer L. Crenshaw
>Pickens County Library System
>
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
>http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
>
>
>......................................................................
>Need to subscribe, unsubscribe, search the archives?
>Everything Fiction_L: http://www.webrary.org/rs/flmenu.html
>

FROM: "Maureen OConnor" <moconnor@bramlib.on.ca>
REC'D: 4/22/02, 2:28 PM

Jennifer, if you're looking for others like the Hiassen title--a "serial novel," you can try Naked Came the Phoenix by Marcia Talley. It's a fun read for what it is.

Maureen

"Never apologize for your reading tastes." Rosenberg
____________________________________________

Maureen O'Connor
Brampton Public Library
moconnor@bramlib.on.ca

All opinions expressed above are mine alone.

FROM: "Keri James" <kjames@oppl.org>
REC'D: 4/22/02, 2:28 PM

253: The Print Remix by Geoff Ryman was originally published on the web and is
similar to the "Choose your own adventure" books, except for adults. Each
"chapter" is exactly 253 words. A review of the work can be found in Library
Journal, Sept. 15, 1998 by Andrea Caron Kempf.

Keri James
Reference Librarian
Oak Park Public Library

Jennifer Crenshaw wrote:

> I am compiling a list of "experimental" fiction titles -- ones in which the
> writer has played with the form. We ran a thread a few months ago on
> unusual fiction, but that played more to content. So far I've included:
>
> Griffin and Sabine series by Bantock
> This Is Not a Novel by Markson
> House of Leaves by Danielewski
> Ella Minnow Pea by Dunn
> Ringing for You by Grouse
> Naked Came the Manatee by Hiassen et al
> Natural Suspect by Bernhardt et al
> Green Mile by King
>
> If you know of others please let me know.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jennifer L. Crenshaw
> Pickens County Library System
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
> http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
>
> ......................................................................
> Need to subscribe, unsubscribe, search the archives?
> Everything Fiction_L: http://www.webrary.org/rs/flmenu.html

FROM: "Joy Tofteland" <tofteland@ankeny.k12.ia.us>
REC'D: 4/22/02, 2:39 PM

I nominate:

Maus : A Survivor's Tale
by Art Spiegelman

The format is like a comic book (cats and mice) but the subject matter is
the holocaust.

Joy Tofteland
Reference/ Technical Resources Librarian
Kirkendall Public Library
Ankeny, IA

FROM: Kathy Mitchum <kdm@ckls.org>
REC'D: 4/22/02, 3:00 PM

The first of this type of "Naked ....." that I was ever aware is Naked comes
the stranger (by Penelope Ashe) in 1969. Definitely NOT a "gentle read".

At 03:21 PM 4/22/2002 -0400, Maureen OConnor wrote:
>Jennifer, if you're looking for others like the Hiassen title--a "serial
novel," you can try Naked Came the Phoenix by Marcia Talley.  It's a fun read
for what it is.
>
>Maureen
>
>"Never apologize for your reading tastes."  Rosenberg
>____________________________________________
>
>Maureen O'Connor
>Brampton Public Library
>moconnor@bramlib.on.ca
>
>All opinions expressed above are mine alone.
>
>......................................................................
>Need to subscribe, unsubscribe, search the archives?
>Everything Fiction_L:
<http://www.webrary.org/rs/flmenu.html>http://www.webrary.org/rs/flmenu.html
>
Kathy Mitchum
ILL/Ref/Rural Serv/Tech Serv, Dept. Head
Central Kansas Library System
1409 Williams
Great Bend, KS 67530

(620-792-4865) phone
(620-792-5495) fax

kdm@ckls.org

FROM: Dennis Lien <Dennis.K.Lien-1@tc.umn.edu>
REC'D: 4/22/02, 3:00 PM

At 02:24 PM 4/22/02 -0500, you wrote:
>253: The Print Remix by Geoff Ryman was originally published on the web
and is
>similar to the "Choose your own adventure" books, except for adults. Each
>"chapter" is exactly 253 words. A review of the work can be found in
Library
>Journal, Sept. 15, 1998 by Andrea Caron Kempf.
>
>Keri James
>Reference Librarian
>Oak Park Public Library


Another "choose your own adventure" style for adults is LIFE'S
LOTTERY by Kim Newman (published only in England so far, though).

A google search for "experimental fiction" will turn up scads
of hits, most of which make my eyes glaze over immediately. Here's
a site with a lot of links, mostly to hypertext fiction

http://www.freeranger.com/chris/MM2.htm

Dennis Lien / U of Minnesota Libraries // d-lien@tc.umn.edu

FROM: Barry Trott <btrott@mail.wrl.org>
REC'D: 4/22/02, 3:00 PM

Georges Perec -- The Disappearance (written without using the letter "e");
Life: a user's manual ("a minute description of all the objects and events
in a ten-story apartment building at 11 rue Simon-Crubellier, Paris XVII,
at a particular moment, just before 8 p.m. on June 23, 1975")

Italo Calvino -- If on a winter's night a traveller

GIlbert Sorenntino -- Imaginative qualities of actual things

Barry


*******************************************************************************
Barry Trott 7770 Croaker Rd.
Adult Services Director Williamsburg VA 23188
Williamsburg Regional Library Phone: 757-259-4053
btrott@mail.wrl.org FAX: 757-259-4079
http://www.wrl.org/bookweb/
*******************************************************************************

On Mon, 22 Apr 2002, Smith, Jeff wrote:

>
> Nicholson Baker's "VOX" is a novel consisting entirely of a single phone
> conversation. Is that the kind of thing you would count as "experimental"?
>
> Jeff Smith
>
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Jennifer Crenshaw [mailto:crenjen@hotmail.com]
> >Sent: Monday, April 22, 2002 12:02 PM
> >To: Fiction_L
> >Subject: Experimental Fiction
> >
> >
> >I am compiling a list of "experimental" fiction titles -- ones
> >in which the
> >writer has played with the form. We ran a thread a few months ago on
> >unusual fiction, but that played more to content. So far I've
> >included:
> >
> >Griffin and Sabine series by Bantock
> >This Is Not a Novel by Markson
> >House of Leaves by Danielewski
> >Ella Minnow Pea by Dunn
> >Ringing for You by Grouse
> >Naked Came the Manatee by Hiassen et al
> >Natural Suspect by Bernhardt et al
> >Green Mile by King
> >
> >If you know of others please let me know.
> >
> >Thanks,
> >
> >Jennifer L. Crenshaw
> >Pickens County Library System
> >
> >
> >_________________________________________________________________
> >MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
> >http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
> >
> >
> >......................................................................
> >Need to subscribe, unsubscribe, search the archives?
> >Everything Fiction_L: http://www.webrary.org/rs/flmenu.html
> >
>
> ......................................................................
> Need to subscribe, unsubscribe, search the archives?
> Everything Fiction_L: http://www.webrary.org/rs/flmenu.html
>

FROM: mboyden@carmel.lib.in.us (Mary Boyden)
REC'D: 4/22/02, 3:11 PM

My personal book group read Cynthia Ozick's "The Puttermesser Papers"
She originally wrote much (if not all) of the book as short stories over a
period of decades. I said that it seemed like the stories were just
slapped together without much thought to continuity. An Art Historian in
my group said that the point was that the book is modernistic and what I
was seeing as "the seams showing" was important to the art of the book.
Being a Marketing major, and not an Art Historian, I thought the author was
just trying to get more money by repackaging her product. Obviously, I
should have taken an art class.

Mary Boyden
Readers' Advisory Librarian
Carmel Clay Public Library

At 03:02 PM 4/22/02 -0400, you wrote:
>I am compiling a list of "experimental" fiction titles -- ones in which the
>writer has played with the form. We ran a thread a few months ago on
>unusual fiction, but that played more to content. So far I've included:
>
>Griffin and Sabine series by Bantock
>This Is Not a Novel by Markson
>House of Leaves by Danielewski
>Ella Minnow Pea by Dunn
>Ringing for You by Grouse
>Naked Came the Manatee by Hiassen et al
>Natural Suspect by Bernhardt et al
>Green Mile by King
>
>If you know of others please let me know.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Jennifer L. Crenshaw
>Pickens County Library System
>
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
>http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
>
>
>......................................................................
>Need to subscribe, unsubscribe, search the archives?
>Everything Fiction_L: http://www.webrary.org/rs/flmenu.html
>

FROM: "Quillen, Christine" <CQUILL@camden.lib.nj.us>
REC'D: 4/22/02, 3:11 PM

My century by Gunter Grass is made up of two to three page storeis which
each represent one year during the twentieth century.

-----Original Message-----
From: Keri James [mailto:kjames@oppl.org]
Sent: Monday, April 22, 2002 3:25 PM
To: Fiction_L
Subject: Re: Experimental Fiction


253: The Print Remix by Geoff Ryman was originally published on the web and
is
similar to the "Choose your own adventure" books, except for adults. Each
"chapter" is exactly 253 words. A review of the work can be found in
Library
Journal, Sept. 15, 1998 by Andrea Caron Kempf.

Keri James
Reference Librarian
Oak Park Public Library

Jennifer Crenshaw wrote:

> I am compiling a list of "experimental" fiction titles -- ones in which
the
> writer has played with the form. We ran a thread a few months ago on
> unusual fiction, but that played more to content. So far I've included:
>
> Griffin and Sabine series by Bantock
> This Is Not a Novel by Markson
> House of Leaves by Danielewski
> Ella Minnow Pea by Dunn
> Ringing for You by Grouse
> Naked Came the Manatee by Hiassen et al
> Natural Suspect by Bernhardt et al
> Green Mile by King
>
> If you know of others please let me know.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jennifer L. Crenshaw
> Pickens County Library System
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
> http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
>
> ......................................................................
> Need to subscribe, unsubscribe, search the archives?
> Everything Fiction_L: http://www.webrary.org/rs/flmenu.html

FROM: "Margaret Mallett" <MMallett@itpld.lib.il.us>
REC'D: 4/22/02, 3:43 PM

I just read a review for Benjamin Zucker's "Green" a sequel to "Blue"
in which he uses the Talmudic style of surrounding the main story with
commentary.

Margaret Mallett, Reference Librarian
IndianTrails Public Library
355 So. Schoenbeck Road
Wheeling IL 60090
mmallett@itpld.lib.il.us

FROM: "BookBitch" <bookbitch@yahoo.com>
REC'D: 4/22/02, 4:15 PM

I'm not entirely clear on how you are differentiating between "unusual" and
"experimental" fiction but I think these may qualify:

Kentuckiana by Johnny Payne - metafiction

Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluge - An epistolary novel with a twist; the
narrative moves along via letters as well as matchbook covers, news
clippings, report cards, telegrams, etc.

Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper by Harriet Scott Chessman - color
plates of each Cassatt painting that is "novelized", for lack of a better
word.

It's My F---ing Birthday by Merrill Markoe - each chapter celebrates another
birthday and includes a New Year's resolution

Family Orchard by Nomi Eve - each chapter includes snippets of the author's
father's journal, along with her fictionalized story expanding on the
journal entry.

Hope this is what you are looking for...

Stacy Alesi
Southwest County Regional Library
Palm Beach County Library System

I am the BookBitch
www.bookbitch.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Fiction_L@maillist.webrary.org
[mailto:Fiction_L@maillist.webrary.org]On Behalf Of Jennifer Crenshaw
Sent: Monday, April 22, 2002 3:02 PM
To: Fiction_L
Subject: Experimental Fiction


I am compiling a list of "experimental" fiction titles -- ones in which the
writer has played with the form. We ran a thread a few months ago on
unusual fiction, but that played more to content. So far I've included:

Griffin and Sabine series by Bantock
This Is Not a Novel by Markson
House of Leaves by Danielewski
Ella Minnow Pea by Dunn
Ringing for You by Grouse
Naked Came the Manatee by Hiassen et al
Natural Suspect by Bernhardt et al
Green Mile by King

If you know of others please let me know.

Thanks,

Jennifer L. Crenshaw
Pickens County Library System


_________________________________________________________________
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx

FROM: Theresa <ttheveno@pelican.state.lib.la.us>
REC'D: 4/22/02, 5:18 PM

I was also going to recommend the Perec book. It's in our collection under
the title A Void, which is I suppose just a difference in the translation,
but one I thought might be worth mentioning. It definitely merits
inclusion on a list of fiction that is experimental in form.

Theresa Thevenote 318-253-7559
Avoyelles Parish Library http://www.avoyelles.lib.la.us
104 N Washington
Marksville LA 71351

>Subject: RE: Experimental Fiction
>From: "Barry Trott" <btrott@mail.wrl.org>
>Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 15:56:55 -0400 (EDT)
>
>Georges Perec -- The Disappearance (written without using the letter "e");
>Life: a user's manual ("a minute description of all the objects and events
>in a ten-story apartment building at 11 rue Simon-Crubellier, Paris XVII,
>at a particular moment, just before 8 p.m. on June 23, 1975")
>
>Italo Calvino -- If on a winter's night a traveller
>
>GIlbert Sorenntino -- Imaginative qualities of actual things
>
>Barry
>
>
>***************************************************************************
****
>Barry Trott 7770 Croaker Rd.
>Adult Services Director Williamsburg VA 23188
>Williamsburg Regional Library Phone: 757-259-4053
>btrott@mail.wrl.org FAX: 757-259-4079
> http://www.wrl.org/bookweb/

FROM: "Madeline Guzman" <squeakychu@hotmail.com>
REC'D: 4/23/02, 12:25 AM

The Same Sea by Amos Oz (in which he tells his tale alternately between
poetry and prose)

The Black Box by Amos Oz (in which he tells his story through a series of
letters)

Madeline G
patron, Twinbrook Library
Montgomery County, MD

_________________________________________________________________
Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail.
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FROM: "Karen A.K. Keller" <kkeller@brighton.lib.mi.us>
REC'D: 4/23/02, 7:39 AM

"Ulysses" by James Joyce.

Karen Keller
Brighton (MI) District Library

FROM: Katherine Johnson <kjohnson@epexchange.epnet.com>
REC'D: 4/23/02, 8:33 AM

Somebody mentioned "The Disappearance" as a translation of "La
Disparition," the novel without the letter "e" by Georges Perec (whose
name is full of the letter e). "La Disparition" has been translated
into English withouth using "e", and the "e"-less title in English is "A
Void".

I believe there are other tours-de-force omitting various letters of the
alphabet throughout. Douglas Hofstadter discusses this kind of
linguistic experimentation; I believe it's in "Le Ton Beau de Marot: In
Praise of the Music of Language" where he mentions "A Void" and some
other experimental works. I don't have my copy to hand, so I'm not
completely sure I didn't read about these somewhere else.

Depending what one means by "experimental," one might also include "The
Rings of Saturn" by the late W.G. Sebald. If interested in
completeness, one should include Dada works, but my aging memory will
not retrieve any examples which are novels. There's also Raymond
Queneau's "Zazie in the Metro" ("Zazie dans le metro"). There are also
prose works by Samuel Beckett, who wrote in French BECAUSE it was not
his native language -- "Malone Dies" is a novel (translated by the
author from French to English).

Of course, something that was experimental when it was first published
may have been absorbed into the mainstream by now. Wilkie Collins' "The
Moonstone" was an early, if not the first, use of the technique of
presenting the story from the point of view of various characters, none
of whom knew all the facts. This is now a typical narrative technique.

Stop me now before I revert entirely to my undergraduate days!
--
Katherine Bradley Johnson
NoveList Database Specialist
NoveList/EBSCO
kjohnson@epnet.com
2634 Chapel Hill Blvd., Ste. 208
Durham, NC 27707-2830 USA
(919) 489-9412 x206 (voice)
(919) 489-7263 (fax)

Die Welt des Märchens ist die, der Welt der Wahrheit
durchaus entgegengesetzte und eben darum ihr so
durchaus ähnlich, wie das Chaos der vollendeten
Schöpfung ähnlich ist." -- NOVALIS.

FROM: Cynthia Orr <cynthia.orr@cpl.org>
REC'D: 4/23/02, 8:33 AM

Here are a few more:

Alphabetical Africa by Walter Abish:
Chapter 1 is composed with words beginning only with the letter A, Chapter 2
with A and B and so on until chapter 27, when Z first, then chapter by
chapter all other letters, are progressively subtracted.

and

Gadsby, A Story of Over 50,000 Words Without Using the Letter "E" by Ernest
Vincent Wright:
a novel written in 1939 and is now available in full text online:
http://gadsby.hypermart.net/

La Disparition (A Void) by Georges Perect also omits the letter E.

Eunoia by Christian Bok allows the use of only one vowel in each chapter.

There's also the Journal of Experimental Fiction:
http://www.experimentalfiction.com/


---
Cynthia Orr
Collection Manager
Cleveland Public Library
17133 Lake Shore Boulevard
Cleveland, OH 44110
(216) 623-2906
Fax - (216)623-2977
www.cpl.org

FROM: "Quillen, Christine" <CQUILL@camden.lib.nj.us>
REC'D: 4/23/02, 3:52 PM

There was a thread a year or two back related to this and I remember people
talking about books written in different fonts and colors, but I couldn't
seem to find it in the archives. Does anyone else remember this?

C. L.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jennifer Crenshaw [mailto:crenjen@hotmail.com]
Sent: Monday, April 22, 2002 3:02 PM
To: Fiction_L
Subject: Experimental Fiction


I am compiling a list of "experimental" fiction titles -- ones in which the
writer has played with the form. We ran a thread a few months ago on
unusual fiction, but that played more to content. So far I've included:

Griffin and Sabine series by Bantock
This Is Not a Novel by Markson
House of Leaves by Danielewski
Ella Minnow Pea by Dunn
Ringing for You by Grouse
Naked Came the Manatee by Hiassen et al
Natural Suspect by Bernhardt et al
Green Mile by King

If you know of others please let me know.

Thanks,

Jennifer L. Crenshaw
Pickens County Library System


_________________________________________________________________
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx

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