Notes from the Underground

A Disaffection

James Kelman1989

A Glasgow teacher experiences a mental breakdown over one week. He finds two pipes in a skip and tries to play them as instruments.

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Briefing for a Descent into Hell

Doris Lessing1971

A man is found wandering London and placed in a psychiatric ward. The narrative shifts between the hospital and his internal cosmic hallucinations.

sardonic → dreamlike, still unreliable narrator

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Gravity's Rainbow

Thomas Pynchon1973

During the end of WWII, an American lieutenant's sexual encounters seem to predict where German V-2 rockets will fall. The narrative is fragmented.

Same sardonic register, still unreliable narrator

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A Brief History of Seven Killings

Marlon James2014

A large cast of characters recounts the 1976 attempt on Bob Marley's life. The narrative spans decades and moves from Jamaica to New York.

sardonic → propulsive

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The Stopover

T.L. Swan

After a shared flight and a night in a hotel, a woman discovers her one-night stand is her new billionaire boss.

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The Da Vinci Code

Dan Brown2003

A symbologist and a cryptologist flee the police while solving puzzles hidden in art. They search for a secret regarding the Holy Grail.

sardonic → propulsive

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Fifty Shades of Grey

E.L. James2000

A college student enters a sexual contract with a wealthy businessman. The story focuses on their power dynamics and BDSM encounters.

sardonic → earnest

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Candide

Voltaire

A naive young man travels the world while his tutor insists that everything is for the best. He encounters a series of global catastrophes.

Same sardonic register

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The Da Vinci Code

Dan Brown2003

A symbologist and a cryptologist flee the police while solving puzzles hidden in art. They search for a secret regarding the Holy Grail.

sardonic → propulsive

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The Martian

Andy Weir2011

A man does arithmetic to stay alive on Mars. Problem, attempt, result, repeat.

sardonic → wry

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The English Patient

Michael Ondaatje1992

Four people shelter in a ruined Italian villa at the end of WWII. They care for a burned, anonymous man who recounts his past in the desert.

sardonic → elegiac, still literary fiction

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Moby Dick

Herman Melville1851

A sailor joins a whaling voyage led by a captain seeking revenge on a specific whale. Large sections digress into the mechanics of 1850s whaling.

sardonic → meditative, still literary fiction

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To the Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf1927

A family and their guests visit a house in the Hebrides. The narrative follows their internal thoughts over two days separated by ten years.

sardonic → elegiac, still literary fiction

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A Distant Shore

Caryl Phillips2003

A retired teacher and an African refugee form a quiet bond in a xenophobic English village. Their past traumas emerge through alternating stories.

sardonic → bleak, still literary fiction

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A Little Life

Hanya Yanagihara2015

Four friends in New York over thirty years. One of them is being destroyed, and the book does not look away.

sardonic → bleak, still literary fiction

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The Nickel Boys

Colson Whitehead2019

A studious black teenager in 1960s Florida is sent to a brutal reform school where physical abuse is systemic.

sardonic → elegiac, still literary fiction

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