LitQueuelitqueue

After

The Reivers

William Faulkner1962

5 of 6 directions open — nothing to recover from

More like it

1 more ↓

  • Loitering with Intent

    Muriel Spark1981

    A novelist takes a job editing memoirs for a strange society. She discovers that her employer is manipulating the members to mimic her fiction.

    Same playful register

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Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    playful → propulsive

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+3

  • Ulysses

    James Joyce1914

    Three characters wander through Dublin on a single day in 1904. Each chapter uses a different literary style to mimic thoughts and sensations.

    Same playful register

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak+1

  • 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.

    playful → dreamlike

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2

Faster

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    playful → sardonic

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak+1

  • 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.

    playful → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak0

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    playful → wry

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak0

Slower

3 more ↓

  • Umbrella

    Will Self2013

    A psychiatrist in 1971 treats a woman who has been catatonic for decades. The prose shifts between eras and consciousnesses without paragraph breaks.

    playful → clinical

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak+2

  • Translated Accounts

    James Kelman2001

    Anonymous witnesses describe life under a military regime. The prose uses broken, bureaucratic syntax to mimic a literal translation.

    playful → bleak

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak+3

  • 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.

    playful → elegiac

    pace-2·prose0·bleak+2

Heavier

playful → elegiac, still southern gothic

3 more ↓

  • Bastard Out of Carolina

    Dorothy Allison1995

    A young girl grows up in poverty in 1950s South Carolina. She endures physical and sexual abuse from her stepfather while her mother looks away.

    playful → bleak, still southern gothic

    pace-1·prose0·bleak+3

  • The Road

    Cormac McCarthy2006

    A father and son walk through a landscape of ash and scavengers toward the coast. They carry only what fits in a shopping cart.

    playful → bleak

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+3

  • The Underground Railroad

    Colson Whitehead2016

    Two slaves escape a Georgia plantation via a literal underground train system while being pursued by a slave catcher.

    playful → bleak

    pace0·prose0·bleak+3