Books You Find While Rooting Around for Weird Fiction…
Jeff VanderMeer • February 28th, 2010 @ 12:24 pm • Culture
…and would like to read or re-read but can’t because you’ve got to read weird short fiction…and pretend to be a Mecha-Ostrich…and things of that nature… (Wild Women has a great great story by Nadine Gordimer in the form of a letter to Kafka from his father; great William Trevor story in the Manguel antho.)
February 28, 2010 at 1:34 pm
The Crash of Hennington is one of my all-time faves. I’m almost afraid to read it again, it wove such a spell over me the first time.
February 28, 2010 at 1:37 pm
It’s a great book that no one seems to know about. Don’t even know what else the author has been up to. Dissolution of Nicholas Dee is another one like that.
Jeff
February 28, 2010 at 1:38 pm
Ooh, I’d love to read most of those as well. Picked up Sebald’s Austerlitz a few months ago and was hypnotized for days. Kind of like Bolano, gives you the sense that anything can be observed artfully. And I’m really looking forward to reading Ness’s adult fiction, after the YA stuff knocked me so firmly on my ass.
February 28, 2010 at 1:39 pm
Watch out for those Manguel collections. You might never get out of them.
February 28, 2010 at 1:43 pm
Marc: I know! Oddly, I find his anthos not just focused on the fantastic the most compelling. I know it’s heresy to say this but there are so many little nubs and odds ‘n’ ends in Black Water and Black Water 2 that they’re both very uneven, although essential.
Jeff
February 28, 2010 at 1:59 pm
It seems like every time I come to this blog my wishlist expands by at least three books.
February 28, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Well, here’s another: Rikki Ducornet’s collection The Word Desire is amazing, on a re-read. It’s a post-Decadent, post-Surrealist modern set of stories revolving around desire and longing, and the only problem with regard to our weird reading is I’m not yet sure any of the stories really contain even a subtle supernatural/fantastical element. But they *read* like fantastical stories. Highly, highly recommended.
JeffV
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