Discover new books on Goodreads
Meet your next favorite book
From friend Nathan "N.R." Gaddis: a joyous call to ribald readership.
From author Steven Moore: a short introduction, and a list.
With the motto ‘Do What You Will,’ Rabelais gave himself permission to do anything he damn well pleased with the language and the form of the novel; as a result, every author of an innovative novel mixing literary forms and genres in an extravagant style is indebted to Rabelais, directly or indirectly. Out of his codpiece came:
Aneau’s Alector
Nashe’s Unfortunate Traveller
López de Úbeda’s Justina
Cervantes’ Don Quixote
Béroalde de Verville’s Fantastic Tales
Sorel’s Francion
Burton’s Anatomy
Swift’s Tale of a Tub and Gulliver’s Travels
Fielding’s Tom Jones
Amory’s John Buncle
Sterne’s Tristram Shandy
the novels of Diderot
and maybe Voltaire (a late convert)
Smollett’s Adventures of an Atom
Hoffmann’s Tomcat Murr
Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Southey’s Doctor
Melville’s Moby-Dick
Flaubert’s Temptation of Saint Anthony and Bouvard and Becuchet
Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Frederick Rolfe’s ornate novels
Bely’s Petersburg
Joyce’s Ulysses
Witkiewicz’s Insatiability
Barnes’ Ryder and Ladies Almanack
Gombrowicz’s Polish jokes
Flann O’Brien’s Irish farces
Philip Wylie’s Finnley Wren
Patchen’s tender novels
Burroughs’s and Kerouac’s mad ones
Nabokov’s later works
Schmidt’s fiction
the novels of Durrell
Burgess (especially A Clockwork Orange and Earthly Powers)
Gaddis and
Pynchon
Barth
Coover
Sorrentino
Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo
Brossard’s later works
the masterpieces of Latin American magic realism ( Paradiso, The Autumn of the Patriarch, Three Trapped Tigers, I the Supreme, Avalovara, Terra Nostra, Palinuro of Mexico)
the fabulous creations of those gay Cubans Severo Sarduy and Reinaldo Arenas
Markson’s Springer’s Progress
Mano’s Take Five
Ríos’s Larva and otros libros
the novels of Paul West
Tom Robbins
Stanley Elkin
Alexander Theroux
W M. Spackman
Alasdair Gray
Gaétan Soucy and
Rikki Ducornet (‘Lady Rabelais,’ as one critic called her)
Mark Leyner’s hyperbolic novels
the writings of Magister Gass
Greer Gilman’s folkloric fictions and
Roger Boylan’s Celtic comedies
Vollmann’s voluminous volumes
Wallace’s brainy fictions
Siegel’s Love in a Dead Language
Danielewski’s novels
Jackson’s Half Life
Field’s Ululu
De La Pava’s Naked Singularity and
James McCourt’s ongoing Mawrdew Czgowchwz saga.
-The Novel: An Alternative History: Beginnings to 1600, p330-331
For the Completists in the crowd.
Final note: for authors stated without a specified work, their most popular work has been added. Feel free to add more, so long as those additions correspond to the stated authors (ex: Coover, Theroux, Pynchon, etc etc).
From author Steven Moore: a short introduction, and a list.
With the motto ‘Do What You Will,’ Rabelais gave himself permission to do anything he damn well pleased with the language and the form of the novel; as a result, every author of an innovative novel mixing literary forms and genres in an extravagant style is indebted to Rabelais, directly or indirectly. Out of his codpiece came:
Aneau’s Alector
Nashe’s Unfortunate Traveller
López de Úbeda’s Justina
Cervantes’ Don Quixote
Béroalde de Verville’s Fantastic Tales
Sorel’s Francion
Burton’s Anatomy
Swift’s Tale of a Tub and Gulliver’s Travels
Fielding’s Tom Jones
Amory’s John Buncle
Sterne’s Tristram Shandy
the novels of Diderot
and maybe Voltaire (a late convert)
Smollett’s Adventures of an Atom
Hoffmann’s Tomcat Murr
Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Southey’s Doctor
Melville’s Moby-Dick
Flaubert’s Temptation of Saint Anthony and Bouvard and Becuchet
Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Frederick Rolfe’s ornate novels
Bely’s Petersburg
Joyce’s Ulysses
Witkiewicz’s Insatiability
Barnes’ Ryder and Ladies Almanack
Gombrowicz’s Polish jokes
Flann O’Brien’s Irish farces
Philip Wylie’s Finnley Wren
Patchen’s tender novels
Burroughs’s and Kerouac’s mad ones
Nabokov’s later works
Schmidt’s fiction
the novels of Durrell
Burgess (especially A Clockwork Orange and Earthly Powers)
Gaddis and
Pynchon
Barth
Coover
Sorrentino
Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo
Brossard’s later works
the masterpieces of Latin American magic realism ( Paradiso, The Autumn of the Patriarch, Three Trapped Tigers, I the Supreme, Avalovara, Terra Nostra, Palinuro of Mexico)
the fabulous creations of those gay Cubans Severo Sarduy and Reinaldo Arenas
Markson’s Springer’s Progress
Mano’s Take Five
Ríos’s Larva and otros libros
the novels of Paul West
Tom Robbins
Stanley Elkin
Alexander Theroux
W M. Spackman
Alasdair Gray
Gaétan Soucy and
Rikki Ducornet (‘Lady Rabelais,’ as one critic called her)
Mark Leyner’s hyperbolic novels
the writings of Magister Gass
Greer Gilman’s folkloric fictions and
Roger Boylan’s Celtic comedies
Vollmann’s voluminous volumes
Wallace’s brainy fictions
Siegel’s Love in a Dead Language
Danielewski’s novels
Jackson’s Half Life
Field’s Ululu
De La Pava’s Naked Singularity and
James McCourt’s ongoing Mawrdew Czgowchwz saga.
-The Novel: An Alternative History: Beginnings to 1600, p330-331
For the Completists in the crowd.
Final note: for authors stated without a specified work, their most popular work has been added. Feel free to add more, so long as those additions correspond to the stated authors (ex: Coover, Theroux, Pynchon, etc etc).
Score
A book’s total score is based on multiple factors, including the number of people who have voted for it and how highly those voters ranked the book.
1 |
Ulysses
by
3.77 avg rating — 139,474 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
2 |
Infinite Jest
by
4.25 avg rating — 99,891 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
3 |
Moby-Dick or, The Whale
by
3.56 avg rating — 608,165 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
4 |
Gravity’s Rainbow
by
4.01 avg rating — 47,447 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
5 |
Don Quixote
by
3.91 avg rating — 300,708 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
6 |
Mason & Dixon
by
4.13 avg rating — 12,337 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
7 |
A Clockwork Orange
by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 760,000 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
8 |
Pale Fire
by
4.17 avg rating — 56,632 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
9 |
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
by
3.73 avg rating — 22,866 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
10 |
The Crying of Lot 49
by
3.69 avg rating — 95,167 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
11 |
The Recognitions
by
4.21 avg rating — 6,256 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
12 |
Gulliver’s Travels
by
3.59 avg rating — 296,012 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
12 |
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by
3.83 avg rating — 1,326,636 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
14 |
Candide
by
3.76 avg rating — 297,523 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
15 |
Naked Lunch: The Restored Text
by
3.46 avg rating — 97,607 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
16 |
Finnegans Wake
by
3.68 avg rating — 13,516 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
17 |
The Sot-Weed Factor
by
4.12 avg rating — 7,683 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
18 |
The Alexandria Quartet (The Alexandria Quartet, #1-4)
by
4.18 avg rating — 12,205 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
19 |
On the Road
by
3.61 avg rating — 443,039 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
20 |
The Third Policeman
by
3.97 avg rating — 22,549 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
21 |
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
by
3.75 avg rating — 34,164 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
22 |
Darconville's Cat
by
4.29 avg rating — 604 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
23 |
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
by
4.02 avg rating — 215,464 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
24 |
V.
by
3.97 avg rating — 25,014 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
25 |
2666
by
4.22 avg rating — 47,618 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
26 |
House of Leaves
by
Mark Z. Danielewski (Goodreads Author)
4.09 avg rating — 195,134 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
27 |
The Anatomy of Melancholy
by
4.10 avg rating — 1,873 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
28 |
At Swim-Two-Birds
by
3.85 avg rating — 14,190 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
29 |
Jacques the Fatalist
by
3.80 avg rating — 9,563 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
30 |
Europe Central
by
3.98 avg rating — 3,185 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
31 |
J R
by
4.32 avg rating — 3,731 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
32 |
In the Heart of the Heart of the Country and Other Stories
by
3.97 avg rating — 2,870 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
33 |
Earthly Powers
by
4.13 avg rating — 3,384 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
34 |
The Aleph and Other Stories
by
4.32 avg rating — 47,752 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
35 |
Palinuro de México
by
4.33 avg rating — 631 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
36 |
Hopscotch
by
4.20 avg rating — 48,116 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
37 |
The Public Burning
by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1,494 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
38 |
Still Life with Woodpecker
by
4.04 avg rating — 82,994 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
39 |
Ferdydurke
by
3.77 avg rating — 21,414 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
40 |
The Tunnel
by
4.06 avg rating — 1,960 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
41 |
Lanark
by
4.10 avg rating — 7,757 ratings
|
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
42 |
Petersburg
by
3.97 avg rating — 5,647 ratings
score: 734,
and
9 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
42 |
Terra Nostra
by
4.12 avg rating — 1,336 ratings
score: 734,
and
9 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
44 |
The Temptation of St. Antony
by
3.82 avg rating — 3,294 ratings
score: 724,
and
9 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
45 |
Wittgenstein’s Mistress
by
3.92 avg rating — 7,190 ratings
score: 694,
and
8 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
46 |
A Tale of a Tub
by
3.45 avg rating — 2,059 ratings
score: 688,
and
9 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
47 |
Take Five
by
4.17 avg rating — 151 ratings
score: 672,
and
8 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
48 |
A Naked Singularity
by
4.12 avg rating — 3,005 ratings
score: 658,
and
8 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
49 |
Bouvard and Pécuchet
by
3.82 avg rating — 4,412 ratings
score: 649,
and
8 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
50 |
The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop.
by
3.83 avg rating — 2,481 ratings
score: 632,
and
8 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
51 |
Ada, Or Ardor: A Family Chronicle
by
4.12 avg rating — 12,799 ratings
score: 613,
and
7 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
52 |
Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things
by
4.02 avg rating — 368 ratings
score: 609,
and
7 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
53 |
The Soft Machine (The Nova Trilogy #1)
by
3.43 avg rating — 7,005 ratings
score: 608,
and
7 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
54 |
Collected Fictions
by
4.56 avg rating — 25,338 ratings
score: 597,
and
7 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
55 |
Hamlet
by
4.03 avg rating — 1,031,640 ratings
score: 587,
and
7 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
56 |
The Autumn of the Patriarch
by
3.86 avg rating — 26,188 ratings
score: 578,
and
7 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
57 |
Mumbo Jumbo
by
3.85 avg rating — 4,859 ratings
score: 557,
and
7 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
58 |
Laura Warholic; or, The Sexual Intellectual
by
3.88 avg rating — 151 ratings
score: 550,
and
7 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
58 |
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
by
4.04 avg rating — 92,443 ratings
score: 550,
and
7 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
60 |
The Ice-Shirt (Seven Dreams, #1)
by
3.97 avg rating — 1,280 ratings
score: 547,
and
7 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
61 |
The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr
by
3.94 avg rating — 2,284 ratings
score: 543,
and
7 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
62 |
The Journal of Albion Moonlight
by
4.22 avg rating — 634 ratings
score: 536,
and
6 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
63 |
Paradiso
by
4.12 avg rating — 962 ratings
score: 533,
and
7 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
64 |
Insatiability: A Novel in Two Parts
by
3.91 avg rating — 559 ratings
score: 521,
and
7 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
65 |
The Book of Sand and Shakespeare's Memory
by
4.10 avg rating — 16,225 ratings
score: 511,
and
7 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
66 |
The Floating Opera
by
3.87 avg rating — 3,061 ratings
score: 484,
and
6 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
67 |
The Fountains of Neptune
by
4.15 avg rating — 225 ratings
score: 477,
and
6 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
68 |
Against the Day
by
4.05 avg rating — 10,108 ratings
score: 471,
and
6 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
69 |
Before Night Falls
by
4.21 avg rating — 7,250 ratings
score: 460,
and
5 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
70 |
The Last Samurai
by
4.11 avg rating — 11,283 ratings
score: 450,
and
6 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
71 |
Et Tu, Babe
by
3.81 avg rating — 1,849 ratings
score: 423,
and
5 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
72 |
Collected Stories (Collected Early Fiction 1949-1964, Volume 3)
by
3.94 avg rating — 85 ratings
score: 413,
and
6 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
73 |
Netsuke
by
3.32 avg rating — 639 ratings
score: 333,
and
5 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
74 |
Mulligan Stew
by
3.83 avg rating — 555 ratings
score: 319,
and
5 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
75 |
Lost in the Funhouse
by
3.68 avg rating — 6,682 ratings
score: 299,
and
4 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
75 |
Grendel
by
3.69 avg rating — 41,987 ratings
score: 299,
and
4 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
77 |
The Adventures of Lucky Pierre
by
3.67 avg rating — 85 ratings
score: 297,
and
4 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
78 |
Hadrian the Seventh
by
3.45 avg rating — 574 ratings
score: 276,
and
4 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
78 |
S.
by
3.85 avg rating — 28,441 ratings
score: 276,
and
3 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
80 |
Giles Goat-Boy
by
3.75 avg rating — 2,242 ratings
score: 273,
and
4 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
81 |
Ryder
by
3.65 avg rating — 272 ratings
score: 270,
and
4 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
81 |
My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist
by
3.69 avg rating — 1,922 ratings
score: 270,
and
4 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
83 |
Ladies Almanack
by
3.61 avg rating — 502 ratings
score: 269,
and
4 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
84 |
Poor Things
by
3.92 avg rating — 40,338 ratings
score: 265,
and
4 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
85 |
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
by
3.84 avg rating — 31,418 ratings
score: 262,
and
4 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
86 |
A History of the World in 10½ Chapters
by
3.88 avg rating — 16,249 ratings
score: 249,
and
4 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
87 |
ULULU
by
4.29 avg rating — 35 ratings
score: 230,
and
4 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
88 |
The Fan-Maker's Inquisition: A Novel of the Marquis de Sade
by
3.75 avg rating — 281 ratings
score: 221,
and
3 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
88 |
Prae: Vol. 1 (Prae, #1)
by
4.31 avg rating — 32 ratings
score: 221,
and
3 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
90 |
The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches
by
3.75 avg rating — 3,776 ratings
score: 219,
and
3 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
91 |
The Strange Case of Edward Gorey
by
3.78 avg rating — 523 ratings
score: 209,
and
4 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
92 |
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
by
3.96 avg rating — 23,183 ratings
score: 205,
and
3 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
93 |
Mauve Desert
by
3.57 avg rating — 392 ratings
score: 203,
and
3 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
94 |
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
by
3.54 avg rating — 13,341 ratings
score: 201,
and
3 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
95 |
On Heroes and Tombs
by
4.27 avg rating — 13,961 ratings
score: 200,
and
2 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
96 |
Horcynus Orca
by
4.41 avg rating — 182 ratings
score: 197,
and
2 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
96 |
The Pale King
by
3.97 avg rating — 19,631 ratings
score: 197,
and
3 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
98 |
Tours of the Black Clock
by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 953 ratings
score: 194,
and
3 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
99 |
Three Trapped Tigers
by
3.91 avg rating — 2,188 ratings
score: 190,
and
3 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
|
100 |
Hallucinations: or, The Ill-Fated Peregrinations of Fray Servando
by
4.10 avg rating — 696 ratings
score: 185,
and
2 people voted
![]() |
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
|
Tags:
alternate-history, steven-moore
Nathan "N.R."
3460 books
321 friends
321 friends
Richard
5823 books
957 friends
957 friends
Nick
1233 books
117 friends
117 friends
Juniper
30113 books
90 friends
90 friends
Bill
9286 books
59 friends
59 friends
Dionysius
1347 books
106 friends
106 friends
Sue
10316 books
867 friends
867 friends
Jacob
4888 books
224 friends
224 friends
More voters…
Comments Showing 1-41 of 41 (41 new)
date
newest »


Also, people of the internet, vote on this list! As you can see, there are many authors stated without specification, so add your favorite and/or read works by said authors and rack up the points!



"Here is the body turned inside out, its members set free, its humors released upon the world. Hearts bigger than planets devour light and warp the space around them; the city of London has a menstrual flow that gushes through its underground pipes; gobs of phlegm cement friendships and sexual relationships; and a floating fetus larger than a human becomes the new town pastor. In this debut story collection, Shelley Jackson rewrites our private passages, and translates the dumb show of the body into prose as gorgeous as it is unhygienic."
Yeah, probably.
(I'm only unsure because I read it 4+ years ago, long before I was aware of the Rabelaisian tradition, so I didn't make the connection then.)

Yeah, the Rabelasian thing that matters here is the formal aspect, not the content. The Pantagruelian maxim is "Do what thou wilt." So, stress on the experimental in experimental fiction. But we're sticking to the authors indicated here ; excluding those books by those same authors which would be closer to conventional/traditional/realist kinds of things.
Jacob wrote: "translates the dumb show of the body into prose as gorgeous as it is unhygienic.""
Sounds like Rabelasian body=language to me.
This list seems to have a lot of authors lacking titles, for which I understand that Aubrey is opening things up for adding more from the identified authors. However, the Shandy list seems to have titles connected to most authors so she/we might treat that list differently. Lots of overlap between the two lists.

You can add multiple books by an author, so long as they are listed without a corresponding title. Ex: Pynchon, Coover, Durrell, etc etc. Not Joyce (Ulysses), etc etc.

Gotcha. Thanks for clearing that up.
(So Melancholy of Anatomy is out, then, as Half Life is specified for Jackson. Blast! You'd think it would qualify based on the title alone...)

"No one says a novel has to be one thing. It can be anything it wants to be, a vaudeville show, the six o’clock news, the mumblings of wild men saddled by demons."
Anyhoo, I know that most of my voted-fors will linger at the bottom of the list if they make it at all, but I'm comfortable with that.

Yes. And it does drive me batty. The pace of proliferation of these lists in recent days should leave everyone more than satisfied.
This Rabelasian List and that Shandian List are both CAPRICIOUSLY cobbled together by one very damn=well= read kind of guy. These are merely the lists of ONE MAN's reading preference.
Neither list is exhaustive nor definitive. Why do I have to say that?
These are lists. Simple. Period.
And for fucking christ's sake, stop arguing with Moore through Aubrey. If you want to argue with Moore's choices, read his books and write a review.

Half of the names( European,unpronounceable ones!) are unknown to me so I've left them out as well. Sorry.
since this seems to be limited to moore's selections, it should be noted that helen dewitt's the last samurai & roberto bolano's 2666 aren't included in the list above--though i would agree that they are very much in the tradition of rabelais.

Doubtless! I believe DeWitt made it onto Moore's Shandian Spawn list (for all I know it and this one are near solid overlappers) and I think I supplement'd Moore's Encyclopedic list (from his review of IJ) with 2666. If you don't watch it though Moore has a tendency to fold everything into the Rabelaisian/Shandian streams because they are the tradition of the novel.
oh, no, i wasn't arguing for their inclusion on this specific list--by 'above list' i meant, uh, the list above the list above, ie moore's. 2666 & the last samurai are on the list below the list above the list above. the part where you vote. but yeah moore has dewitt on another list & probably bolano somewhere in his canon.

check. usually these lists get the other kind of comment, the kind of comment I thought you might be making but weren't because you were making the helpful kind of comment which like I said is usually not the typical kind of comment made in these contexts. I think I'm supposed to be able to edit the list cuz I'm a librarian, but I don't see how and it's probably better to have list=owner Aubrey curate the list as she sees best=fit.


Sorry. Please add books only if their authors are already listed ; ie, "for authors stated without a specified work, their most popular work has been added. Feel free to add more, so long as those additions correspond to the stated author".

Note: Don't add ANY books to the list ; the list is complete (see the header of this Listopia). Add'ing books that aren't authorized by that list will be DELETED. We're super serious!
It's nice for you to id more books which belong to this family of resemblances, but this list is not for that.

"Burroughs’s and Kerouac’s mad ones" + "for authors stated without a specified work, their most popular work has been added" = an unfortunate inclusion of On The Road. I think Visions of Cody may have been the moore=intended title(?).


What the...?! It certainly looks like it belongs ; and one would think to find it among the Shandian Spawn too. Alas! no list maker is the final word upon a matter, so I'll just have to quietly remove our dear Hoban. Thanks for catching this little sneak!

Nope. But it is on the Shandian Spawn ::
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/4...

(Evidently, your two lists have principles of inclusion that I cannot abstract just from looking at the works on them. This clearly illustrates the Kripke interpretation of Wittgenstein on following rules!)

They are both built by Steven Moore upon very solid and deep foundations of wide and eclectic reading. They include what they do include but do not necessarily exclude what is not included. A very brief and poor characterization of the principle of this list is posted way up there on top. And upon the reading of Tristram Shandy one can't but help finding his finger prints all over all kinds of novels. [there may or may not be further principle=clues included in my reviews linked to each respective list, or maybe not] But yeah, herding cats, rabbits, and certain breeds of sheep ; they just end up Doing What They Will.


Does so!"
And why is that? Every other entry in this list uses the narrative in very innovative ways, as the motto ‘Do What You Will,’ of the Rabelasian tradition suggest.
On the contrary, Borges stories are plain logical narrative with a metaphysical enphasis. If Borges is included in this list just for some mathematial graphics in his stories like in 'An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain', well, thats not innovation, its just a resourse to explain something and does not add anything to the proper plot.
If you can expand on this, it will be really helpfull. Because without proper explication, what negates ''50 shades of gray'' of enter here? That book also ‘Does What Her Will', in a strangely erotic way, but in the same way as Borges metaphysical stories try.

Don't either! Several Borges volumes have inserted themselves into the list, but none appears to be in Steve Moore's Rabelaisian canon. Also a Julian Barnes book is in the list. I know it just says "Barnes" in the preamble, but we are surely talking Djuna, not Julian. And who is J.J. Abrams?

But without Honore de Balzac...
this seems flaccid, or, misshapen at best.

But without Honore de Balzac...
this seems flaccid, or, misshapen at best."
Yeah, Ned! There are a lot of authors that everyone might think that totally 'have' to be in this list (and a lot of other that don't, also). But i would recommend you to just 'look' at this list. You might be a high degree scholar, with a lot of stuedies in literature and in the experimental approach that almost all the authors here had... but that doesn't matter at all. Who made this list only put (or take out) his own criteria on selecting the different works for the list, also partially made by author Steven Moore who wrote the book The Novel: An Alternative History: Beginnings to 1600 and it continuation The Novel: An Alternative History: 1600 to 1800, and doesn't hear suggestions or different opinions.
Also, my comment is a totally-out-of-question-just-joking-around; but, hey! Honore de Balzac is one of the authors i most respect, and i am totally open to hear why you think he might be here. I only read 'Le Pere Goriot' and it was a hell of a ride. But i don't think that the satiric approach of the book is enough to put it on the list. Maybe all the works in ''La Comédie Humaine'', because its a totall bonkers of neat idea. You read one from Balzac that is much more experimental or have an enciclopedic take on the subject or something?

But without Honore de Balzac...
this seems flaccid, or, misshapen at best."
Yeah, Ned! There are a lot of authors that e..."
I DO like the idea of a huge list like this. Balzac has another affinity besides his Droll Stories which directly admits in the first sentence what it relates to: those tosspots and drinkers who Rabelais himself addressed. Thirty stories follow all the ribald rule-breaking of kings and commoners, of all the sorts, and lists, magical word clusters displaying surprisingly wiser than usual glimpses into across, in and out of regular life. Thirty pages in and you'll know. Classic.
Oh yeah, the other thing, they're both Tourainian. :)

But without Honore de Balzac...
this seems flaccid, or, misshapen at best."
Yeah, Ned! There are a lot of..."
Oh, yes! I forget Balzac's ''Les Cent Contes drolatiques''. They are totally in the same vein as Rabelais. I remember reading one of them in an anthology an instantly think about Rabelais. Thanks for rememeber me this book. I' gonna dig it as soon as i can. ;)
Anyone can add books to this list.
How to Vote
To vote on existing books from the list, beside each book there is a link vote for this book clicking it will add that book to your votes.
To vote on books not in the list or books you couldn't find in the list, you can click on the tab add books to this list and then choose from your books, or simply search.
The two Chronological Indexes from Moore's Novel books ::
Vol I, Beginnings to 1600 :: http://books.google.com/books?id=mbHW...
Vol II, 1600-1800 :: http://books.google.com/books?id=yWNB... [page 984]
Both lists are HUGE ; but should be complete within google=books.
The Sterne list I'll get entered into my Vol II review about the time the above three lists exhaust your good self.