What are some books that are entire puzzles in their own, on par with Ulysses and Infinite Jest?
I just want a hard piece of literature that I can research every little bit of it. My favorite part of Ulysses was that on every page I could look further into a name or a word and discover a historical figure or event and learn something.
Kevin Robinson
My Twisted World
Josiah Jenkins
The other one in the meme trilogy Commedia Don Quixote
Evan Walker
Lolita had a fuck load of allusions and references that seemed forced at times
Brandon Wilson
Are you the one shilling for Lolita in every fucking thread? Fuck off you pedo.
Austin Diaz
I read Infinite Jest and don't remember half of these events even happening.
Jacob Long
You have to read it at least three times to fully understand what Wallace is doing
Kayden Peterson
No you fool it's an incredible novel. Do you think one person is shilling for the infinite meme as well?
Cooper Evans
>dude rapes an underage girl but is a Le Unreliable Narrador so he thinks she likes it >incredible novel
Zachary Turner
Pale Fire is one of the ultimate puzzle novels, takes like 3 rereadings to get the most out of it.
Blake Hernandez
You either haven't read it or are baiting
Logan Watson
>(((underage)))
David Davis
Joke is on you - it's both.
Nicholas Young
>anyone who doesn't like my story glorifying pedophilia is baiting It's well-written mechanically, sure, but the story is crap. Unreliable narrators are a meme writers use when they're too inept to write a compelling story which is straightforward. They generally just confuse the audience for no reason to mask the writer's inability to write coherently.
Blake Taylor
Inherent Vice.
Carter Ortiz
I was thinking about reading this. What hype can you feed me
William Perry
it's pynchon doing a light hearted stoner parody of the california noir novel. the plot feels made up as it goes and almost incidental.
Adrian Ross
I rank Inherent Vice up with GR and MD. Read it as a puzzle book and you'll learn a lot about California and the 60s. People who think it's a simplistic, pointless stoner novel literally didn't map out the plot, chart the geography (terrestrial and aquatic), look up every song mentioned, and crosscheck the references to Journey Into the Mind of P.
I could give you a list of secondary reading material that might help you as well. It's the most perfect microcosm of Pynchon's universe/themes. It's his most autobiographical only in the sense that it gives the best picture of what Pynchon was witnessing at the time of writing GR, and how these things are alive and well in the 21st century.
Dismissing Inherent Vice is a guarantee that this person knows nothing of Pynchon and only likes his other work because he has a superficial taste for apparent difficulty and probably thinks Pynchon is "just, like, talking about how history is, like, you know, constructed and stuff and you can't really no nuffin." In short, an academic.
Jaxon Smith
I haven't read any Pynchon aside from a few short stories, but that sounds like something I'd really enjoy. Maybe i'll check it out soon.
Jackson Thompson
Thanks!
Kayden Brooks
I'm also looking for stuff like this but I'd prefer poetry.
William Thomas
No one's mentioned Hopscotch/Rayuela by Cortazar yet?
Jacob Reed
If you haven't read it already. Pale Fire begins with a with worthwhile and lyrical 999 poem
Carter Cruz
Does it add up to something or is it just weird for the sake of weird?
Cooper Rodriguez
Blake
Robert Walker
really? Which works?
Luke Brooks
Ada The Gold Bug Variations (any Powers really) Europe Central (or any of Vollmann's Seven Dreams) Lost in the Funhouse
Ayden Perez
Forgot to add The Recognitions (which should be obvious tbqh)
Evan Gomez
The Four Zoas, Milton, Jersusalem
His mythology and his interpretations of Milton and the Bible are some of the more developed and fascinating "puzzles" in poetry.
Tyler Ross
Europe Central is a puzzle book, eh? Really?
Also, would you consider Gold Bug to be Powers' best? I've been meaning to read both of these guys.
Julian Ross
Oh, look at all these other Nabokov shills, maybe there's something to it beyond "muh pedophelia"
Easton Clark
my vote would be neither? i don't think it's that much of a puzzle it's also not weird so much as eclectic and fragmented.
Jackson Allen
Well in the same sense as the OP in that >...on every page I could look further into a name or a word and discover a historical figure or event and learn something
It's quite dense, but the writing is exceptional. Imagine a more lucid, heartfelt Gravity's Rainbow, it definitely has a more personal character.
I haven't read much of Powers, but what I have (TGBVariations and Orfeo) read of his was fantastic. If you haven't read any Vollmann or Powers you're in for a treat. Powers is severely neglected. Vollmann is adequately praised, but inadequately read, IMO
Connor Jenkins
so hipster bullshit, as Borges rightly pointed out...
his short stories are great, again, as Borges pointed out...
Gavin Flores
xD check
Chase Young
can you post some of the supps?
Aaron Anderson
The Iliad and the Odyssey are like that.
Luke Hernandez
Georges Perec's Life an User's Manual. Probably one of the most intricately constructed books out there. It takes place in a 10x10 grid, each square on the grid representing a room inside a Parisian apartment block frozen in time June 23, 1975, just before 8 pm. The rooms and the stories found within where partly generated through a complex system of lists and combinatronics, you wouldn't notice it if you don't pay attention though. It's a legitimately great book that feels really organic. All the oulipo literary constraints end up connecting back to the central themes of the narrative. There are lots of flashbacks and stories within stories- Perec was inspired by the nestled structure of Jan Potocki's manuscript found in saragossa, another labyrinthic mindfuck of a novel that's actually pretty fun to read.
Andrew Garcia
You're a manchild.
Bentley Peterson
this guy fucks
Brody Garcia
I love Perec, and always wanted to check the formulas for User's Manual. Were they published anywhere?
Carson Wilson
Finnegans Wake
Jackson Rogers
Unironically Book of the New Sun. If you can work out everything that's going on without supplementary material you are probably Thomas Aquinas.
Dominic Jenkins
Satantango
Eli Fisher
nice, can't wait to start it
Josiah Jones
The dictionary. You learn something about every word.
Charles Morris
Sounds awful. Is postmodernism dead yet?
Jonathan Walker
I kind of appreciated what Perec was going for, but it honestly felt more like an academic exercise than a good novel. Like he got so caught up in the structure he forgot to actually write a compelling story.
Lincoln Butler
> he reads for compelling stories
Aiden Miller
epic meme friend
Julian Flores
respect the comma
Anthony Young
Kazars dictionary comes to mind
Jace Richardson
Does "JOI" stand for what I think it does?
Angel Howard
Me neither. Just read it a month ago. This Post Ending Stuff is nowhere to be found. Except the Part with the grave is included in one of gatelys fantasys in hospital.
Am I just dumb or is This Image bullshit?
Henry Sullivan
DUDE PUZZLES LMAO >that awareness when you know this is the only reason why pseuds read pomo books
Grayson Allen
Inherent Vice is far better than TCoL49, and I rank only GR, AtD, and M&D above it.
Nicholas Morris
I finished Landscape Painted with Tea a while ago but I didn't understand SHIT. It was a very pleasant experience, dreamlike prose, fantastic use of magical realism, but still weird as fuck.
Jaxon Martin
I would add The Sot-Weed Factor, as well. I'm excited to get to Powers, I have Gold Bug Variations sitting on my shelf, and I was thinking about going for it next.
Nathan Lopez
The naïve translation of Also Sprach Zarathustra that I haven't finished writing yet.
Ethan Nelson
Faulkner's books, any of them.
Tyler Wood
The Bible.
Blake Powell
Is Sot-Weed Factor really a puzzle book? Barth gives me the impression of a guy who writes maximalist fiction without much point or reward.
> did he fuck his sister or did he not?
Andrew Thomas
>Is Sot-Weed Factor really a puzzle book? Barth gives me the impression of a guy who writes maximalist fiction without much point or reward. It does have that maximalist vibe, but is extraordinarily fun. Also, yes, it kind of is like a "puzzle" fitting together in that there's a ridiculous and hilarious amount of different plot points that all tie together beautifully. He kind of satirizes the old-timey fiction tropes of characters disappearing for a long time then suddenly reappearing, an unexpected person being one's father/mother, someone you thought is dead turns out to be alive, etc., etc., to brilliant effect, so even while you know the book is satirizing these trite plot points, the plot turns out to be very absorbing.
Samuel Phillips
will second pale fire. poem itself is tight, plus it's packed with a zany plot and a bunch of "puzzle pieces" that people still haven't managed to put together
Brody Garcia
This. If you're going to tell a story, then fucking tell it. Don't deliberately make it incoherent
Lucas Foster
You are impressively delusional user. Nabokov is one of the most precise authors to have ever lived, and you think him writing one novel that used an unreliable narrator means he can't write a coherent story. Have you read any of his other ("""coherent""") works?
Ada, The Defense Laughter in the Dark, etc?
Mason Reyes
James Orin Incandenza
Joseph Foster
It's honestly not that puzzly. It's an incredible novel, but doesn't have the character OP is looking for.
Cooper Peterson
>If you're going to tell a story, then fucking tell it. Don't deliberately make it incoherent Except it's not incoherent, you should really read the book before criticizing it on an entirely false basis