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Welcome to my year of magical
reading. Each week during the course
of 2012, I will explore an important
work of fiction that incorporates
elements of magic, fantasy or the
surreal. My choices will cross
conventional boundary lines of genre,
style and historical period—indeed,
one of my intentions in this project is
to show how the conventional labels
applied to these works have become
constraining, deadening and
misleading.
In its earliest days, storytelling almost
always partook of the magical. Only in
recent years have we segregated
works arising from this venerable
tradition into publishing industry
categories such as "magical realism"
or "paranormal" or "fantasy" or some
other 'genre' pigeonhole. These labels
are not without their value, but too
often they have blinded us to the rich
and multidimensional heritage
beyond category that these works
share.
This larger heritage is mimicked in
our individual lives: most of us first
experienced the joys of narrative
fiction through stories of myth and
magic, the fanciful and
phantasmagorical; but only a very few
retain into adulthood this sense of the
kind of enchantment possible only
through storytelling. As such,
revisiting this stream of fiction from a
mature, literate perspective both
broadens our horizons and allows us
to recapture some of that magic in our
imaginative lives.
The Year of Magical Reading:
Week 1: Midnight's Children by
Salman Rushdie
Week 2: The House of the Spirits by
Isabel Allende
Week 3: The Witches of Eastwick
by John Updike
Week 4: Magic for Beginners by
Kelly Link
Week 5: The Tin Drum by Günter
Grass
Week 6: The Golden Ass by Apuleius
Week 7: The Tiger's Wife by Téa
Obreht
Week 8: One Hundred Years of
Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Week 9: The Book of Laughter and
Forgetting by Milan Kundera
Week 10: Gargantua and
Pantagruel by François Rabelais
Week 11: The Famished Road by
Ben Okri
Week 12: Like Water for Chocolate
by Laura Esquivel
Week 13: Winter's Tale by Mark
Helprin
Week 14: Dhalgren by Samuel R.
Delany
Week 15: Johnathan Strange & Mr.
Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Week 16: The Master and
Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Week 17: Dangerous Laughter by
Steven Millhauser
Week 18: Conjure Wife by Fritz
Leiber
Week 19: 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Week 20: The Hobbit by J.R.R.
Tolkien
Week 21: Aura by Carlos Fuentes
Week 22: Dr. Faustus by Thomas
Mann
Week 23: Orlando by Virginia
Woolf
Week 24: Little, Big by John
Crowley
Week 25: The White Hotel by D.M.
Thomas
Week 26: Neverwhere by Neil
Gaiman
Week 27: Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Week 28: Fifth Business by
Robertson Davies
Week 29: The Kingdom of This
World by Alejo Carpentier
Week 30: The Bear Comes Home
by Rafi Zabor
Week 31: The Color of Magic by
Terry Pratchett
Week 32: Ficciones by Jorge Luis
Borges
Week 33: Beloved by Toni
Morrison
Week 34: Dona Flor and Her Two
Husbands by Jorge Amado
Week 35: Hard-Boiled Wonderland
and the End of the World by Haruki
Murakami
Week 36: What Dreams May Come
by Richard Matheson
Week 37: Practical Magic by Alice
Hoffman
Week 38: Blindess by José
Saramago
Week 39: The Fortress of Solitude
by Jonathan Lethem
Week 40: The Magicians by Lev
Grossman
Week 41: Suddenly, A Knock at the
Door by Etgar Keret
Week 42: Cloudstreet by Tim
Winton
Week 43: The Obscene Bird of
NIght by José Donoso
Week 44: The Fifty Year Sword by
Mark Z. Danielewski
Week 45: Gulliver's Travels by
Jonathan Swift
Week 46: Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Week 47: The End of the Affair by
Graham Greene
Week 48: The Chronicles of Narnia
by C.S. Lewis
Week 49: Hieroglyphic Tales by
Horace Walpole
Week 50: The View from the
Seventh Layer by Kevin Brockmeier
Week 51: Gods Without Men by
Hari Kunzru
Week 52: At Swim-Two-Birds by
Flann O'Brien
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Conceptual Fiction:
A Reading List
(with links to essays on each work)
Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Adams, Douglas
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Aldiss, Brian
Barefoot in the Head
Aldiss, Brian
Hothouse
Aldiss, Brian
Report on Probability A
Allende, Isabel
The House of the Spirits
Amado, Jorge
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
Amis, Martin
Time's Arrow
Apuleius
The Golden Ass
Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac
I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Banks, Iain M.
The State of the Art
Ballard, J.G.
The Atrocity Exhibition
Ballard, J.G.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Ballard, J.G.
The Drowned World
Barth, John
Giles Goat-Boy
Bester, Alfred
The Demolished Man
Blish, James
A Case of Conscience
Borges, Jorge Luis
Ficciones
Bradbury, Ray
Dandelion Wine
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray
The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Brockmeier, Kevin
The View from the Seventh Layer
Bulgakov, Mikhail
The Master and Margarita
Bunch, David R.
Moderan
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Card, Orson Scott
Ender's Game
Carpentier, Alejo
The Kingdom of This World
Carroll, Lewis
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chabon, Michael
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Chiang, Ted
Stories of Your Life and Others
Clarke, Arthur C.
Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C.
A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Clarke, Susanna
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Crowley, John
Little, Big
Danielewski, Mark Z.
The Fifty Year Sword
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
Davies, Robertson
Fifth Business
Delany, Samuel R.
Babel-17
Delany, Samuel R.
Dhalgren
Delany, Samuel R.
The Einstein Intersection
Delany, Samuel R.
Nova
Dick, Philip K.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dick, Philip K.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Dick, Philip K.
Ubik
Dick, Philip K.
VALIS
Disch, Thomas M.
Camp Concentration
Disch, Thomas M.
The Genocides
Doctorow, Cory
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Donoso, José
The Obscene Bird of Night
Ellison, Harlan (editor)
Dangerous Visions
Ellison, Harlan
I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream
Esquivel, Laura
Like Water for Chocolate
Farmer, Philip José
To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Fuentes, Carlos
Aura
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gaiman, Neil
Neverwhere
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Grass, Günter
The Tin Drum
Greene, Graham
The End of the Affair
Grossman, Lev
The Magicians
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
Harrison, M. John
The Centauri Device
Harrison, M. John
Light
Heinlein, Robert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert:
Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert
Time Enough for Love
Helprin, Mark
Winter's Tale
Herbert, Frank
Dune
Hoffman, Alice
Practical Magic
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Keret, Etgar
Suddenly, A Knock at the Door
Keyes, Daniel
Flowers for Algernon
Kundera, Milan
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Kunzru, Hari
Gods Without Men
Lafferty, R.A.
Nine Hundred Grandmothers
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Dispossessed
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
The Big Time
Leiber, Fritz
Conjure Wife
Leiber, Fritz
Swords & Deviltry
Leiber, Fritz
The Wanderer
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Link, Kelly
Magic for Beginners
Malzberg, Barry N.
Herovit's World
Mann, Thomas
Doctor Faustus
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
Markson, David
Wittgenstein's Mistress
Matheson, Richard
Hell House
Matheson, Richard
What Dreams May Come
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road
Miéville, China
Perdido Street Station
Miller, Jr., Walter M.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Millhauser, Steven
Dangerous Laughter
Mitchell, David
Cloud Atlas
Moorcock, Michael
Behold the Man
Moorcock, Michael
The Final Programme
Morrison, Toni
Beloved
Murakami, Haruki
1Q84
Murakami, Haruki
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the
End of the World
Nabokov, Vladimir
Ada, or Ardor
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
Obreht, Téa
The Tiger's Wife
O'Brien, Flann
At Swim-Two-Birds
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Percy, Walker
Love in the Ruins
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
Pratchett, Terry
The Color of Magic
Pynchon, Thomas
Gravity's Rainbow
Rabelais, François
Gargantua and Pantagruel
Robinson, Kim Stanley
Red Mars
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone
Rushdie, Salman
Midnight's Children
Russ, Joanna
The Female Man
Saramago, José
Blindness
Sheckley, Robert
Dimension of Miracles
Sheckley, Robert
Mindswap
Sheckley, Robert
Store of the Worlds
Shelley, Mary
Frankenstein
Silverberg, Robert
Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert
Nightwings
Silverberg, Robert
The World Inside
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Smith, Cordwainer
Norstrilia
Smith, Cordwainer
The Rediscovery of Man
Stephenson, Neal
Snow Crash
Spinrad, Norman
Bug Jack Barron
Stross, Charles
Glasshouse
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
Swift, Jonathan
Gulliver's Travels
Thomas, D.M.
The White Hotel
Tiptree, Jr., James
Warm Worlds and Otherwise
Tolkien, J.R.R.
The Hobbit
Updike, John
The Witches of Eastwick
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Mixed Men
Van Vogt, A.E.
Slan
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Voyage of the Space Beagle
Van Vogt, A.E.
The World of Null A
Vance, Jack
Emphyrio
Verne, Jules
Around the Moon
Verne, Jules
From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Vonnegut, Kurt
Cat's Cradle
Vonnegut, Kurt
The Sirens of Titan
Vonnegut, Kurt
Slaughterhouse-Five
Wallace, David Foster
Infinite Jest
Walpole, Horace
Hieroglyphic Tales
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Wilson, Robert Anton & Robert Shea
The Illuminatus! Trilogy
Winton, Tim
Cloudstreet
Woolf, Virginia
Orlando
Zabor, Rafi
The Bear Comes Home
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Zelazny, Roger
This Immortal
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
When Science Fiction Grew Up
Ray Bradbury: A Tribute
The Year of Magical Reading
Remembering Fritz Leiber
A Tribute to Richard Matheson
Samuel Delany's 70th birthday
The Sci-Fi of Kurt Vonnegut
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Robert Heinlein at 100
A.E, van Vogt Tribute
The Puzzling Case of Robert Sheckley
The Avant-Garde Sci-Fi of Brian
Aldiss
Science Fiction 1958-1975: A Reading
List
Links to related sites
The New Canon
Great Books Guide
Postmodern Mystery
Fractious Fiction
Ted Gioia's web site
Ted Gioia on Twitter
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SF Site
io9
Graeme's Fantasy Book Review
Los Angeles Review of Books
The Millions
Big Dumb Object
SF Novelists
More Words, Deeper Hole
The Misread City
Reviews and Responses
SF Signal
True Science Fiction
Tor blog
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All rights reserved.
By Ted Gioia
The main characters of Ben Okri's novel The
Famished Road move back and forth between
the human and spirit worlds with the ease of
urban commuters changing subway trains.
This novel, a winner of the 1991 Booker Prize,
is a classic of magical realism with a
distinctively African twist. Yet,
departing from the more fanciful
examples of this genre that we have
encountered from South America
and elsewhere, Okri offers his
readers a ghost story in modern
garb, with details that are more
likely to unsettle than delight.
Few novels cover such a wide
range—from the grittily realistic
to the utterly fantastic—in such
a compressed setting. The entire book
transpires in an unnamed Third World city
apparently based on the landscapes of the
author’s native Nigeria. Yet this a Nigeria of
the mind, as much as it is a place on the map,
and it sets outs its boundary lines in folk tales,
legends, rumors and incantations, rather than
in geographical terms.
"These was not one amongst us who looked
forward to being born," the narrator Azaro
tells us at the outset of The Famished Road.
"We disliked the rigors of existence, the
unfulfilled longings, the enshrined injustices
of the world." Azaro is an abiku or "spirit
child," whose ties to the real world are weak.
"There are many reasons why babies cry when
they are born," Azaro explains, "and one of
them is the sudden separation from the world
of pure dreams."
Azaro's parents can tell that their child has a
precarious hold on life, and that he may
return at any moment to the realm of the
spirits. At one point, the youngster lingers
between life and death for two weeks, and
when he awakes he finds himself lying in a
coffin—his parents had given him up for dead.
Yet the death of a child may only serve as the
beginning of a new tragedy in this charged
setting—sometimes the abiku is born again
and again to the same parents, each time
abandoning them before reaching adulthood.
Azaro’s father works carrying heavy loads in
the marketplace, and though he returns bent
and exhausted from his labors, he still holds
on to his dreams of a better life. Azaro’s
mother works peddling goods, and ekes out
only the tiniest income from her labors. This
family lives a hand-to-mouth existence in the
most dire poverty, and the cost of caring for
their child’s (and their own) ailments, as well
as the ceremonial celebrations of recoveries,
threaten to exhaust their meager resources.
Creditors harass them. The landlord raises
their rent. Political operatives and thugs bully
them. But these are minor annoyances
compared to the spirits, demons and
monstrous creatures that constantly appear
throughout Okri’s novel. Azaro’s spirit friends
are calling him back to the otherworld, and
their emissaries get more and more ghoulish
as the narrative progresses.
Yet, much like Gabriel Garcia Marquez (who
famously celebrated the wonders of ice in the
opening passage of his classic novel), Okri
knows that even commonplace items can
seem magical in the right setting. His
characters look on in wonder when electricity,
automobiles or other modern wonders arrive
in their village. "They couldn't understand
how you could have a light brighter than
lamps sealed in glass. They couldn’t
understand how you couldn’t light your
cigarette on the glowing bulbs." Much of the
charm of this novel stems from Okri’s ability
to make the magical seem everyday and the
everyday seem magical.
Azaro’s father dreams of escaping the vicious
cycles of village life, and his various schemes
throw his family into turmoil and exultation
by turns. He decides to become a boxer, and
takes on the nickname of Black Tyger. He
plans to become a politician and attracts a
motley crew or beggars into his entourage. In
this mix, Okri adds other larger-than-life
characters: the village blind man who can see
when he wants to and plays horrific music on
his accordion; the photographer who delights
the villagers with his ability to memorialize
local events on film, and incurs the wrath of
authorities for the same reason; and Madame
Koto, the Rubenesque proprietor of a local bar
and brothel whose knack for business and
friends in high places make her the most
powerful person in the neighborhood.
Okri's story is dark and often tragic, but he
adds touches of humor and color at key
moments. For example, here is an incantation
delivered by a herbalist who promises that
Madame Koto’s new car will bring “prosperity
[and] plenty of money,” then continues:
Anyone who thinks evil of you, may this car
run them over in their sleep. This car will
hunt out your enemies, pursue their bad
spirits, grind them into the road. Your car
will drive over fire and be safe. It will drive
into the ocean and be safe. It has friends in
the spirit world. Its friend there, a car just
like this one, will hunt down your enemies.
They will not be safe from you. A bomb will
fall on this car and it will be safe. I have
opened the road for this car. It will travel all
roads. It will arrive safely at all destinations.
Perhaps the Detroit car makers would be in
better shape if they included this blessing as a
standard feature on all models. Who needs
OnStar or Geico, when you have spirits from
the otherworld looking out for your vehicle?
The Famished Road takes on the luster of
myth at its opening, then shifts between
fantasy and realism through most of its
chapters. But at the conclusion, Okri adopts a
visionary tone. Azaro’s father recovers from a
long trance-like sleep with mystical
proclamations of the world to come. He
announces: “Wars are not fought on
battlegrounds but in a space smaller than the
head of a needle. We need a new language to
talk to one another. Inside a cat there are
many histories, many books. When you look
into the eyes of dogs strange fishes swim in
your mind. All roads lead to death, but some
roads lead to things which can never be
finished.”
As this mind-boggling litany suggests, The
Famished Road is not your typical book.
Although almost the entire action of the story
transpires in a small, impoverished village,
Ben Okri has overlaid a whole world (and
otherworld) on to this modest setting. Amidst
a literary culture in which fantasy and
realism, myth-making and myth-destroying,
are often seen as incompatible approaches,
this blurring of the boundaries is both
pleasing and edifying.