By Ted Gioia
An unexpected disclaimer is hidden in the small
print at the front of my edition of Like Water
from Chocolate, the debut novel by Laura
Esquivel: "The recipes in this book are based on
traditional Mexican recipes
and have not been tested by
the publisher."
Why shouldn't a novel double
as a cookbook? If a novel can
be in the form of a diary or
emails or an annotated poem
by a murdered academic,
what's wrong with adorning
a narrative with recipes for
chiles in walnut sauce, ox-tail
soup, and cream fritters? Didn't
Francis Bacon say that some
books must be tasted?
At first glance, the drama of this story
sometimes seems undermined by the recipes—
especially when emotionally-charged events are
interrupted with descriptions of how to boil
beans or spice chicken. Remember that
moment in the film Goodfellas where the drug-
dealing protagonist finds himself tailed by
a police helicopter, but still remembers to phone
his brother with instructions on how to make a
delizioso pasta sauce? Every chapter of
Esquivel's book includes at least one digression
of this sort, yet what would seem a clumsy
transition in another book eventually takes on a
ritualistic significance in this novel of food,
family and fiery affairs.
The old adage "you are what you eat" certainly
applies here. The heroine of our story, Tita de la
Garza, is an inspired cook, but her own emotions
are somehow transferred into the dishes she
prepares. When her tears are mixed with a
wedding cake, the guests are overcome with grief
and lamentations. When a thorn prick allows a
few drops of her blood to fall into a rose petal
sauce, her pent-up passion adds an aphrodisiacal
quality to the meal—inspiring Tita's sister
Gertrudis to run off with a soldier from Pancho
Villa's revolutionary band. No wonder the
publisher added its warning note!
As these incidents make clear, Esquivel has
embraced the tenets of magical realism in
crafting this immensely popular novel—which
sold close to five million copies in 35 languages,
and was turned into a 1992 movie, which became
the biggest-grossing Spanish-language film
released in the United States. Almost anything
can happen in this book. A woman can weave a
bedspread that covers three hectares, lovers can
set off a volcano with their coupling, and people
can give advice from beyond the grave.
Characters refuse to disappear in this novel. Tita
is berated and terrorized by her domineering
Mama Elena—who insists that Tita cannot marry
because of a family tradition which requires the
youngest daughter to take care of her aging
mother. When Mama Elena dies suddenly
midway through the book, readers may breathe a
sigh of relief for their henpecked heroine. Yet
the harridan soon comes back in ghost form, and
continues to nag and threaten just as she did
when she was alive.
At the outset of Like Water for Chocolate, Mama
Elena's intervention prevents Tita from marrying
her suitor Pedro. Pedro agrees to marry Tita's
sister Rosaura instead—he decides that this will
at least allow him to stay near to the woman he
loves. A hidden romance continues to blossom
between Tita and her brother-in-law, although
Mama exercises vigilance in trying to keep the
lovers apart. In time, Tita finds herself with a
second suitor, the older doctor John Brown—
who wants her to leave the de la Garza ranch and
marry him, and is indifferent to the objections of
Mama Elena.
Tita now needs to chose, between her options.
She can be wife, adulteress, or spinster—
depending on whose advice she takes. Will she
find love and fulfillment, or just pain and
frustration? This "love triangle" plot here
sometimes lapses into the conventional
elements of a supermarket romance book. But
Esquivel is unable to remain conventional for
more than a few pages at a time, and inevitably
the romances in this novel prove to be as
peculiar—and dangerous—as the cooking.
I could carp at many things in this tale. The
chronology is jarring, with a story that last 22
years fitting uneasily into twelve chapters named
after the months in sequence. The fireworks at
the conclusion almost literally enact the deus ex
machina ploy that Horace ridiculed back in the
days of the Roman Republic. The tone is often
more suited to a fairy tale than a novel. And yet
Like Water for Chocolate possesses an endearing
quality that both compensates for these
limitations and explains the tremendous appeal
of Esquivel's novel.
Reading this book, I was reminded again and
again of my own mother who, in the final days of
her life, put her waning energy into compiling a
cookbook of family recipes. She was more
focused on completing this project than on
anything she had done in years—and shortly
after presenting copies of the work to each of her
children, she stopped her cancer treatment and
died a few weeks later. Her family, her personal
story, and her legacy were inextricably connected
to the food she had prepared over a period of
decades. I sense something similar in this
novel. Esquivel is not just sharing a story here,
but something very deep and emotionally-
charged from her own most formative
experiences. Like guests at a banquet, we have
been invited to partake, and if you have any sort
of discernment, you can taste the love that went
into the recipe.
An unexpected disclaimer is hidden in the small
print at the front of my edition of Like Water
from Chocolate, the debut novel by Laura
Esquivel: "The recipes in this book are based on
traditional Mexican recipes
and have not been tested by
the publisher."
Why shouldn't a novel double
as a cookbook? If a novel can
be in the form of a diary or
emails or an annotated poem
by a murdered academic,
what's wrong with adorning
a narrative with recipes for
chiles in walnut sauce, ox-tail
soup, and cream fritters? Didn't
Francis Bacon say that some
books must be tasted?
At first glance, the drama of this story
sometimes seems undermined by the recipes—
especially when emotionally-charged events are
interrupted with descriptions of how to boil
beans or spice chicken. Remember that
moment in the film Goodfellas where the drug-
dealing protagonist finds himself tailed by
a police helicopter, but still remembers to phone
his brother with instructions on how to make a
delizioso pasta sauce? Every chapter of
Esquivel's book includes at least one digression
of this sort, yet what would seem a clumsy
transition in another book eventually takes on a
ritualistic significance in this novel of food,
family and fiery affairs.
The old adage "you are what you eat" certainly
applies here. The heroine of our story, Tita de la
Garza, is an inspired cook, but her own emotions
are somehow transferred into the dishes she
prepares. When her tears are mixed with a
wedding cake, the guests are overcome with grief
and lamentations. When a thorn prick allows a
few drops of her blood to fall into a rose petal
sauce, her pent-up passion adds an aphrodisiacal
quality to the meal—inspiring Tita's sister
Gertrudis to run off with a soldier from Pancho
Villa's revolutionary band. No wonder the
publisher added its warning note!
As these incidents make clear, Esquivel has
embraced the tenets of magical realism in
crafting this immensely popular novel—which
sold close to five million copies in 35 languages,
and was turned into a 1992 movie, which became
the biggest-grossing Spanish-language film
released in the United States. Almost anything
can happen in this book. A woman can weave a
bedspread that covers three hectares, lovers can
set off a volcano with their coupling, and people
can give advice from beyond the grave.
Characters refuse to disappear in this novel. Tita
is berated and terrorized by her domineering
Mama Elena—who insists that Tita cannot marry
because of a family tradition which requires the
youngest daughter to take care of her aging
mother. When Mama Elena dies suddenly
midway through the book, readers may breathe a
sigh of relief for their henpecked heroine. Yet
the harridan soon comes back in ghost form, and
continues to nag and threaten just as she did
when she was alive.
At the outset of Like Water for Chocolate, Mama
Elena's intervention prevents Tita from marrying
her suitor Pedro. Pedro agrees to marry Tita's
sister Rosaura instead—he decides that this will
at least allow him to stay near to the woman he
loves. A hidden romance continues to blossom
between Tita and her brother-in-law, although
Mama exercises vigilance in trying to keep the
lovers apart. In time, Tita finds herself with a
second suitor, the older doctor John Brown—
who wants her to leave the de la Garza ranch and
marry him, and is indifferent to the objections of
Mama Elena.
Tita now needs to chose, between her options.
She can be wife, adulteress, or spinster—
depending on whose advice she takes. Will she
find love and fulfillment, or just pain and
frustration? This "love triangle" plot here
sometimes lapses into the conventional
elements of a supermarket romance book. But
Esquivel is unable to remain conventional for
more than a few pages at a time, and inevitably
the romances in this novel prove to be as
peculiar—and dangerous—as the cooking.
I could carp at many things in this tale. The
chronology is jarring, with a story that last 22
years fitting uneasily into twelve chapters named
after the months in sequence. The fireworks at
the conclusion almost literally enact the deus ex
machina ploy that Horace ridiculed back in the
days of the Roman Republic. The tone is often
more suited to a fairy tale than a novel. And yet
Like Water for Chocolate possesses an endearing
quality that both compensates for these
limitations and explains the tremendous appeal
of Esquivel's novel.
Reading this book, I was reminded again and
again of my own mother who, in the final days of
her life, put her waning energy into compiling a
cookbook of family recipes. She was more
focused on completing this project than on
anything she had done in years—and shortly
after presenting copies of the work to each of her
children, she stopped her cancer treatment and
died a few weeks later. Her family, her personal
story, and her legacy were inextricably connected
to the food she had prepared over a period of
decades. I sense something similar in this
novel. Esquivel is not just sharing a story here,
but something very deep and emotionally-
charged from her own most formative
experiences. Like guests at a banquet, we have
been invited to partake, and if you have any sort
of discernment, you can taste the love that went
into the recipe.
| THE YEAR OF MAGICAL READING Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel |
Click on image to purchase
| The Year of Magical Reading (click here) |
| conceptual fiction Exploring the Non-Realist Tradition in Fiction |
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
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
Follow Ted Gioia on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/tedgioia
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Kundera, Milan
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Kunzru, Hari
Gods Without Men
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
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
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
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
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Smith, Cordwainer
Norstrilia
Smith, Cordwainer
The Rediscovery of Man
Stephenson, Neal
Snow Crash
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
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
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
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 Puzzle of Robert Sheckley
Links to related sites
The New Canon
Great Books Guide
Postmodern Mystery
Fractious Fiction
Ted Gioia's web site
Ted Gioia on Twitter
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
Disclosure: Conceptual Fiction and
its sister sites may receive review
copies and promotional materials
from publishers, authors, publicists
or other parties.
www.twitter.com/tedgioia
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
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
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
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
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Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Crowley, John
Little, Big
Danielewski, Mark Z.
The Fifty Year Sword
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
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Fifth Business
Delany, Samuel R.
Babel-17
Delany, Samuel R.
Dhalgren
Delany, Samuel R.
The Einstein Intersection
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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
Fuentes, Carlos
Aura
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gaiman, Neil
Neverwhere
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Grass, Günter
The Tin Drum
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The End of the Affair
Grossman, Lev
The Magicians
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The Forever War
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The Raw Shark Texts
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Light
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The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
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Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert
Time Enough for Love
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Winter's Tale
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Dune
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Practical Magic
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Brave New World
Keret, Etgar
Suddenly, A Knock at the Door
Kundera, Milan
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Kunzru, Hari
Gods Without Men
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The Dispossessed
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Left Hand of Darkness
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The Big Time
Leiber, Fritz
Conjure Wife
Leiber, Fritz
Swords & Deviltry
Leiber, Fritz
The Wanderer
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
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The Fortress of Solitude
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
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Magic for Beginners
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Doctor Faustus
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100 Years of Solitude
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Wittgenstein's Mistress
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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
Morrison, Toni
Beloved
Murakami, Haruki
1Q84
Murakami, Haruki
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the
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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
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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
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Smith, Cordwainer
Norstrilia
Smith, Cordwainer
The Rediscovery of Man
Stephenson, Neal
Snow Crash
Stross, Charles
Glasshouse
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
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Gulliver's Travels
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The White Hotel
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Warm Worlds and Otherwise
Tolkien, J.R.R.
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Updike, John
The Witches of Eastwick
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Mixed Men
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Slan
Van Vogt, A.E.
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Van Vogt, A.E.
The World of Null A
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Around the Moon
Verne, Jules
From the Earth to the Moon
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Journey to the Center of the Earth
Vonnegut, Kurt
Cat's Cradle
Vonnegut, Kurt
The Sirens of Titan
Vonnegut, Kurt
Slaughterhouse-Five
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Infinite Jest
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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
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Cloudstreet
Woolf, Virginia
Orlando
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The Bear Comes Home
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
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