By Ted Gioia
In 1961, C.S. Lewis attempted to nominate his friend
and fellow Oxford don J.R.R. Tolkien for the Nobel
Prize in literature. Recently released files from the
Nobel archive in Stockholm indicate that the jury
briefly considered Tolkien, before dismissing the author
of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with a terse
verdict: his books had "not in
any way measured up to story-
telling of the highest quality."
That same year, the judges also
considered and rejected Graham
Greene, Isak Dinesen, Robert
Frost and E.M. Forster—none
of whom would ever win the
prize. The award went instead
to Yugoslav writer (and civil
servant under dictator Tito) Ivo
Andrić.
I am no wide-eyed fan. Unlike most Tolkien admirers,
I did not read his books during my youth, and thus
encountered them with eyes that had already worked
their way through the major novels of Dostoevsky,
Proust, Tolstoy, Joyce, Kafka, Woolf, Dickens, James
and the other mainstays of highbrow literature. As such,
I chafed against the rococo elements in Tolkien's stories:
the stilted diction, the interminable journeys through
painstakingly described landscapes, and especially those
insufferable songs.
Clap! Snap! the black crack!
Grip, grab! Pinch, nab!
And down, down to Goblin-town
You go, my lad!
Clash, crash! Crush, smash!
Hammer and tongs! Knocker and gongs!
Pound, pound, far underground!
Ho, ho! my lad!
Etc. etc.
I have my gripes, in other words. And yet I must object
to the Nobel jury's glib dismissal. One might as well
put down Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes
stories or Lewis Carroll's Alice books for their
shallowness and contrivance. Such attitudes miss the
larger point: to create modern myth on such a large
scale and with such pervasive impact on the collective
consciousness places an author on the highest rank of
storytellers, no matter what judges and jury might say
to the contrary.
Tolkien's works have not only survived the changing
tastes of several generations, but they loom larger now
than ever. Peter Jackson's film trilogy of The Lord of
Rings (2001-2003) brought in a staggering $3 billion in
worldwide box office receipts, and 35 years after
Tolkien's death his estate generated $50 million in
annual earnings, placing the Oxford don right behind
Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley on the list of income-
producing dead celebrities. But Tolkien's impact can
hardly be measured in merely monetary terms. Has any
twentieth century author enchanted more people or
inspired more imitators? I doubt it.
Tolkien began work on The Hobbit in the early 1930s,
but the earliest roots of the work go back even further
—to the years of World War I, when he began
constructing imaginary languages and a related
mythology. This odd approach to writing fiction is
both revealing of Tolkien's mindset and helps explain
his work's lasting appeal. A certain ineffable richness in
the fabric of his novels contributed greatly to their
success—and this texture no doubt came from our
author's unusual determination to spend a couple
decades tinkering with his imaginary universe before
bringing it the attention of the public.
From this perspective, even the ingredients I least enjoy
about Tolkien—such as those godawful elven songs—
are essential parts of the recipe. In addressing a book
such as The Hobbit, one almost needs to adopt an
anthropologist's perspective. After all, we are not just
reading a story but immersing ourselves in a different
culture. As such, it's best to remember that the folk
songs that construct and celebrate the key meanings for
a society aren't always the tunes with the catchiest
melodies or the wittiest lyrics. The folk tales that
establish a group's literary culture aren't picked on the
basis of clever plot twists. Cultural resonance requires
more than wit or erudition, but rather a symbolic depth
and an archetypal reality. On those measures, Tolkien
is unsurpassed.
These deeper levels of signification allow Tolkien to
build his plot around mundane objects—a stone, a cup,
a ring. For another storyteller, these would be little
more than what screenplay writers call a MacGuffin, an
item sought by characters in a way that drives forward
the plot, but without much thought put into its essence
or attributes. It might be a Maltese falcon or a sleigh
named Rosebud or the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. But
Tolkien is less worried about plot than with the iconic
(in the original meaning of the word) and archetypal
nature of his imaginary world.
Of course, the idea of a mythic quest for a ring would
have been familiar to Tolkien's earliest readers—it
serves as a titular element in Richard Wagner's
magnum opus Der Ring des Nibelungen, completed only
a decade-and-a-half before Tolkien's birth. Tolkien
himself dismissed the connection—"Both rings were
round, and there the resemblance ceases," was his
rejoinder. Yet the connections between the two are
striking, with Tolkien less an emulator of Wagner and
more his mirror image. Witness the anti-heroic qualities
of the quest for Tolkien's ring, especially in The Hobbit
—where the hapless antagonists Bilbo Baggins and
Gollum could hardly provide a starker contrast with
the Wagnerian will to power of the famous opera cycle.
The best adjective Tolkien can offer in praise of the
hobbit Baggins at the start of his novel is "respectable."
When the wizard Gandalf shows up, "looking for
someone to share in an adventure," Bilbo responds:
"We are plain quiet folks and I have no use for
adventures." Gandalf eventually enlists Baggins help in
a quest to capture the treasure guarded by the dragon
Smaug. Along the way, the company encounters trolls,
goblins, giant spiders, wood-elves—familiar enough
from children's stories, but presented here in a manner
more reminiscent of an oral epic or Icelandic saga.
My favorite interlude in The Hobbit involves a less
spectacular conflict, the aforementioned contest over
the ring between Baggins and Gollum. Here Tolkien's
anti-heroic tendencies are most pronounced. Indeed,
the two combatants do not battle with swords or
daggers, clubs or spears, but simply with riddles.
This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountain down.
Bilbo Baggins is unable to answer this riddle, but when
he begs for more time-muttering "Time! Time!"—he
finds that he has provided the solution by the sheerest
luck.
No, one would not find that in Wagner—or even in
Narnia or at Hogwarts. And while Tolkien's legions of
imitators may have matched him dragon for dragon,
troll for troll, few can impart such fluency with
language and rustic charm into their adventure stories.
Reading his works, one is constantly reminded that
this author was imbibing Beowulf and the Kalevala while
others were immersed in pulp fiction potboilers.
Perhaps his genius lay in the simple realization that we
still crave myth even as we live in an age that insists on
rejecting it. So we shouldn't be surprised if his work
seems so different from other "genre" fiction—if only
because mythmakers always aim for something far too
large to be reduced to genre.
In 1961, C.S. Lewis attempted to nominate his friend
and fellow Oxford don J.R.R. Tolkien for the Nobel
Prize in literature. Recently released files from the
Nobel archive in Stockholm indicate that the jury
briefly considered Tolkien, before dismissing the author
of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with a terse
verdict: his books had "not in
any way measured up to story-
telling of the highest quality."
That same year, the judges also
considered and rejected Graham
Greene, Isak Dinesen, Robert
Frost and E.M. Forster—none
of whom would ever win the
prize. The award went instead
to Yugoslav writer (and civil
servant under dictator Tito) Ivo
Andrić.
I am no wide-eyed fan. Unlike most Tolkien admirers,
I did not read his books during my youth, and thus
encountered them with eyes that had already worked
their way through the major novels of Dostoevsky,
Proust, Tolstoy, Joyce, Kafka, Woolf, Dickens, James
and the other mainstays of highbrow literature. As such,
I chafed against the rococo elements in Tolkien's stories:
the stilted diction, the interminable journeys through
painstakingly described landscapes, and especially those
insufferable songs.
Clap! Snap! the black crack!
Grip, grab! Pinch, nab!
And down, down to Goblin-town
You go, my lad!
Clash, crash! Crush, smash!
Hammer and tongs! Knocker and gongs!
Pound, pound, far underground!
Ho, ho! my lad!
Etc. etc.
I have my gripes, in other words. And yet I must object
to the Nobel jury's glib dismissal. One might as well
put down Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes
stories or Lewis Carroll's Alice books for their
shallowness and contrivance. Such attitudes miss the
larger point: to create modern myth on such a large
scale and with such pervasive impact on the collective
consciousness places an author on the highest rank of
storytellers, no matter what judges and jury might say
to the contrary.
Tolkien's works have not only survived the changing
tastes of several generations, but they loom larger now
than ever. Peter Jackson's film trilogy of The Lord of
Rings (2001-2003) brought in a staggering $3 billion in
worldwide box office receipts, and 35 years after
Tolkien's death his estate generated $50 million in
annual earnings, placing the Oxford don right behind
Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley on the list of income-
producing dead celebrities. But Tolkien's impact can
hardly be measured in merely monetary terms. Has any
twentieth century author enchanted more people or
inspired more imitators? I doubt it.
Tolkien began work on The Hobbit in the early 1930s,
but the earliest roots of the work go back even further
—to the years of World War I, when he began
constructing imaginary languages and a related
mythology. This odd approach to writing fiction is
both revealing of Tolkien's mindset and helps explain
his work's lasting appeal. A certain ineffable richness in
the fabric of his novels contributed greatly to their
success—and this texture no doubt came from our
author's unusual determination to spend a couple
decades tinkering with his imaginary universe before
bringing it the attention of the public.
From this perspective, even the ingredients I least enjoy
about Tolkien—such as those godawful elven songs—
are essential parts of the recipe. In addressing a book
such as The Hobbit, one almost needs to adopt an
anthropologist's perspective. After all, we are not just
reading a story but immersing ourselves in a different
culture. As such, it's best to remember that the folk
songs that construct and celebrate the key meanings for
a society aren't always the tunes with the catchiest
melodies or the wittiest lyrics. The folk tales that
establish a group's literary culture aren't picked on the
basis of clever plot twists. Cultural resonance requires
more than wit or erudition, but rather a symbolic depth
and an archetypal reality. On those measures, Tolkien
is unsurpassed.
These deeper levels of signification allow Tolkien to
build his plot around mundane objects—a stone, a cup,
a ring. For another storyteller, these would be little
more than what screenplay writers call a MacGuffin, an
item sought by characters in a way that drives forward
the plot, but without much thought put into its essence
or attributes. It might be a Maltese falcon or a sleigh
named Rosebud or the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. But
Tolkien is less worried about plot than with the iconic
(in the original meaning of the word) and archetypal
nature of his imaginary world.
Of course, the idea of a mythic quest for a ring would
have been familiar to Tolkien's earliest readers—it
serves as a titular element in Richard Wagner's
magnum opus Der Ring des Nibelungen, completed only
a decade-and-a-half before Tolkien's birth. Tolkien
himself dismissed the connection—"Both rings were
round, and there the resemblance ceases," was his
rejoinder. Yet the connections between the two are
striking, with Tolkien less an emulator of Wagner and
more his mirror image. Witness the anti-heroic qualities
of the quest for Tolkien's ring, especially in The Hobbit
—where the hapless antagonists Bilbo Baggins and
Gollum could hardly provide a starker contrast with
the Wagnerian will to power of the famous opera cycle.
The best adjective Tolkien can offer in praise of the
hobbit Baggins at the start of his novel is "respectable."
When the wizard Gandalf shows up, "looking for
someone to share in an adventure," Bilbo responds:
"We are plain quiet folks and I have no use for
adventures." Gandalf eventually enlists Baggins help in
a quest to capture the treasure guarded by the dragon
Smaug. Along the way, the company encounters trolls,
goblins, giant spiders, wood-elves—familiar enough
from children's stories, but presented here in a manner
more reminiscent of an oral epic or Icelandic saga.
My favorite interlude in The Hobbit involves a less
spectacular conflict, the aforementioned contest over
the ring between Baggins and Gollum. Here Tolkien's
anti-heroic tendencies are most pronounced. Indeed,
the two combatants do not battle with swords or
daggers, clubs or spears, but simply with riddles.
This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountain down.
Bilbo Baggins is unable to answer this riddle, but when
he begs for more time-muttering "Time! Time!"—he
finds that he has provided the solution by the sheerest
luck.
No, one would not find that in Wagner—or even in
Narnia or at Hogwarts. And while Tolkien's legions of
imitators may have matched him dragon for dragon,
troll for troll, few can impart such fluency with
language and rustic charm into their adventure stories.
Reading his works, one is constantly reminded that
this author was imbibing Beowulf and the Kalevala while
others were immersed in pulp fiction potboilers.
Perhaps his genius lay in the simple realization that we
still crave myth even as we live in an age that insists on
rejecting it. So we shouldn't be surprised if his work
seems so different from other "genre" fiction—if only
because mythmakers always aim for something far too
large to be reduced to genre.
| THE YEAR OF MAGICAL READING The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien |
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
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
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
Disclosure: Conceptual Fiction
and its sister sites may receive review
copies and promotional materials from
publishers, authors, publicists or other
parties.
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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
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
Disclosure: Conceptual Fiction
and its sister sites may receive review
copies and promotional materials from
publishers, authors, publicists or other
parties.