by Ted Gioia
In the aftermath of World War II, Oskar
Matzerath—the diminutive protagonist of Günter
Grass's The Tin Drum—embarks on an intense
program of self-improvement. "I educated myself
at almost no cost in the company of thousands
determined to learn, to make up for the education
they'd missed, took courses in night school,
…discussed collective guilt with Catholics and
Protestants, shared that guilt with all who thought:
Let’s get it over with now, be done with it, and
later, when things get better, there'll be no need to
feel guilty."
Alas, novelist Grass might
have done better to follow
this same approach. Instead
Grass waited until 2006
before revealing that, more
than a half-century earlier,
he had been a member of
the Waffen-SS, a military
branch under the direct
control of the Nazi Party.
Shockwaves reverberated
throughout the literary
world in response to Grass's
admission—previously readers had assumed that
Grass, only 17 when the war ended, had been too
young to serve as an active participant. Yet the
novelist now explained that he had attempted
unsuccessfully to enlist in the U-boat fleet at age 15,
was drafted into the Waffen-SS in 1944, and served
as an assistant tank gunner in a panzer division.
Some influential supporters rushed to the novelist’s
defense, asserting that a teenager's misjudgment
should not invalidate the achievements of a long
and illustrious career. "The man (and the writer) is
a model of soul-searching and national conscience,"
John Irving wrote at the time. "Grass is a daring
writer, and he has always been a daring man. Was
he not putting himself at risk—first at 15, then at
17? And now, once again, at age 79? And, once
again, the cowardly small dogs are snapping at his
heels." Yet many others were deeply disturbed by
the revelations. After all, Grass was not just an
illustrious writer, but one whose reputation was
built, in large part, on his zeal in berating and
holding up to derision those who refused to take
full ownership for Germany's Nazi past.
In the words of journalist Joachim Fest, Grass had
"set himself up as a moral authority, a rather smug
one"—a stance that not only sold books, and gained
him renown, but earned Grass a Nobel Prize for
literature in 1999. In granting the award, the
Swedish Academy specifically cited Grass’s courage
in "recalling the disavowed and the forgotten: the
victims, losers and lies that people wanted to forget
because they had once believed in them." After the
revelations of 2006, these words became imbued
with unintentional irony.
How does Grass’s complicity impact our
interpretation of The Tin Drum, the caustic 1959
novel that serves as the cornerstone of his oeuvre?
If anything, our understanding of Grass past
intensifies the reading experience. The distance
between author Günter and protagonist Oskar is
diminished, and the rapier wit of the writer takes on
the added edge—whether deliberately or
unwittingly, who can tell?—of self-criticism. A
novel that bravely bridged the gap between personal
responsibility and collective responsibility, takes on
the overtones of a forced confession.
If Grass had been looking for a protagonist to cast
shame and derision on the German mindset of the
first half of the 20th century, he could have hardly
chosen a more fitting symbol than his tin drummer
Oskar. Was Oskar manly and proudly Aryan, a
fitting exponent of the master race? No, not in the
least. Oskar is a dwarf, but a peculiar one—his 37-
inch stature is the result of his own decision, at age
three, to stop growing. Moreover, Oskar's
intelligence is fully developed, but he pretends to be
an idiot, blabbering like a child and avoiding all
adult responsibility.
His own ethnic origins are uncertain—Oskar’s
prefers to accept his mother's Polish lover as his
'presumptive father', rather than her husband, a
staunch Nazi party member. But this, like much of
Oskar's worldview, based as much on personal
whim rather than actual evidence. The youngster's
one authentic passion is for his tin drum, given as a
gift on his third birthday and his inseparable
companion for most of the novel. Oskar has little
direct involvement in the war—although he
eventually joins a troupe of entertainers who
perform for the troops. In truth, he avoids
complicity of all kinds. And yet…
Bad things happen again and again to the people
surrounding little Oskar—mother, father and
'presumptive' father, friends, accomplices, lovers.
Often Oskar's responsibility is unclear, at best
indirect, yet he invariably plays some contributory
role in the downfall of those around him. Usually
Grass leaves it up to the reader to trace the
connection between cause and effect; Oskar
himself has little interest in probing his possible
culpability—a strange reticence given the analytical
zeal he applies in so many other aspects of his life.
After the end of World War II, Oskar decides that
it is time to grow up—but the way he does so is,
again, filled with symbolic resonance. When he
escapes as a refugee to West Germany, he puts on
additional height and bulk, and transforms himself
from a three-foot high dwarf to…a four-foot high
hunchback. Instead of true maturity, Oskar has
settled for a different kind of deformity. Around
this same time, he discovers that he can make a
good living performing on his tin drum—an
instrument that evokes intense memories among his
audience, and allows them to weep and shed the
pent-up tears that they have kept inside so long.
As this thumbnail summary makes clear, The Tin
Drum lacks a plot, at least in the familiar sense of an
unfolding drama with clear resolution. Grass
doesn't actually avoid grand historical events, but
he deliberately places them at the periphery of our
field of view—his novel is like a movie in which key
scenes take place in the background, while the
foreground is filled with banality and Felliniesque
excesses. It is all too fitting that, when Oskar is
finally held responsible for a despicable act, it is one
he probably didn't commit. The world of The Tin
Drum is, thus, not without its moralizing and
staunch defense of virtue—but these are invariably
sham, applied at the wrong time and in the wrong
place.
Grass compensates for the deliberate withholding
of dramatic incidents through the sheer audacity of
his imagination. The novel includes a number of
bizarre scenes, cinematic in approach, that will stick
in readers’ heads—although I wouldn't be surprised
if many of them would prefer, like the characters in
The Tin Drum, to forget such painful, unsettling
images. I call attention to: the crude fisherman
who uses a severed horse's head to catch eels; the
resulting self-abasement of Oskar's mother, who
commits suicide by eating the most disgusting fish
she can find; the conspiracy between Oskar and a
gang of hoodlums to conduct a parody of a
Catholic mass, with the dwarf playing the role of
the baby Jesus; the wounded Polish postal worker
forced to play cards as the blood is draining out of
his body. These rank among the most disturbing
and unforgettable scenes in modern German
literature, and have contributed not only to the
novel's fame, but also the outrage with which this
book was initially met.
I will leave it to others to judge Grass's degree of
culpability in the events of 1944 and 1945. I can’t
even begin to balance the personal role of the
teenager against the larger global influence of the
author. Does the latter mitigate the former? Does
the former invalidate the latter? But I do know that
any indictment others lay at the feet of Günter
Grass could hardly be as savage and unforgettable
as the one he has served up himself in this intense,
brilliant and deeply chilling novel.
Ted Gioia writes on music, literature, and popular culture.
His newest book is The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the
Repertoire.
In the aftermath of World War II, Oskar
Matzerath—the diminutive protagonist of Günter
Grass's The Tin Drum—embarks on an intense
program of self-improvement. "I educated myself
at almost no cost in the company of thousands
determined to learn, to make up for the education
they'd missed, took courses in night school,
…discussed collective guilt with Catholics and
Protestants, shared that guilt with all who thought:
Let’s get it over with now, be done with it, and
later, when things get better, there'll be no need to
feel guilty."
Alas, novelist Grass might
have done better to follow
this same approach. Instead
Grass waited until 2006
before revealing that, more
than a half-century earlier,
he had been a member of
the Waffen-SS, a military
branch under the direct
control of the Nazi Party.
Shockwaves reverberated
throughout the literary
world in response to Grass's
admission—previously readers had assumed that
Grass, only 17 when the war ended, had been too
young to serve as an active participant. Yet the
novelist now explained that he had attempted
unsuccessfully to enlist in the U-boat fleet at age 15,
was drafted into the Waffen-SS in 1944, and served
as an assistant tank gunner in a panzer division.
Some influential supporters rushed to the novelist’s
defense, asserting that a teenager's misjudgment
should not invalidate the achievements of a long
and illustrious career. "The man (and the writer) is
a model of soul-searching and national conscience,"
John Irving wrote at the time. "Grass is a daring
writer, and he has always been a daring man. Was
he not putting himself at risk—first at 15, then at
17? And now, once again, at age 79? And, once
again, the cowardly small dogs are snapping at his
heels." Yet many others were deeply disturbed by
the revelations. After all, Grass was not just an
illustrious writer, but one whose reputation was
built, in large part, on his zeal in berating and
holding up to derision those who refused to take
full ownership for Germany's Nazi past.
In the words of journalist Joachim Fest, Grass had
"set himself up as a moral authority, a rather smug
one"—a stance that not only sold books, and gained
him renown, but earned Grass a Nobel Prize for
literature in 1999. In granting the award, the
Swedish Academy specifically cited Grass’s courage
in "recalling the disavowed and the forgotten: the
victims, losers and lies that people wanted to forget
because they had once believed in them." After the
revelations of 2006, these words became imbued
with unintentional irony.
How does Grass’s complicity impact our
interpretation of The Tin Drum, the caustic 1959
novel that serves as the cornerstone of his oeuvre?
If anything, our understanding of Grass past
intensifies the reading experience. The distance
between author Günter and protagonist Oskar is
diminished, and the rapier wit of the writer takes on
the added edge—whether deliberately or
unwittingly, who can tell?—of self-criticism. A
novel that bravely bridged the gap between personal
responsibility and collective responsibility, takes on
the overtones of a forced confession.
If Grass had been looking for a protagonist to cast
shame and derision on the German mindset of the
first half of the 20th century, he could have hardly
chosen a more fitting symbol than his tin drummer
Oskar. Was Oskar manly and proudly Aryan, a
fitting exponent of the master race? No, not in the
least. Oskar is a dwarf, but a peculiar one—his 37-
inch stature is the result of his own decision, at age
three, to stop growing. Moreover, Oskar's
intelligence is fully developed, but he pretends to be
an idiot, blabbering like a child and avoiding all
adult responsibility.
His own ethnic origins are uncertain—Oskar’s
prefers to accept his mother's Polish lover as his
'presumptive father', rather than her husband, a
staunch Nazi party member. But this, like much of
Oskar's worldview, based as much on personal
whim rather than actual evidence. The youngster's
one authentic passion is for his tin drum, given as a
gift on his third birthday and his inseparable
companion for most of the novel. Oskar has little
direct involvement in the war—although he
eventually joins a troupe of entertainers who
perform for the troops. In truth, he avoids
complicity of all kinds. And yet…
Bad things happen again and again to the people
surrounding little Oskar—mother, father and
'presumptive' father, friends, accomplices, lovers.
Often Oskar's responsibility is unclear, at best
indirect, yet he invariably plays some contributory
role in the downfall of those around him. Usually
Grass leaves it up to the reader to trace the
connection between cause and effect; Oskar
himself has little interest in probing his possible
culpability—a strange reticence given the analytical
zeal he applies in so many other aspects of his life.
After the end of World War II, Oskar decides that
it is time to grow up—but the way he does so is,
again, filled with symbolic resonance. When he
escapes as a refugee to West Germany, he puts on
additional height and bulk, and transforms himself
from a three-foot high dwarf to…a four-foot high
hunchback. Instead of true maturity, Oskar has
settled for a different kind of deformity. Around
this same time, he discovers that he can make a
good living performing on his tin drum—an
instrument that evokes intense memories among his
audience, and allows them to weep and shed the
pent-up tears that they have kept inside so long.
As this thumbnail summary makes clear, The Tin
Drum lacks a plot, at least in the familiar sense of an
unfolding drama with clear resolution. Grass
doesn't actually avoid grand historical events, but
he deliberately places them at the periphery of our
field of view—his novel is like a movie in which key
scenes take place in the background, while the
foreground is filled with banality and Felliniesque
excesses. It is all too fitting that, when Oskar is
finally held responsible for a despicable act, it is one
he probably didn't commit. The world of The Tin
Drum is, thus, not without its moralizing and
staunch defense of virtue—but these are invariably
sham, applied at the wrong time and in the wrong
place.
Grass compensates for the deliberate withholding
of dramatic incidents through the sheer audacity of
his imagination. The novel includes a number of
bizarre scenes, cinematic in approach, that will stick
in readers’ heads—although I wouldn't be surprised
if many of them would prefer, like the characters in
The Tin Drum, to forget such painful, unsettling
images. I call attention to: the crude fisherman
who uses a severed horse's head to catch eels; the
resulting self-abasement of Oskar's mother, who
commits suicide by eating the most disgusting fish
she can find; the conspiracy between Oskar and a
gang of hoodlums to conduct a parody of a
Catholic mass, with the dwarf playing the role of
the baby Jesus; the wounded Polish postal worker
forced to play cards as the blood is draining out of
his body. These rank among the most disturbing
and unforgettable scenes in modern German
literature, and have contributed not only to the
novel's fame, but also the outrage with which this
book was initially met.
I will leave it to others to judge Grass's degree of
culpability in the events of 1944 and 1945. I can’t
even begin to balance the personal role of the
teenager against the larger global influence of the
author. Does the latter mitigate the former? Does
the former invalidate the latter? But I do know that
any indictment others lay at the feet of Günter
Grass could hardly be as savage and unforgettable
as the one he has served up himself in this intense,
brilliant and deeply chilling novel.
Ted Gioia writes on music, literature, and popular culture.
His newest book is The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the
Repertoire.
| THE YEAR OF MAGICAL READING The Tin Drum by Günter Grass |
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 reviews)
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
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
Doctorow, Cory
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Donoso, José
The Obscene Bird of Night
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 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
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
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
Saramago, José
Blindness
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
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
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
Samuel Delany's 70th birthday
The Sci-Fi of Kurt Vonnegut
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Robert Heinlein at 100
A.E, van Vogt Tribute
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
Jospeh Peschel
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.
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Conceptual Fiction:
A Reading List
(with links to reviews)
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
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
Doctorow, Cory
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Donoso, José
The Obscene Bird of Night
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 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
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
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
Saramago, José
Blindness
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
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
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
Samuel Delany's 70th birthday
The Sci-Fi of Kurt Vonnegut
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Robert Heinlein at 100
A.E, van Vogt Tribute
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
Jospeh Peschel
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.