Loved itIt's one of the strangest novels I've read. A dream within a dream, literally. Incredibly original. Better than food. Solid four out of five coffees. I recommend it.
The Golem (1928)
Others: Positive A masterpiece of surreal fantasy. The protagonist, called Athanasius Pernath is flung from the present, to the past, from one nightmare situation where the characters he meets have no link with anyon else. Underlying all the surface panic is a decades-old tragedy, followed by a present-day one. Kafka and Meyrink were contemporaries in the same city, and both possessed the gift of fantasy. It is not correct to say that Meyrink imitates Kafka. If anything, he outdoes Kafka in his bizarre surrealism
- ISBN:
- 9781873982914
- Length:
- 288 pages
Genres: fantasy
Lists: …
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Others: MixedIn the quiet suburbs, while Dorothy is doing chores and waiting for her husband to come home from work, not in the least anticipating romance, she hears a strange radio announcement about a monster who has just escaped from the Institute for Oceanographic Research... Reviewers have compared Rachel Ingalls's Mrs. Caliban to King Kong, Edgar Allan Poe's stories, the films of David Lynch, Beauty and the Beast, The Wizard of Oz, E.T., Richard Yates's domestic realism, B-horror movies, and the fairy tales of Angela Carter--how such a short novel could contain all of these disparate elements is a testament to its startling and singular charm.
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José Donoso
1973 · 438 pages · 3 reviews
Others: PositivePage 76-77 are missing from the online edition of this book.
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Also fantasy63%On the same reading list26%Better Than Food loved bothPersonalize your recommendations11%Against Nature
Joris-Karl Huysmans
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Others: Overwhelmingly positiveÀ rebours (French pronunciation: [a ʁ(ə).buʁ]; translated Against Nature or Against the Grain) is an 1884 novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans. The narrative centers on a single character: Jean des Esseintes, an eccentric, reclusive, ailing aesthete. The last scion of an aristocratic family, Des Esseintes loathes nineteenth-century bourgeois society and tries to retreat into an ideal artistic world of his own creation. The narrative is almost entirely a catalogue of the neurotic Des Esseintes's aesthetic tastes, musings on literature, painting, and religion, and hyperaesthetic sensory experiences. À rebours contains many themes that became associated with the Symbolist aesthetic. In doing so, it broke from Naturalism and became the ultimate example of "Decadent" literature, inspiring works such as Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). In his preface for the 1903 publication of the novel, Huysmans wrote that he had the idea to portray a man "soaring upwards into dream, seeking refuge in illusions of extravagant fantasy, living alone, far from his century, among memories of more congenial times, of less base surroundings ... each chapter became the sublimate of a specialism, the refinement of a different art; it became condensed into an essence of jewellery, perfumes, religious and secular literature, of profane music and plain-chant." (Wikipedia)
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On the same reading list56%Also fantasy33%Better Than Food loved bothPersonalize your recommendations11%Spinning Silver
Naomi Novik
2018 · 466 pages · 17 reviews
Others: Leaning positive"A fresh and imaginative retelling of the Rumpelstiltskin fairytale from the bestselling author of Uprooted, called "a very enjoyable fantasy with the air of a modern classic" by The New York Times Book Review. Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father is not a very good one. Free to lend and reluctant to collect, he has left his family on the edge of poverty--until Miryem intercedes. Hardening her heart, she sets out to retrieve what is owed, and soon gains a reputation for being able to turn silver into gold. But when an ill-advised boast brings her to the attention of the cold creatures who haunt the wood, nothing will be the same again. For words have power, and the fate of a kingdom will be forever altered by the challenge she is issued. Channeling the heart of the classic fairy tale, Novik deftly interweaves six distinct narrative voices--each learning valuable lessons about sacrifice, power and love--into a rich, multilayered fantasy that readers will want to return to again and again"--
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Seanan McGuire
2018 · 188 pages · 8 reviews
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Also fantasy79%On the same reading list16%Similar descriptionsPersonalize your recommendations5%Dream story
Arthur Schnitzler
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Others: PositiveLike his Viennese contemporary Sigmund Freud, the doctor and dramatist Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931) was a bold pioneer in exploring the dark tangled roots of human sexuality. Arthur Schnitzler is probably most famous for La Ronde, a play too scandalous to publish or perform in his own lifetime but whose daisy-chain of couplings inspired both Max Ophuls's classic film and David Hare's modernized version, The Blue Room, which played to sell-out audiences in the West End and on Broadway. Dream Story is an equally erotic work, in which a married couple are first traumatized and then achieve a new depth of understanding by confessing to each other their sexual fantasies, dream-like adventures and might-have-beens . . . Taking us on a guided tour of Vienna's seedy cafés, red-light district, decadent villas, hospitals and morgue, Schnitzler brilliantly uncovers the violence and depravity lurking beneath the surface of civilized society. Dream Story is the inspiration for Eyes Wide Shut, co-written by Stanley Kubrick and Frederic Raphael.
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Loved it