Unconventional vs. Experimental is such an apt way to characterize how we consider works. Thanks for sharing this excellent video on how we can classify experimental fiction. You mentioned several I had read and many more to explore. It was great to see David Peace in here more than once! I am firmly with you on House of Leaves being structured in such a way to mirror the themes it explores. Tristram Shandy is marvelous! Hope you’re having a nice weekend! Best, Jack
Only a bit into this, but already so fascinated (and my TBR list has pretty much doubled!) I am in awe of your knowledge on this topic! Totally agree with so many of the points here, especially around the term and how it feels quite limited- your insights put mine to shame! I found it so interesting to see 'Girl, Woman, Other' listed in a lot of places as 'Experimental Fiction'. I mean, I loved that novel, but it felt to me that people were saying that because a) it was split up into twelve characters, and b) there weren't any/many full stops. Also, on the 2010 Booker shortlist- I have read 4 of the 6 (and once the last two come in from the library, I will be on it). But I absolutely agree! I didn't get along with Tom McCarthy's 'C', but I adore 'Room' and 'In A Strange Room'! As much as I think 'The Finkler Question' wasn't too bad, it was far from my choice for the winner!
Ha I feel vindicated on the 2010 Booker! I did love "C" though it is not a Modernist book as some claim, but a book about Modernism. I rather hoped it would win. Are you aware of McCarthy's whole spoof "Necronautical Society" thing? I was lucky enough to attend one of the events.
I'm shocked to hear people put Girl, Woman, Other in that category 😳 Neither missing punctuation nor a novel told in intertwining 'short stories' is anything original or unconventional in my book. I'll have to check out your channel now..
@@MarcNash There were some moments of 'C' that I adored, and some moments where I was a bit lost, but I think I would like it on re-reading. And I didn't know about that- that sounds fascinating! What was the event like?
@@beatingaroundthebooks Thank you so much! Yeah, I thought it was quite surprising. I don't think it was everywhere, but it did throw me for a second. I think GWO is more playful than it is perhaps experimental (and that is part of what I love about it). I guess it brings up an interesting discussion about where we draw the line on experimental vs not, but it's fun either way when books push at the lines a bit.
@@BobTheBookerer Yes, I'm assuming this categorisation must come from people who don't tend to read anything experimental otherwise. But yes, it is indeed interesting to see how far writers can push the boat out before it stops being intriguing and starts alienating readers - which obviously will vary vastly from reader to reader.
Now you are doing public service broadcasting. Thank you. You are very lucid about all this. Experimental fiction is a daft label. Jane Austen was experimental at the time. But so many of these labels are problematic: literary fiction, science fiction. I suppose we need a shorthand and there is an urge to classify things. Your list of types is very helpful though.
And there was me thinking Jane Austen ought to be shelved in the chicklit section! I really believe we only need two labels, fiction and non-fiction. Or a third maybe for that which blurs the boundaries of the two, ie autobiography and memoir
Wow Marc! This was fantastic. We definitely are buying books in different places. 😂 I had not seen or heard of most of the books mentioned. I am really grateful though to your thoughtful perspective and so glad I was finally able to watch this!
So when I saw the length of this video, I thought to myself, "I'll have to watch this in segments." After I started it, however, I got sucked in and before I knew it, 35+ minutes had gone by, so I thought, "well, I guess I'll just finish it now." 🙂 Well played. A fascinating discussion.
Great primer on the subject with personal opinion, reviews, and recommendations. Also, a window into what I missed in reading _Three Dreams in the Key of G_
Fascinating discussion. As an English teacher and Scrabble player, I often reflect on the oddness and alien-ness of language... I didn't mean to describe your work as experimental in a pejorative way. I have similar problems with "abstract art" if a painting is on a canvas, to me that is no longer abstract, I prefer the terms figurative and non-figurative.
I actually agree with that wholly Jim. to me in literature there really is only fiction & non-fiction. Though memoir and autobiography somewhat blur the boundary even between those two
I finally got to this video! What a fascinating discussion. Interesting point re experimental fiction being "half-baked". I always took it in the more positive way of highlighting inventiveness and playfulness, but I agree with your reasoning. And I definitely agree with your take on unconventional vs experimental, although both are highly context-dependent definitions. I think as with literary fiction, it also has to do with author intention... and marketing, even, which is also murky territory. I appreciated the list of features (and recs!). I was interested in intertextuality, since to me it seems almost a feature that has only "recently" (XX century) become "experimental". Certainly many old classics are very intertextual, especially due to the classical/religious education that was prevalent for centuries. Perhaps it is a matter of intention, too? That modern/postmodern intertextuality is much more... intricately/playfully/self-consciously employed? Just something to consider. when one reaches for classics one finds everywhere. It seems when women started naming their character after themselves, though, it became autofiction. I think rigid definitions of genre (is experimental even a genre or a mode? an attitude?) will always be elusive, but it's interesting to consider it nonetheless. And definitely if someone is trying to achieve something unusual/strange/unconventional (hopefully not gimmicky!) in their narrative (because it seems that poetry gets to be experimental without further labels), they will have to categorize it as experimental in order to sell it, so. Sorry for the long comment, this was just such an interesting video!
I've not clicked on a video this fast in ages. I feel like a regular comment won't do - I need to sit down with a notepad and do some sort of running commentary on your thoughts, then go back and revise 😂 I was going to say basically the same thing about "unconventional fiction" being a much better term, although I've never understood "experimental" as being a pejorative. I'm not sure I agree with your take on experimental fiction only ever being experimental the first time it's done. Stream of consciousness is indeed rather common by now. This reminds me of our perception of it in Mrs. Dalloway which seemed entirely conventional to me, but of course that may not have been the case when it was published. Although comparing it to the last chapter of Ulysses, it was much more conventional than that, and it did come after... Definitely need to get Little Scratch! Do you feel like you've got to the bottom of all the different layout choices in House of Leaves? Re meta fiction (that's shorter than Barth): How do you feel about BS Johnson's Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry, where he comments on the futility of describing character's physical traits etc.?
Christy Malry was the fist Johnson I read and didn't think at the time it was experimental, just in Brecht-like fashion, the character addressed the audience directly and took us into his confidence. Maybe if I reread it now I might not hold the same view, knowing what I now know about Johnson. Re House of Leaves, has anyone ever got to the bottom of the different layout choices?
@@MarcNash Hmm, I remember passages where it isn't the character addressing the reader, but the writer inserting himself, commenting on writing itself. HoL: No, I don't think so, but you made it sound like you had more fully-formed ideas regarding the layout choices than I do. PS: I was very excited about Lanny because of the polyphony, but was left quite cold by it in the end.
Ah, that makes sense about experimental being used as a pejorative, somewhat. I hadn’t considered that. God, people talking about the premise of the book and calling it a conceit is such a large pet peeve of mine. I recently grabbed The Recognitions on sale. Much better cover than my bland typography one. Some absolutely fascinating books on here. I have always considered every first person story as an unreliable narrator. Which serves me well in a lot of mystery stories, since commercial fiction often likes to deploy it as the murderer. But I think it just can’t be reliable whatever. It actually makes it hard for me to suspend disbelief in a lot of things. Such as people having something like total recall or eidetic memory in memoirs or auto fiction or whatever. The book can be whatever it wants to be, just don’t tell me this is the conversation you had or how the street looked as if it was empirical or an active observer, etc. What a fantastic video. Very instructive and exciting and interesting.
Ah! Finally a companion to your excellent video on postmodernism! I do strongly disagree with your characterization of "experimental" as a pejorative word; to the contrary, I consider it a compliment. For their time, Madame Bovary, Moby Dick, In Search of Lost Time, The Waves were experimental and very successful experiments at that. As to "unconventional," I think it largely useless in this context: The really unconventional novel is a beautifully written and constructed novel , displaying a fine and perceptive intelligence, great imagination, and some deep understanding and maturity. Such novels are rare, very rare. Has America produced 50 such? One experimental novel you missed: Paul West's The Place in Flowers Where Pollen Rests. I owe you a book or two: I deleted at least eight books from my TBR after listening. .
Ha ha ha re your final sentence Mitch! I guess I'm approaching this as an author in the early 21st Century when I think the term has become meaningless. It can still be reasonably applied to earlier literature I guess. Yes unconventional doesn't help anyone, but I feel neither does experimental anymore and I was just trying to pint up the confusing of the one for the other. I've not heard of Paul West so will go look that up now. Many thanks.
"If someone does something radical...." So would "radical fiction" be the term that satisfies or does it invite confusion with the political? By the way, I think I must become a Markson completist. I recently read an essay by Stephen Moore on Markson's novels through Wittgenstein's Mistress that makes the earlier novels seem irresistible. Two detective novels with a Philip Marlowe type detective named Harry Fannin who, at the beginning of Epitaph For a Tramp, is curled up with a "gay little thing by Thomas Mann called the Magic Mountain," and in the second novel Fannin suggests to a suspect doing "a textual exegesis of the Cantos of Jayne Mansfield. We'll talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs, make dust our paper and with rainy eyes write sorrow on the bosom of the --" Going Down and Springer's Progress, Markson's next two novels, seem even more inviting and allusion laden.
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Unconventional vs. Experimental is such an apt way to characterize how we consider works. Thanks for sharing this excellent video on how we can classify experimental fiction. You mentioned several I had read and many more to explore.
It was great to see David Peace in here more than once! I am firmly with you on House of Leaves being structured in such a way to mirror the themes it explores. Tristram Shandy is marvelous!
Hope you’re having a nice weekend!
Best, Jack
As an almost total newbie to non-traditional prose styles, I found this quite enlightening and I’ve added a few new books to my want-to-read list.
Aw thank you, that is always so gratifying to hear
Only a bit into this, but already so fascinated (and my TBR list has pretty much doubled!)
I am in awe of your knowledge on this topic! Totally agree with so many of the points here, especially around the term and how it feels quite limited- your insights put mine to shame! I found it so interesting to see 'Girl, Woman, Other' listed in a lot of places as 'Experimental Fiction'. I mean, I loved that novel, but it felt to me that people were saying that because a) it was split up into twelve characters, and b) there weren't any/many full stops.
Also, on the 2010 Booker shortlist- I have read 4 of the 6 (and once the last two come in from the library, I will be on it). But I absolutely agree! I didn't get along with Tom McCarthy's 'C', but I adore 'Room' and 'In A Strange Room'! As much as I think 'The Finkler Question' wasn't too bad, it was far from my choice for the winner!
Ha I feel vindicated on the 2010 Booker! I did love "C" though it is not a Modernist book as some claim, but a book about Modernism. I rather hoped it would win. Are you aware of McCarthy's whole spoof "Necronautical Society" thing? I was lucky enough to attend one of the events.
I'm shocked to hear people put Girl, Woman, Other in that category 😳 Neither missing punctuation nor a novel told in intertwining 'short stories' is anything original or unconventional in my book.
I'll have to check out your channel now..
@@MarcNash There were some moments of 'C' that I adored, and some moments where I was a bit lost, but I think I would like it on re-reading.
And I didn't know about that- that sounds fascinating! What was the event like?
@@beatingaroundthebooks Thank you so much!
Yeah, I thought it was quite surprising. I don't think it was everywhere, but it did throw me for a second. I think GWO is more playful than it is perhaps experimental (and that is part of what I love about it).
I guess it brings up an interesting discussion about where we draw the line on experimental vs not, but it's fun either way when books push at the lines a bit.
@@BobTheBookerer Yes, I'm assuming this categorisation must come from people who don't tend to read anything experimental otherwise. But yes, it is indeed interesting to see how far writers can push the boat out before it stops being intriguing and starts alienating readers - which obviously will vary vastly from reader to reader.
Now you are doing public service broadcasting. Thank you. You are very lucid about all this. Experimental fiction is a daft label. Jane Austen was experimental at the time. But so many of these labels are problematic: literary fiction, science fiction. I suppose we need a shorthand and there is an urge to classify things. Your list of types is very helpful though.
And there was me thinking Jane Austen ought to be shelved in the chicklit section! I really believe we only need two labels, fiction and non-fiction. Or a third maybe for that which blurs the boundaries of the two, ie autobiography and memoir
Wow Marc! This was fantastic. We definitely are buying books in different places. 😂 I had not seen or heard of most of the books mentioned. I am really grateful though to your thoughtful perspective and so glad I was finally able to watch this!
Thanks Kelly!
this is so great and timely marc! there's limited content on experimental fiction so this is much appreciated. awesome vid. will be revisiting this.
Thank you Ruby :-)
Fantastic video.
Thank you very much 🙂
So when I saw the length of this video, I thought to myself, "I'll have to watch this in segments." After I started it, however, I got sucked in and before I knew it, 35+ minutes had gone by, so I thought, "well, I guess I'll just finish it now." 🙂 Well played. A fascinating discussion.
Ha thanks Courtney!
Great primer on the subject with personal opinion, reviews, and recommendations. Also, a window into what I missed in reading _Three Dreams in the Key of G_
:-)
Fascinating discussion. As an English teacher and Scrabble player, I often reflect on the oddness and alien-ness of language... I didn't mean to describe your work as experimental in a pejorative way. I have similar problems with "abstract art" if a painting is on a canvas, to me that is no longer abstract, I prefer the terms figurative and non-figurative.
I actually agree with that wholly Jim. to me in literature there really is only fiction & non-fiction. Though memoir and autobiography somewhat blur the boundary even between those two
Some of my favorite books showed up here and plenty of stuff I'll have to check out. Awesome!
Thanks Rowan! :-)
I finally got to this video! What a fascinating discussion. Interesting point re experimental fiction being "half-baked". I always took it in the more positive way of highlighting inventiveness and playfulness, but I agree with your reasoning. And I definitely agree with your take on unconventional vs experimental, although both are highly context-dependent definitions. I think as with literary fiction, it also has to do with author intention... and marketing, even, which is also murky territory.
I appreciated the list of features (and recs!). I was interested in intertextuality, since to me it seems almost a feature that has only "recently" (XX century) become "experimental". Certainly many old classics are very intertextual, especially due to the classical/religious education that was prevalent for centuries. Perhaps it is a matter of intention, too? That modern/postmodern intertextuality is much more... intricately/playfully/self-consciously employed? Just something to consider.
when one reaches for classics one finds everywhere. It seems when women started naming their character after themselves, though, it became autofiction.
I think rigid definitions of genre (is experimental even a genre or a mode? an attitude?) will always be elusive, but it's interesting to consider it nonetheless. And definitely if someone is trying to achieve something unusual/strange/unconventional (hopefully not gimmicky!) in their narrative (because it seems that poetry gets to be experimental without further labels), they will have to categorize it as experimental in order to sell it, so. Sorry for the long comment, this was just such an interesting video!
I've not clicked on a video this fast in ages. I feel like a regular comment won't do - I need to sit down with a notepad and do some sort of running commentary on your thoughts, then go back and revise 😂
I was going to say basically the same thing about "unconventional fiction" being a much better term, although I've never understood "experimental" as being a pejorative.
I'm not sure I agree with your take on experimental fiction only ever being experimental the first time it's done.
Stream of consciousness is indeed rather common by now. This reminds me of our perception of it in Mrs. Dalloway which seemed entirely conventional to me, but of course that may not have been the case when it was published. Although comparing it to the last chapter of Ulysses, it was much more conventional than that, and it did come after...
Definitely need to get Little Scratch!
Do you feel like you've got to the bottom of all the different layout choices in House of Leaves?
Re meta fiction (that's shorter than Barth): How do you feel about BS Johnson's Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry, where he comments on the futility of describing character's physical traits etc.?
Christy Malry was the fist Johnson I read and didn't think at the time it was experimental, just in Brecht-like fashion, the character addressed the audience directly and took us into his confidence. Maybe if I reread it now I might not hold the same view, knowing what I now know about Johnson. Re House of Leaves, has anyone ever got to the bottom of the different layout choices?
@@MarcNash Hmm, I remember passages where it isn't the character addressing the reader, but the writer inserting himself, commenting on writing itself.
HoL: No, I don't think so, but you made it sound like you had more fully-formed ideas regarding the layout choices than I do.
PS: I was very excited about Lanny because of the polyphony, but was left quite cold by it in the end.
Ah, that makes sense about experimental being used as a pejorative, somewhat. I hadn’t considered that. God, people talking about the premise of the book and calling it a conceit is such a large pet peeve of mine.
I recently grabbed The Recognitions on sale. Much better cover than my bland typography one.
Some absolutely fascinating books on here.
I have always considered every first person story as an unreliable narrator. Which serves me well in a lot of mystery stories, since commercial fiction often likes to deploy it as the murderer. But I think it just can’t be reliable whatever. It actually makes it hard for me to suspend disbelief in a lot of things. Such as people having something like total recall or eidetic memory in memoirs or auto fiction or whatever. The book can be whatever it wants to be, just don’t tell me this is the conversation you had or how the street looked as if it was empirical or an active observer, etc.
What a fantastic video. Very instructive and exciting and interesting.
Ah! Finally a companion to your excellent video on postmodernism! I do strongly disagree with your characterization of "experimental" as a pejorative word; to the contrary, I consider it a compliment. For their time, Madame Bovary, Moby Dick, In Search of Lost Time, The Waves were experimental and very successful experiments at that. As to "unconventional," I think it largely useless in this context: The really unconventional novel is a beautifully written and constructed novel , displaying a fine and perceptive intelligence, great imagination, and some deep understanding and maturity. Such novels are rare, very rare. Has America produced 50 such? One experimental novel you missed: Paul West's The Place in Flowers Where Pollen Rests. I owe you a book or two: I deleted at least eight books from my TBR after listening.
.
Ha ha ha re your final sentence Mitch! I guess I'm approaching this as an author in the early 21st Century when I think the term has become meaningless. It can still be reasonably applied to earlier literature I guess. Yes unconventional doesn't help anyone, but I feel neither does experimental anymore and I was just trying to pint up the confusing of the one for the other. I've not heard of Paul West so will go look that up now. Many thanks.
"If someone does something radical...." So would "radical fiction" be the term that satisfies or does it invite confusion with the political? By the way, I think I must become a Markson completist. I recently read an essay by Stephen Moore on Markson's novels through Wittgenstein's Mistress that makes the earlier novels seem irresistible. Two detective novels with a Philip Marlowe type detective named Harry Fannin who, at the beginning of Epitaph For a Tramp, is curled up with a "gay little thing by Thomas Mann called the Magic Mountain," and in the second novel Fannin suggests to a suspect doing "a textual exegesis of the Cantos of Jayne Mansfield. We'll talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs, make dust our paper and with rainy eyes write sorrow on the bosom of the --" Going Down and Springer's Progress, Markson's next two novels, seem even more inviting and allusion laden.
great video! kinda wish there were more than 1 latinamerican writer tho
Can you recommend some experimental writing from Latin America? I've just ordered two books from Chile, including Nona Fernandes.
You know it would be interesting to 'look' at a novel or a book of poetry created in stenography code.