Asking

[syrenatricksy]

You people are smart and well read; perhaps yous guys might have some suggestions to help me out. I'm trying to come up with novels, short stories, novellas, movies, plays, or poems that deal with the concept of reality. Examples would include The Matrix, Fight Club, Tom Stoppard's play The Real Thing, and Salvador Placencia's novel People of

Comments

[sauvagerie]

I don't know if "aggressively weird" = "deals with the concept of reality," but if so, then Beckett's Endgame comes to mind.

You could argue--if you wanted to push a bit harder--that Hamlet would fit, too, as he is always questioning what's real and what he should do about what he perceives. And for the relationship of fiction to reality, you have the play within the play.

[syrenatricksy]

Ah, I like this -- and your justification skills are wack, my friend. Wack!

[sauvagerie]

Wiggity wack?

[lizzy2150]

Is this for a class? If you don't mind using two Palahniuk books, his latest, Rant, would be perfect. And I'm no good with modernism, but here's some stuff:

Other Novels: Mark Danielewsky's House of Leaves would be perfect, but it's LONG. Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash or The Diamond Age would be good.

Short Stories: Almost anything by Jorge Luis Borges, though I especially like "Library of Babel" and "The Garden of Forking Paths"--his collection Labyrinths is really good. Also almost anything from Italo Calvino's collection CosmiComics--I've taught "A Sign in Space" before.

Memento's a great movie to show in a course like that, too, as is The Usual Suspects.

Hmmm. That's all I've got right now. If I think of anything else, I'll post it.

[syrenatricksy]

Ooh, I forgot all about Borges! And I'm woefully underread in the science fiction, so thanks for those, too.

Now, how I could've overlooked Memento is beyond me -- thanks muchly!!

[anonymous]

One Hundred Years of Solitude?

[syrenatricksy]

You know, I'm a dork. I own it, but have never read it! Thanks for the tip!

[lady_frolick]

First of all, I LOVE the Starlight Mints and I don't know anybody else who listens to them.

And I agree that modernism is perfect for your purposes:

Henry James' Turn of the Screw
Faulkner's Sound and Fury
Graham Greene's A Burnt Out Case
Ford Maddox Ford's A Good Soldier
Forster's A Passage to India

My focus on novels is showing. I'm sure there are a bunch of poems that would work too, but I can't think of one!

[syrenatricksy]

Oh, baby -- a woman who loves novels and listens to the Starlight Mints -- we have GOT to meet in person! And how on earth I could've overlooked the James story is ... well, shameful. It's a great suggestion, and still more shameful, I have yet to read the others. So thanks all the way around, Frolicksome One!

[lady_frolick]

I know, I can't wait to meet you at MLA!

But wait a minute, it's not A Burnt Out Case I was thinking of for Greene, but The Heart of the Matter. Both that novel and The Good Soldier have untrustworthy narrators, so the reader has to piece the action together. That's even more true for The Sound and the Fury, which has three untrustworthy narrators. I think Passage to India is perhaps the best in terms of reality, though, because the central event hinges on British/Christian, Hindu and Muslim clashing interpretations of reality. It's also a great read with a great movie.

And the subject of my second chapter, Jean Rhys' Wide Sargaso Sea, is also a great choice for you: more untrustworthy narrators with the effect of revisting a reified period in history, the emancipation of slavery in Jamaica, to say nothing of Jane Eyre! Good reality/fiction connection there.

Ooh, got to catch a plane to Michigan! Good luck--this is a great topic!

[salient73]

Vanilla Sky -- Think it was something like that

12 Monkeys -- Reality vs. Sanity a la Fight Club

À la folie... pas du tout (2002) ... aka He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not with Audrey Tautou -- Seriously. You have to watch this if you haven't seen it. Like "Fight Club" but with romance.

Jasper Fforde's "The Eyre Affair" -- Reality v. fiction

I'm sure there's some Lovecraft stories, but I can't think of anything right now.

[syrenatricksy]

I haven't seen the Audrey Tautou (which I now plan to rectify), but that did make me think of Amelie, which charms the pants off of me. Not literally. Well, maybe if I bring the DVD to Greece ... but I digress ...

And the Fforde choice is great! Thanks for these!

[salient73]

Just don't read the box or anything on the Tautou DVD. Just rent it or Netflix it and stick it in.