Absurdist Fiction

Schwiegersohn seiner selbst sein? Der cholerische Majoratsherr Childerich von Bartenbruch sieht darin kein Problem. Überzeugt davon, der letzte in der Erbfolge der Merowinger zu sein, setzt der eingebildete Blaublüter aus Mittelfranken alles daran, die gesamte Familie in sich zu vereinen, verheiratet kreuz und adoptiert quer. Und dann ist da noch Professor Horn, der Psychiater des Wüterichs... Mit Sinn für Sprachwitz und ironischen Schmäh nimmt Doderer den Absolutheitsanspruch der Wissenschaften auf die Schippe und frönt seinem Faible für skurrile Figuren.

"Nous avions deux sacoches d'herbe, soixante-quinze pastilles de mescaline, cinq feuilles d'acide-buvard carabiné, une demi-salière de cocaïne, et une galaxie complète et multicolore de remontants, tranquillisants, hurlants, désopilants... sans oublier un litre de tequila, un litre de rhum."

An anthropologist and his daughter travel to Kermunkachunk, the capitol of Chalazia, to conduct research for an ethnography on the Chalazian Mafia Faction (a splinter group of the Chalazian Children's Theater). The book takes place over the course of a night at the Bar Pulpo, Kermunkachunk's #1 spoken-word karaoke bar, where conversations are actually being read from multiple karaoke screens arrayed around the barroom. Moreover, it's Thursday, "Father/Daughter Nite", when the bar is frequented by actual fathers and daughters as well as couples cosplaying fathers and daughters.

This ingenious novel is presented as a chronicle of an island from medieval to modern times. The island is not on the map, but it is real beyond doubt. It cannot be found in history books, yet the events are painfully recognizable. The monastic chroniclers dutifully narrate events they witness. The entries mostly seem objective, but at least one monk simultaneously drafts and hides a "true" history, to be discovered centuries later. And why has someone snipped out a key prophesy about the island's fate?

For Jim Nashe, it all started when he came into a small inheritance and left Boston in pursuit of a "life of freedom." Careening back and forth across the United States, waiting for the money to run out, Nashe met Jack Pozzi, a young man with a temper and a plan. With Nashe's last funds, they entered a poker game against two rich eccentrics, "risking everything on the single blind turn of a card."

Jonathan Abernathy is a self-proclaimed loser . . . he’s behind on his debts, has no prospects, no friends, and no ambitions. But when a government loan forgiveness program offers him a literal dream job, he thinks he’s found his big break. If he can appear to be competent at his new job, entering the minds of middle-class workers while they sleep and removing the unsavory detritus of their waking lives from their unconscious, he might have a chance at a new life. As Abernathy finds his footing in this new role, reality and morality begin to warp around him.

"Si un invité meurt inopinément chez vous, ne prévenez surtout pas la police. Appelez un taxi et dites-lui de vous conduire à l'hôpital avec cet ami qui a un malaise. Le décès sera constaté en arrivant aux urgences et vous pourrez assurer, témoin à l'appui, que l'individu a trépassé en chemin. Moyennant quoi, on vous fichera la paix..."

In this fantastically macabre tale, the separate halves of a nobleman split in two by a cannonball go on to pursue their own independent adventures. In a battle against the Turks, Viscount Medardo of Terralba is bissected lengthwise by a cannonball. One half of him returns to his feudal estate and takes up a lavishly evil life. Soon the other, virtuous half appears. The two halves become rivals for the love of the same woman, fight a bloody duel, and achieve a miraculous resolution.

Awarded a three-month stipend to travel and work, a Swedish writer flies to Madrid, where in a bar she meets a man with an extraordinary story to tell. In exchange for somewhere to sleep and to hide out for a few days, he is willing to tell her the whole astonishing tale. What follows is an account of fantastic proportions and ingredients: the existence of a shadowy Internet TV show with a certain morality clause, a threat to the storyteller's life, a diabolical nun, and the story of a girl with a missing left thumb.

Björn is a compulsive, meticulous bureaucrat who discovers a secret room at the government office where he works—a secret room that no one else in his office will acknowledge. When Björn is in his room, what his co-workers see is him standing by the wall and staring off into space looking dazed, relaxed, and decidedly creepy. Björn’s bizarre behavior eventually leads his co-workers to try and have him fired, but Björn will turn the tables on them with help from his secret room.

De Belleville à Marne-la-Vallée, une bande d'enfants part en croisade pour mettre le feu à Eurodisney. Bienvenue aux avants-postes de la Révolution, menée par la lecture engagée, poétique et militante d'Aloïse Sauvage. Elle est née à l'Orée du bois, une cité réduite à néant par les bulldozers des médias et de la finance. Hantée par les ruines de son Eden foiré, elle a rejoint la commune solidaire à Belleville, où l'on s'organise et lutte en marge du système répressif. Elle, c'est Fi. Quarante piges à tenter de trouver de la beauté dans ce monde fatal : Fi est un chaos de fils et d'aiguilles, de coutures impossibles.

A surrealist story of mourning and messiahs, deserts and droughts, cowboys and junkies, miracles and mass hysteria, the lure of despair and the solace of friendship. Peter Mendelsund's Weepers is a novel for this age: our age of anesthesia and anger.

पादण्यासारख्या नैसर्गिक क्रियेची गंमतीशीर धम्माल गोष्ट!

Billy Boustany uncovers a mystery that transforms his sleepy midwestern city into a vibrant metropolis of iridescent skyscrapers, wild parties, and eccentric characters. He has the adventure of a lifetime, but it comes with a perilous secret. When Billy shares his discovery with his college student daughter, they explore together until they reach a magnificent city of Native Americans at an ancient site. However, they also encounter a formidable foe—the Knights, a secret society bent on keeping outsiders away.

Un comune impiegato si risveglia una mattina con le gambe ricoperte da germogli di ravanello giapponese, il daikon. In preda al panico, si rivolge a una clinica dermatologica, dove viene operato d'urgenza da una misteriosa equipe medica. Mentre è ancora sotto anestesia, decidono di trasferirlo in un limbo al confine tra i due mondi... Il malcapitato protagonista inizia così il suo incredibile viaggio nel sottosuolo, a bordo di un avveniristico lettino d'ospedale in grado di essere mosso dalla forza del pensiero.

Великий роман главного литературного мистика и одно из самых проникновенных философских произведений ХХ века. Некий К. прибывает в Деревню, чтобы занять должность землемера. Вот только в Замок его не пускают, в Деревне не принимают, и домой он вернуться тоже не может. Мир вокруг превращается в лабиринт абсурда: дороги испаряются, люди ведут себя странно, время будто бы замедляет свой ход. Чтобы двери Замка наконец-то открылись, К. должен разобраться в местной бюрократии и пройти все необходимые инстанции. Есть нюанс — все в деревне знают, что просто так в Замок попасть невозможно, но никто не знает, откуда нужно начать.

Thoroughly absurd and yet all-too-real, My Way to Canossa follows four journeys that re-imagine the Middle Ages amid the political and technological changes of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. It isn't an historical novel. It's an exploration of how the present uses the past.

In this bold and brilliant short work of experimental fiction by the author of Grief Is the Thing with Feathers and Lanny, Max Porter inhabits Francis Bacon in his final moments, translating into seven extraordinary written pictures the explosive final workings of the artist's mind. Writing as painting rather than about painting, Porter lets the images he conjures speak for themselves as they take their revenge on the subject who wielded them in life.

Muchas son las razones que hacen de "El Tercer Policía" una novela singular. El título del libro se refiere a un misterioso personaje que posee las llaves para escapar de una serie de extraños sucesos que se irán repitiendo a lo largo de la narración. En su alucinante recorrido por parajes del todo extravagantes, nuestro protagonista—que no puede recordar su nombre—tropezará con edificios bidimensionales, bicicletas altamente sexuales, toneladas de ómnium y un científico loco llamado de Selby dispuesto a demostrar que la tierra no es esférica sino "asalchichada".

Where were you when you first heard President Kennedy had been shot? This is a question most people can answer, even if the answer is "I wasn't born yet." In this epic novel, David Bowman makes the strong case that the shooting on November 22nd, 1963 was the defining turning point that catapulted the world into an entirely new stratosphere. It was the second big bang. Written with an almost documentary film like intensity, Big Bang is a posthumous work from the award-winning author of Let the Dog Drive. A riotous account of a country, perhaps, at the beginning of the end.