Here’s a thread for forgotten or obscure books, books too bizarre and weird to make it into the traditional canon. John Ashbery has called these kind of books “The Other Tradition”, meaning books
with small groups of enthusiasts–mainly other writers–that were ignored or misunderstood when published but have since gotten a reputation through word-of-mouth. Jim Thompson, Cormac McCarthy and William Faulkner all had their books out of print for years until critics and fans championed their work and brought it into the mainstream. There’s a paradox here: the “Other Traditon” can become, over time, the Tradition. In fact, the formerly obscure writers that Ashbery championed–such as Raymond Roussel and Jane Bowles–have now, thanks mainly to him, become required reading at colleges.
THE THIRD POLICEMAN by Flann O’Brien-- This unforgettable book, unlike anything I’ve ever read, was esteemed by Beckett and Joyce, among others, but was ignored when it was first published, mainly because it was about fifty years ahead of it’s time–the surrealist techniques O’Brien used are now commonplace in the work of contemporary writers like Aimee Bender. O’Brien creates a completely self-contained world–mysterious and utterly bizarre. Basically it involves a narrator who may or not have been killed at the beginning of the book and spends the rest of the time travelling through a limbo-like world containing a single road, a two-dimensional police station, his bicycle, and two policeman who prepare him for an execution that never comes. They decide, instead, to hang his bicycle.
ENGLISH AS SHE IS SPOKE–by Pedro Carolino–In 1883 the Potrugese traveller Pedro Carolino decied to write an english phrasebook. One problem: he didn’t speak english. The result is an unintentionally hilarious compendium of phrases and “idiotisms” that Carolino invites his readers to use when travelling in America. When hunting, for example: “Let aim it! Let make fire him!” The most hysterical book I think I’ve ever read. Mark Twain was a huge fan of the book, writing in his introduction to one edition: “Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book; nobody can imitate it successfully…it is perfect.”
MY SECRET LIFE by Anonymous–If you think you know Victorian society–their supposed prudishness and excessive politesse as depicted in Edith Wharton’s novels and Merchant/Ivory films–you need to read this. No one has been able to identify the author of this diary–he goes only by the name “Walter” and he seems to have been a english gentleman of some means who lived in the late 19th century. What he records in is diary is an unbelievable record of sexual conquest and brutal exploitation of pretty much every girl who crosses his path. He paints an unfamiliar picture of Victorian society --oversexed and with instances of casual brutality–that completely belies the cliches most of us have been brought up to believe accurately represented “The Age of Innocence”.
I’ve mentioned this one before and so far haven’t found any takers for it :
Ancient Lights by Davis Grubb. Grubb was a wonderful writer who also wrote the book “The Night of the Hunter.” “Ancient Lights” features the story of Sweeley Leach, possibly the last incarnation of Jesus Christe and his wildly uninhibited daugher Fifi as they plan and reap the aftershocks of the Great Bank Unrobbery. The book was written after Grubb found out that he was dying from an inoperable and incurable cancer. Its writing has been likened to a skydiver who discovers that his parachute is not going to open, but instead of resigning himself to death, does every trick he can possibly think of on his way down. It is an extraordinary book and might truly make you cry tears of joy at the end.
The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic. It’s about a minister moving into a new town, its inhabitants and their progressive ways making him question his beliefs and ideals. He gets carried away with these new ideas, essentially abandoning his old ones without really understanding the new ones. The results aren’t pretty, as those he seeks to emulate are put off by his feigned worldliness, while those who come from his old world (namely, his wife) are hurt by his rash actions based on ill-conceived notions of these new ideas.
I think that this novel would be more well known if Frederic had a longer career and a larger canon. Unfortunately, he died young, right when his literary career was taking off.
It’s considered a “classic”, but I have met few people who have heard of it, and fewer who have actually read it. Unlike the OP’s mention of books that were ignored or misunderstood when published, Theron Ware was actually very popular when it was published. Yet despite its popularity then and its current “classic” status, most people don’t know about it.
My pick is another canonized, but little-read classic – the epic / romance / fantasy / satire Orlando Furioso, written in the early sixteenth century by Ludovico Ariosto (and wittily translated by Guido Waldman). Readers who know a little bit about medieval romances will appreciate this book more, as it’s an absolutely hilarious send-up of them, but it’s also immensely readable on its own terms.
In theory, the heroes are Charlemagne and his knights reconquering Spain from the Moors – except the Moors aren’t particularly bad, the Christians aren’t particularly good, and all of them spend most of their time doing everything except what they’re supposed to. My favorite episode concerns a guy named Astolfo, who gets hold of a hippogriff (just like the one in Harry Potter) and decides to head off on a world tour without telling anyone. His travels eventually take him to Hell (which he wanders into rather casually, as a tourist, but decides it’s too hot and smoky), the Moon, and finally Paradise – where he meets St. John, who comes very, very close to admitting the Bible is a work of fiction. (Ariosto was a man ahead of his time; another narrative thread concerns a romance between a Muslim knight and a Christian warrior woman which ends happily for all concerned.)
Aside from Shakespeare, it’s probably the best book to come out of the Renaissance – skeptical, irreverent, imaginative, philosophical, and surprisingly touching.
Dang! Fretful Porpentine beat me to it.
“Orlando Furioso” is a great book. I read the Guido Waldman translation too.
My favorite story is about the handsome king and the handsome brother of one of his courtiers. It’s a long, but very funny, story.
My nomination is “Njal’s Saga”.
Njal’s Saga is a fascinating Icelandic saga about Njal and his family. The setting is Iceland, circa 1000 A.D. The style is very matter of fact, spare, and easy to read. No flowery language in that one.
A masterpiece, though surely At Swim-Two-Birds is the more bizarre.
Haven’t read it, but I sort of recommend Ian Gibson’s The Erotomaniac (Faber and Faber, 2001) on the subject. While I’m not convinced by Gibson’s identification of him as “Walter” and hence the writer of My Secret Life, it’s an interesting biography of Henry Spencer Ashbee, the great collector of Victorian pornography.
Interesting: James Blish used the name for the black magician central to his occult/SF novel Black Easter. I never spotted the allusion.
My nomination: The Hole in the Zero: a remarkable piece of experimental SF (review here) by the literary novelist MK Joseph. A hard-SF premise about a trip into non-space by a bickering group turns into an exploration of psychology, myth and the SF genre itself, as the characters interact and conflict in successive realities reflecting their own personalities.
> THE THIRD POLICEMAN by Flann O’Brien-- This unforgettable
> book, unlike anything I’ve ever read, was esteemed by Beckett
> and Joyce, among others, but was ignored when it was first
> published, mainly because it was about fifty years ahead of it’s
> time–the surrealist techniques O’Brien used are now
> commonplace in the work of contemporary writers like Aimee
> Bender.
Um, there’s something wrong with your description of the popularity of this book. O’Brien’s first novel, At Swim-Two-Birds, which was published in 1939, was popular among people like Beckett and Joyce. The Third Policeman, which was finished in 1940, couldn’t even find a publisher. Eventually O’Brien gave up and quit even trying to get it published. He told people that he had lost the manuscript. In fact, he just stuck it away and forgot about it. He died in 1966 and the novel was found among his effects. It was finally published in 1967. So, when it was actually published, it was immediately recognized as a first-rate novel. It’s more of a critical cult book than a really popular one, but in any case it’s not true that it was forgotten for the first fifty years after it was published.
I’ve read it and I moderately well liked it. It wasn’t really as funny as I had heard it was supposed to be. It’s a very clever, complicated novel, with all sorts of literary tricks going on, but it’s not the hilarious knee-slapper that I was lead to believe that it would be.
I first read this for a college course in fin-de-siecle Scandanavian literature, and I’ve never forgotten it. We had to read xeroxes of the pages of a 1910 British translation, but it’s recently been re-translated and reprinted by Northwestern University Press’s “European Classics” line.
First published in Norway in 1891, Weary Men is a novel written in the form of a diary about a man’s life, loves, religious and aesthetic beliefs, and the decline of European society. In line with the classic decadent novels of the period like A Rebours and Bruges la Morte, Weary Men goes beyond them in delving into the psychology of the protagonist.
There’s a very good web-site devoted to books of this ilk, called The Lost Club.
Man, if you’d told me that the Orlando Furioso would get two votes in the first five posts, I’d never have believed it. I fell in love with this one, impotent hermits and all, in high school.
I’d also nominate Machado de Assis’ The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas, aka Epitaph of a Small Winner. The title is descriptive, the tone cynical, sarcastic, but bemused, and the book is always entertaining. Truly amazing, when you consider that it was published in Brazil in the 1880s. Actually, I can recommend everything I’ve read by Machado de Assis, especially the two other best-known works, Quincas Borba and Dom Casmurro, with the possible exception of the somewhat melodramatic Helena.
It isn’t that obscure or weird, but it isn’t Western and therefore doesn’t tend to make it into the “cannon.” It is considered to be the world’s first novel.
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, by Thomas Hogg–linky
I really liked this one–deconstructs moral life in light of radical Calvinism–psychologically, what would you most want to get away with if you were saved for sure? Possibly the only really funny take on Calvinism from the early 1800s. It’s in the horror/gothic category.
Hey! I read an excerpt from that it “The Vintage Book Of Amnesia” (a book with a lot of good stuff in it- Phillip K. Dick, Jorge Luis Borge, Oliver Sacks- all on the subject of memory loss.) I’ve been meaning to look it up.
Ok- ** The Circus of Dr. Lao** by Charles G. Finney, 1935. Kind of reminds me of Something Wicked This Way Comes by even better. (I wouldn’t be surprised if Bradbury had read it.) Comes with a handy guide to the characters (“Luther: A voice not a face; likewise a harried homunculus; likewise ultimatly the owner of a fine statue.” “Yottle: An omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent lump of bronze.”) and a list of questions for discussion (“Was it a bear or a Russian or what?”) And did I mention the illustrations by Boris Arzybasheff?
Honorable mention: ** Revolt of the Angels** by Anatole France and The Fifth Queen by Ford Maddox Ford