Surreal Literature

[ForrestJG]

After reading literature that reflects realistic life stories, or realistic epochs, I'm getting quite interested in surreal literature, expressing things you don't necessarily expect or showing absurd situations. Some of my favourite writers are Proust, Orwell, Lovecraft, Wells, Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle, but after reading some Kafka it seems like I've been missing out on something: an unbearable fear that will make me cringe thinking of the possibility that I may turn into a giant cockroach in the morning when I awake. I'm 16 years old so I haven't had chance to really broaden my knowledge on different authors and all their styles. I've heard Nikolai Gogol writes surreal tales, like The Nose but I'm wondering what to start out with. I'm just hoping that whatever I start out with will make me feel as if I'm living in a Salvador Dali painting.
What are perhaps the best surreal tales ever written?

[Desolation]

Nadja by Andre Breton
Surrealist Manifesto by Andre Breton
The Stranger by Albert Camus
Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller
Journal of Albion Moonlight by Kenneth Patchen
The Holy Terror by Jean Cocteau
Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine
Maldoror by Lautreamont
Molloy by Samuel Beckett

[TheFifthElement]

The Kangaroo Notebook: a Novel by Kobo Abe. Truly weird.

[Alexander III]

I think when it comes to surrealism/symbolism - prose was by far the weaker format, while in poetry it excelled.

I would say check our Rimbaud, particularly The Illuminations and A Season In Hell

Also there are Verlaine, Mallarme and De Nerva which were amazing too.

If looking slightly more modern I think Ezra Pound was the greatest child of the tradition of the symbolist french poets.

[Arrowni]

Well, poetry is superior to narrative so...

[Heteronym]

It's always disheartening to see surrealism being confused with "weird stuff," which is what you're talking about here, judging from your choices.

[Panglossian]

http://sarahbbc.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/invitation-to-a-beheading.jpg?w=261&h=400

[Desolation]

It's always disheartening to see surrealism being confused with "weird stuff," which is what you're talking about here, judging from your choices.

The request seemed more for literature showcasing absurd situations than for strict surrealist writings.

[stuntpickle]

http://sarahbbc.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/invitation-to-a-beheading.jpg?w=261&h=400

Although Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading is one of my favorites, I'm not sure it is the best introduction to Nabokov for a sixteen-year old. I think one can get easier access to some of the more fantastical, dreamlike and generally odd stuff (not necessarily "surreal" in the strict sense of the surrealist movement) from his short stories. I would recommend "Wingstroke," "A Visit to the Museum," "The Vane Sisters," "Scenes from the Life of a Double Monster," and "Lance." Then one can always give the novels a try.

[kinesj]

Liberty or Love! by Robert Desnos and Aurora by Michel Lieris are, off the top of my head, probably my two favorite surrealist novels. If you are looking for a book about surrealism Gerard Durzoi's History of the Surrealist Movement is quite good as well.

[Panglossian]

Although Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading is one of my favorites, I'm not sure it is the best introduction to Nabokov for a sixteen-year old. I think one can get easier access to some of the more fantastical, dreamlike and generally odd stuff (not necessarily "surreal" in the strict sense of the surrealist movement) from his short stories. I would recommend "Wingstroke," "A Visit to the Museum," "The Vane Sisters," "Scenes from the Life of a Double Monster," and "Lance." Then one can always give the novels a try.

Point taken. Although when I was 16 I was too busy smoking and drinking and doing dumb stuff, I wasn't pondering which surrealist novels I should be reading....

[Chris 73]

You might want to try Grace Krilanovitch's 'The Orange Eats Creeps', a stream of conciousness narrated by a drug addled girl who thinks she's a vampire. Not everyone's cup of tea but the prose is hypnotic.
Kelly Link's short story collection 'Pretty Monsters' is excellent as well. It is fantasy with a horror tinge and that might put some people off, but its their loss as she really is an excellent writer.

[Heteronym]

Read The Hearing Trumpet, a novel by an actual surrealist artist, Leonora Carrington. She sadly passed away this year, at the age of 94. Or read Chasm, by Dorothea Tanning, the 101-year-old surrealist artist.

[mal4mac]

Bulgakov's Master and Margarita - the devil comes to Moscow, this is weird stuff & surreal.

Kipling - "The Man Who Would be King" and other short stories. These are reality based, but when that reality involves some of the strangest places & people in 19th century India, they are often surreal (bizarre, dreamlike,...)! He's very much in the Orwell, Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle tradition. Note - there are no talking animals involved, this isn't kid's stuff :)

[itstito]

Albert Camus's The Stranger comes to mind, although I don't know if it is strictly what you'd call surreal literature. Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore was also a very strange, but wonderful read. Unfortunately, The Wind Up Bird Chronicle seems to be a little too similar for my tastes, although it came before.

[itstito]

Also, Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury.

[Panglossian]

http://shewalkssoftly.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/english-are-they-human-renier.jpg?w=250&h=380

[Big Dante]

Slaughterhouse 5, one of my favourites. I'm sixteen as well, read it this year and love it. It's science fiction side surely appealed to me yet it had the surreal experience combined with the hard reality or war and relationships all merged together with a touch of comedy.