Surrealism in Literature

Within my Disturbing Literature thread many of the interesting titles suggested have been works of surreal fiction though in accordance with the themes of disturbing books much of it has been of the grotesque, profane and depraved kind, but this has peeked my interest in wanting to explore more works of surrealism of both the depraved, and not depraved kind. In general I have always loved surrealism and so I would like to read more of it.

Not too long ago I read "The Street of Crocodiles" by Bruno Schulz and very much enjoyed it.

I am also a fan of Kafka and Haruki Murakami

And I very much enjoy books which deal with madness, delusions, and blurred lines between reality/dreams or reality/unreality.

So I am interested in suggestions for surrealistic fiction. I really like the bizarre and the strange.

I can't stand surrealism, and i'm including 'Alice in Wonderland' in that category :lol. I tried the 'Exploits of Dr. Faustroll', painful experience. Also 'Impressions of Africa' which i think was surreal as it was also quite painful ;) .
'Mount Analogue' isn't bad although unfinished.
My favorite though is 'The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien'. Which was awesome so maybe that doesn't count as surreal ;) . In fact i apologise if any or all of the above don't fit i'm not very good at categorizing literature.

Lol I loved Alice in Wonderland. I personally consider it surreal. I am not familiar with the other titles but I will look them up.

Yo, DM, I'm glad you started this thread as I love all things surreal, always have. Me and Dali, we'd have got along famously. :-0 Now, you mention Haruki Murakami; I stumbled across his name and works some time ago, and read about him, and have wanted to try on of his. Any recommendations? And as you say, well-written books and films which play on the distinction between madness and sanity, reality and unreality, are among my favorites. They open up space in the mind and allow for unusual perceptions and non-linear thoughts. I'm going to look up Bruno Schulz, too, and he better not be a pastry maker from Salzburg. :-0

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore are my favorites by Murakami.

Wind-Up Bird was the first I read and it blew me away. I absolutely loved it. It was so unlike anything else I have read.

A lot of writing which is not surreal in its entirety contains sections that could be described in that way. I see no reason why this would not be so and the reader can treat it like she treats the most rational and realistic mirror-to-the-day style and just ask herself: does this work. I agree about Alice. Several of the works of Gunter Grass are phantasmagorical to say the least. And even a novel like Nostromo has a section which has a surreal and strange atmosphere. The surreal was a literary style before Bunuel and company began using it in film.

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Originally Posted by ennison

A lot of writing which is not surreal in its entirety contains sections that could be described in that way. I see no reason why this would not be so and the reader can treat it like she treats the most rational and realistic mirror-to-the-day style and just ask herself: does this work. I agree about Alice. Several of the works of Gunter Grass are phantasmagorical to say the least. And even a novel like Nostromo has a section which has a surreal and strange atmosphere. The surreal was a literary style before Bunuel and company began using it in film.

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Yes I agree. There are many books which are not by nature surreal but have scenes of a surreal nature or seem to have an almost dream-like quality.

And I know Magic Realism has emerged as its own genre but from my point of view Magic Realism contains elements of the surreal.

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Originally Posted by Dark Muse

And I know Magic Realism has emerged as its own genre but from my point of view Magic Realism contains elements of the surreal.

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Have you read Borges?

Not yet but I do want to

What is surreal is what has no conclusion, is not complete, is a puzzle without an answer or otherwise a "thing" designed to befuddle the mind. In visual art you got Picasso drawings where people or objects are out of true perspective and sort of mixed up and not correct to reality. In literature surreal depictions are a bore for me as they are taxing on the mind to interpret and somewhat of a drain. I would like to sum up my view on what is surreal with this screenshot of a music video.

https://i.imgsafe.org/65af4c1.jpg

The Death Defying Pepper Roux should appeal to any Alice lover.

The French, oddly enough given their nefarious contact with Boileau, are the masters of this asphyxiating surrealism composed of unarticulated depths, of fragments of thoughts, of dead fetuses and decayed teeth. As Cioran said, ''Atrophie du verb'', it strikes me as uncannily appropriate. Oh, and let's not forget about Dada, which was Born within a French sphere of influence.

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Originally Posted by New Secret

https://i.imgsafe.org/65af4c1.jpg

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This picture ilustrates somehow this story by Cortazar:
http://southerncrossreview.org/73/axolotl.html

Alfred Kubin's The Other Side is pretty weird and fascinating.

The term "Surrealism" is always rather shaky beyond the true Surrealists of the early 20th century (mostly in France). Borges is perhaps closer to Magic Realism... but I'm not going to get into a semantic debate here. Writers/books that you might find have "Surreal" elements might include:

J.L. Borges (Start with Labyrinths if reading in English, Ficciones, and DreamTigers)
Julio Cortazar- Blow-Up and Other Stories, Hopscotch
Tomasso Landolfi- Words in Commotion and Other Stories
Italo Calvino- The Complete Cosmi-Comics, Invisible Cities, If on a winter's night a traveler..., The Baron in the Trees
Hermann Hesse- Steppenwolf
Nikolai Gogol- Short Stories (especially The Nose)
Mikhaíl Bulgakov- The Master and Margarita
Alejo Carpentier- Explosion in a Cathedral, The Kingdom of this World, Baroque Concerto
Augusto Monterroso- Complete Works and Other Stories
André Breton- Nadja
Comte de Lautréamont- Maldoror

There are also a good many works of poetry that might be deemed "Surreal" that I can suggest if interested.