What are some books that are entire puzzles in their own, on

>>9565983
My Twisted World

The other one in the meme trilogy
Commedia
Don Quixote

>>9565983
Lolita had a fuck load of allusions and references that seemed forced at times

>>9566000
Are you the one shilling for Lolita in every fucking thread? Fuck off you pedo.

>>9565983
I read Infinite Jest and don't remember half of these events even happening.

>>9566009
You have to read it at least three times to fully understand what Wallace is doing

>>9566005
No you fool it's an incredible novel. Do you think one person is shilling for the infinite meme as well?

>>9566040
>dude rapes an underage girl but is a Le Unreliable Narrador so he thinks she likes it
>incredible novel

>>9565983

Pale Fire is one of the ultimate puzzle novels, takes like 3 rereadings to get the most out of it.

>>9566068
You either haven't read it or are baiting

>>9566068
>(((underage)))

>>9566081
Joke is on you - it's both.

>>9566081
>anyone who doesn't like my story glorifying pedophilia is baiting
It's well-written mechanically, sure, but the story is crap. Unreliable narrators are a meme writers use when they're too inept to write a compelling story which is straightforward. They generally just confuse the audience for no reason to mask the writer's inability to write coherently.

Inherent Vice.

>>9566127
I was thinking about reading this. What hype can you feed me

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>>9566135
it's pynchon doing a light hearted stoner parody of the california noir novel. the plot feels made up as it goes and almost incidental.

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>>9566135
I rank Inherent Vice up with GR and MD. Read it as a puzzle book and you'll learn a lot about California and the 60s. People who think it's a simplistic, pointless stoner novel literally didn't map out the plot, chart the geography (terrestrial and aquatic), look up every song mentioned, and crosscheck the references to Journey Into the Mind of P.

I could give you a list of secondary reading material that might help you as well. It's the most perfect microcosm of Pynchon's universe/themes. It's his most autobiographical only in the sense that it gives the best picture of what Pynchon was witnessing at the time of writing GR, and how these things are alive and well in the 21st century.

Dismissing Inherent Vice is a guarantee that this person knows nothing of Pynchon and only likes his other work because he has a superficial taste for apparent difficulty and probably thinks Pynchon is "just, like, talking about how history is, like, you know, constructed and stuff and you can't really no nuffin." In short, an academic.

>>9566157
I haven't read any Pynchon aside from a few short stories, but that sounds like something I'd really enjoy. Maybe i'll check it out soon.

>>9566180
Thanks!

I'm also looking for stuff like this but I'd prefer poetry.

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No one's mentioned Hopscotch/Rayuela by Cortazar yet?

>>9566437
>>9566077
If you haven't read it already. Pale Fire begins with a with worthwhile and lyrical 999 poem

>>9566438
Does it add up to something or is it just weird for the sake of weird?

>>9566437
Blake

>>9566496
really? Which works?

Ada
The Gold Bug Variations (any Powers really)
Europe Central (or any of Vollmann's Seven Dreams)
Lost in the Funhouse

>>9566519
Forgot to add The Recognitions (which should be obvious tbqh)

>>9566501

The Four Zoas, Milton, Jersusalem

His mythology and his interpretations of Milton and the Bible are some of the more developed and fascinating "puzzles" in poetry.

>>9566519
Europe Central is a puzzle book, eh? Really?

Also, would you consider Gold Bug to be Powers' best? I've been meaning to read both of these guys.

>>9566005
>>9566077
>>9566455
>>9566519
Oh, look at all these other Nabokov shills, maybe there's something to it beyond "muh pedophelia"

>>9566470
my vote would be neither? i don't think it's that much of a puzzle it's also not weird so much as eclectic and fragmented.

>>9566552
Well in the same sense as the OP in that
>...on every page I could look further into a name or a word and discover a historical figure or event and learn something

It's quite dense, but the writing is exceptional. Imagine a more lucid, heartfelt Gravity's Rainbow, it definitely has a more personal character.

I haven't read much of Powers, but what I have (TGBVariations and Orfeo) read of his was fantastic. If you haven't read any Vollmann or Powers you're in for a treat. Powers is severely neglected. Vollmann is adequately praised, but inadequately read, IMO

>>9566619
so hipster bullshit, as Borges rightly pointed out...

his short stories are great, again, as Borges pointed out...

xD check

>>9566180
can you post some of the supps?

The Iliad and the Odyssey are like that.

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>>9565983
Georges Perec's Life an User's Manual. Probably one of the most intricately constructed books out there. It takes place in a 10x10 grid, each square on the grid representing a room inside a Parisian apartment block frozen in time June 23, 1975, just before 8 pm. The rooms and the stories found within where partly generated through a complex system of lists and combinatronics, you wouldn't notice it if you don't pay attention though. It's a legitimately great book that feels really organic. All the oulipo literary constraints end up connecting back to the central themes of the narrative. There are lots of flashbacks and stories within stories- Perec was inspired by the nestled structure of Jan Potocki's manuscript found in saragossa, another labyrinthic mindfuck of a novel that's actually pretty fun to read.

>>9566117
You're a manchild.

>>9566952
this guy fucks

>>9566952
I love Perec, and always wanted to check the formulas for User's Manual. Were they published anywhere?

Finnegans Wake

>>9565983
Unironically Book of the New Sun. If you can work out everything that's going on without supplementary material you are probably Thomas Aquinas.

Satantango

>>9567558
nice, can't wait to start it

>>9565983
The dictionary. You learn something about every word.

>>9566952
Sounds awful. Is postmodernism dead yet?

>>9566952
I kind of appreciated what Perec was going for, but it honestly felt more like an academic exercise than a good novel. Like he got so caught up in the structure he forgot to actually write a compelling story.

>>9568027
> he reads for compelling stories

>>9568035
epic meme friend

>>9568039
respect the comma

Kazars dictionary comes to mind

Does "JOI" stand for what I think it does?

>>9566009
Me neither. Just read it a month ago.
This Post Ending Stuff is nowhere to be found. Except the Part with the grave is included in one of gatelys fantasys in hospital.

Am I just dumb or is This Image bullshit?

>>9565983
DUDE PUZZLES LMAO
>that awareness when you know this is the only reason why pseuds read pomo books

>>9566180
Inherent Vice is far better than TCoL49, and I rank only GR, AtD, and M&D above it.

>>9568125
I finished Landscape Painted with Tea a while ago but I didn't understand SHIT. It was a very pleasant experience, dreamlike prose, fantastic use of magical realism, but still weird as fuck.

>>9566519
I would add The Sot-Weed Factor, as well. I'm excited to get to Powers, I have Gold Bug Variations sitting on my shelf, and I was thinking about going for it next.

The naïve translation of Also Sprach Zarathustra that I haven't finished writing yet.

Faulkner's books, any of them.

>>9565983
The Bible.

>>9570021
Is Sot-Weed Factor really a puzzle book? Barth gives me the impression of a guy who writes maximalist fiction without much point or reward.

>>9570080
> did he fuck his sister or did he not?

>>9570167
>Is Sot-Weed Factor really a puzzle book? Barth gives me the impression of a guy who writes maximalist fiction without much point or reward.
It does have that maximalist vibe, but is extraordinarily fun. Also, yes, it kind of is like a "puzzle" fitting together in that there's a ridiculous and hilarious amount of different plot points that all tie together beautifully. He kind of satirizes the old-timey fiction tropes of characters disappearing for a long time then suddenly reappearing, an unexpected person being one's father/mother, someone you thought is dead turns out to be alive, etc., etc., to brilliant effect, so even while you know the book is satirizing these trite plot points, the plot turns out to be very absorbing.

>>9566077
will second pale fire. poem itself is tight, plus it's packed with a zany plot and a bunch of "puzzle pieces" that people still haven't managed to put together

>>9566117
This. If you're going to tell a story, then fucking tell it. Don't deliberately make it incoherent

>>9566117
You are impressively delusional Anon. Nabokov is one of the most precise authors to have ever lived, and you think him writing one novel that used an unreliable narrator means he can't write a coherent story. Have you read any of his other ("""coherent""") works?

Ada,
The Defense
Laughter in the Dark, etc?

>>9568136
James Orin Incandenza

>>9570021
>>9570167
It's honestly not that puzzly. It's an incredible novel, but doesn't have the character OP is looking for.

>>9570249
>If you're going to tell a story, then fucking tell it. Don't deliberately make it incoherent
Except it's not incoherent, you should really read the book before criticizing it on an entirely false basis