Novels or short stories, Charlie Kaufman style?
September 18, 2010 4:03 PM Subscribe
Who writes novels like Charlie Kaufman would write?
I like the movies of Charlie Kaufman. Especially Synecdoche, New York. His themes and inventiveness make for very interesting films. If he wrote books rather than scripts, whose books would they be like?
I like the movies of Charlie Kaufman. Especially Synecdoche, New York. His themes and inventiveness make for very interesting films. If he wrote books rather than scripts, whose books would they be like?
Best answer: Can you be a bit more specific about what it is that you like about Kaufman's scripts? Do you like the metafictional elements on Adaptation and Synechdoche, New York, the exploration of subconscious landscapes of Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the intelligent-but-absurd madcap of Human Nature, the simultaneous dual potential realities of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind?
In any case, if you want more bittersweet/ingeniously inventive/metafictional stuff, try Donald Barthelme, specifically Snow White. Also look up Paul Auster (The New York Trilogy) and Tom McCarthy (Remainder).
posted by shakespeherian at 4:31 PM on September 18, 2010
In any case, if you want more bittersweet/ingeniously inventive/metafictional stuff, try Donald Barthelme, specifically Snow White. Also look up Paul Auster (The New York Trilogy) and Tom McCarthy (Remainder).
posted by shakespeherian at 4:31 PM on September 18, 2010
Thomas Pynchon, dude. Also if it's the meta- aspects that you dig, Eco and Calvino.
posted by No-sword at 4:52 PM on September 18, 2010
posted by No-sword at 4:52 PM on September 18, 2010
Best answer: You might like Lorrie Moore's Anagrams. I second the recommendations for Markson and Barthelme, and would probably throw in John Barth as well. John Fowles. All the Johns! A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters. Nicholson Baker? I'm thinking something like The Fermata. Little, Big. Infinite Jest. Thomas Pynchon. Carole Maso's novels. Vonnegut, because Charlie Kaufman is funny.
You might also try browsing the Wikipedia entry for "metafiction," and the related lists of metafictional authors and metafictional works.
posted by Powerful Religious Baby at 4:56 PM on September 18, 2010
You might also try browsing the Wikipedia entry for "metafiction," and the related lists of metafictional authors and metafictional works.
posted by Powerful Religious Baby at 4:56 PM on September 18, 2010
Response by poster: Thanks for the answers so far; please keep them coming. To answer shakespeherian's request for more specificity: maybe my interest is in the existential issues, self doubt, confusion of reality and fantasy or dreams. And the imaginative metafictional (thanks PRB) ways he explores them.
posted by Snerd at 5:19 PM on September 18, 2010
posted by Snerd at 5:19 PM on September 18, 2010
Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges.
posted by smoke at 5:25 PM on September 18, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by smoke at 5:25 PM on September 18, 2010 [2 favorites]
Upon first seeing Being John Malkovich, it reminded me a lot of Flan O'Brian's Third Policeman.
posted by bendybendy at 7:08 PM on September 18, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by bendybendy at 7:08 PM on September 18, 2010 [1 favorite]
Best answer: You like playing with reality? You like not being sure what's real and what's just going on in people's heads? You like dreams within dreams and shifting ground? My friend, you need to read Christopher Priest. Particularly these four novels.
Inverted World
A Dream of Wessex (published as The Perfect Lover in the US, for some baffling reason)
The Affirmation
The Glamour
posted by Decani at 7:25 PM on September 18, 2010
Inverted World
A Dream of Wessex (published as The Perfect Lover in the US, for some baffling reason)
The Affirmation
The Glamour
posted by Decani at 7:25 PM on September 18, 2010
David Mitchell! Read Cloud Atlas (The Most-Recommended Book On MetaFilter!) and Ghostwritten.
posted by carsonb at 7:57 PM on September 18, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by carsonb at 7:57 PM on September 18, 2010 [1 favorite]
How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe. Charles Yu. It will blow your socks off.
posted by collectallfour at 8:29 PM on September 18, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by collectallfour at 8:29 PM on September 18, 2010 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Jonathan Lethem, especially his funnier books, like Gun...With Occasional Music.
Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman and At Swim-Two-Birds, definitely oh most definitely.
Douglas Hofstadter's work fires similar neurons for me.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:30 PM on September 18, 2010
Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman and At Swim-Two-Birds, definitely oh most definitely.
Douglas Hofstadter's work fires similar neurons for me.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:30 PM on September 18, 2010
Seconding Thomas Pynchon and adding Kurt Vonnegut (particularly Slaughterhouse Five).
posted by jojobobo at 10:17 PM on September 18, 2010
posted by jojobobo at 10:17 PM on September 18, 2010
Seconding Borges and Dick (especially A Scanner Darkly).
posted by jnrussell at 12:05 AM on September 19, 2010
posted by jnrussell at 12:05 AM on September 19, 2010
Nthing Borges. Also Angela Carter.
posted by freya_lamb at 2:02 AM on September 19, 2010
posted by freya_lamb at 2:02 AM on September 19, 2010
Best answer: Seconding carsonb - Ghostwritten in particular is somehow what leapt to mind when I try to think of what Kaufman would write. In the same way I think Murakami might work quite well - possibly Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, or Wind Up Bird Chronicle.
Also, Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov I feel has a frisson of Kaufman about it.
posted by opsin at 6:58 AM on September 19, 2010
Also, Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov I feel has a frisson of Kaufman about it.
posted by opsin at 6:58 AM on September 19, 2010
Haruki Murakami, absoutely. Start with Hard Boiled Wonderland and The End of The World.
posted by Neonshock at 8:54 AM on September 19, 2010
posted by Neonshock at 8:54 AM on September 19, 2010
Seconding Georges Perec (especially Life: A User's Manual) and Murakami.
Michel Houellebecq doesn't have as much of a metafictional bent, but in tone and philosophy he's pretty similar to Synecdoche NY, I'd say... try Elementary Particles?
posted by Pickman's Next Top Model at 7:06 AM on September 20, 2010
Michel Houellebecq doesn't have as much of a metafictional bent, but in tone and philosophy he's pretty similar to Synecdoche NY, I'd say... try Elementary Particles?
posted by Pickman's Next Top Model at 7:06 AM on September 20, 2010
There's a whole press that keeps a lot of the older authors we've mentioned in print, Dalkey Archive. Mr. Dynamite by Meredith Brosnan is one of their contemporary books that's got Kaufman's jaunty paranoia.
posted by bendybendy at 9:23 AM on September 20, 2010
posted by bendybendy at 9:23 AM on September 20, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by whimsicalnymph at 4:31 PM on September 18, 2010