Hybrid story-essay works?
October 16, 2012 11:39 AM Subscribe
Kierkegaard's Either/Or, Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, Nathalie Sarraute's Tropisms, Roland Barthes' A Lover's Discourse - what other authors or works consist of this kind of smattering collection of short, plotless, hybrid essay-prose poems?
Emil Cioran is another good example of this style. Be warned: he resembles a somewhat less hopeful Nietzsche.
posted by gauche at 11:59 AM on October 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by gauche at 11:59 AM on October 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
Pessoa, Always Astonished
Plato's Republic seems like more of an endless dialogue.
posted by goethean at 12:06 PM on October 16, 2012
Plato's Republic seems like more of an endless dialogue.
posted by goethean at 12:06 PM on October 16, 2012
Henri Lefevbre's Introduction to Modernity.
Walter Benjamin's writings, especially One Way Street.
posted by daniel_charms at 12:17 PM on October 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
Walter Benjamin's writings, especially One Way Street.
posted by daniel_charms at 12:17 PM on October 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
Pascal, Pensees
In the latter case the "short, plotless, hybrid essay-prose poems" structure is accidental, as the book was assembled from notes Pascal had made for a book defending the Christian faith, but he died before he completed it.
posted by Cash4Lead at 12:19 PM on October 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
Pascal, Pensees
In the latter case the "short, plotless, hybrid essay-prose poems" structure is accidental, as the book was assembled from notes Pascal had made for a book defending the Christian faith, but he died before he completed it.
posted by Cash4Lead at 12:19 PM on October 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
building on the Pensees theme, you might also like Kafka's notebooks or Camus'. Maybe Rilke's The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge?
posted by goethean at 12:28 PM on October 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by goethean at 12:28 PM on October 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
A lot of early Romantic stuff is like this, especially by the contributors to Athenaeum; try Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel. A personal favorite of mine is Vasily Rozanov: Solitaria (1911) and Fallen Leaves (1913; 1915).
posted by languagehat at 12:30 PM on October 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by languagehat at 12:30 PM on October 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
Derrida's The Post Card.
Lots of Baudrillard, but especially the Cool Memories stuff and America.
Barthes by Barthes.
Heidegger's Sojourns travelogue.
Those all combine some sort of quasi-narrative or diary structure with fragmentary philosophical arguments.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 12:48 PM on October 16, 2012
Lots of Baudrillard, but especially the Cool Memories stuff and America.
Barthes by Barthes.
Heidegger's Sojourns travelogue.
Those all combine some sort of quasi-narrative or diary structure with fragmentary philosophical arguments.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 12:48 PM on October 16, 2012
Rilke's Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge could work, though there's a little bit of plot as I recall.
For a slightly less purely philosophical read, maybe Maggie Nelson's Bluets.
posted by mlle valentine at 1:04 PM on October 16, 2012
For a slightly less purely philosophical read, maybe Maggie Nelson's Bluets.
posted by mlle valentine at 1:04 PM on October 16, 2012
W.G. Sebald might also be worth checking out. He also includes images within his writing.
posted by perhapses at 1:26 PM on October 16, 2012
posted by perhapses at 1:26 PM on October 16, 2012
Jan Zwicky - Wisdom & Metaphor might fit, with the twist that each brief prose-poem relates to an excerpt of someone else's work on the facing page. Fascinating book at any rate that excerpts many writers mentioned in this thread.
posted by Lorin at 1:38 PM on October 16, 2012
posted by Lorin at 1:38 PM on October 16, 2012
John Fowles; The Aristos.
Norman O. Brown: Love's Body.
Paul Goodman: Notes From A Useless Time.
Hugo Steinhaus: Mathematical Snapshots, which ought to have been titled Mathematical Kaleidoscope after the Polish original.
Marvin Minsky: The Society of Mind.
Robert Graves: The Greek Myths.
David E. H. Jones: The Inventions of Daedalus.
Jearl Walker: The Flying Circus of Physics.
Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac.
This is how I see Feynman's Lectures, too.
posted by jamjam at 2:30 PM on October 16, 2012
Norman O. Brown: Love's Body.
Paul Goodman: Notes From A Useless Time.
Hugo Steinhaus: Mathematical Snapshots, which ought to have been titled Mathematical Kaleidoscope after the Polish original.
Marvin Minsky: The Society of Mind.
Robert Graves: The Greek Myths.
David E. H. Jones: The Inventions of Daedalus.
Jearl Walker: The Flying Circus of Physics.
Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac.
This is how I see Feynman's Lectures, too.
posted by jamjam at 2:30 PM on October 16, 2012
Eduardo Galleano! Genesis is a history of American and South American native peoples and the arrival of European colonists told in a series of short fables. While the book includes a bibliography of historical sources, the stories are often written in first person perspective and use the recorded history as a jumping off point.
All the other works of his that I've seen also take this form, but this one is, for me, the standout.
posted by clockwork at 3:32 PM on October 16, 2012
All the other works of his that I've seen also take this form, but this one is, for me, the standout.
posted by clockwork at 3:32 PM on October 16, 2012
One woman so far. Can I recommend Chris Kraus?
posted by outlandishmarxist at 5:23 PM on October 16, 2012
posted by outlandishmarxist at 5:23 PM on October 16, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by General Malaise at 11:56 AM on October 16, 2012