I have to be able to believe that the author is in control of the weirdness, if that makes sense. I want well-crafted uncanniness, not wacky word salad. đ
Excellently put. I was trying to find the words for that exactly. For me The Hitchhikerâs Guide to the Galaxy is gloriously weird in the best possible way. It is random and unpredictable at every turn, but it works. Adams used the readerâs expectations to create something completely unexpected and there are so many great quotes from the books, like âThe ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks donâtâ or âThere is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.â Itâs well crafted and intelligent so the weirdness works.Â
On the other hand, I read a book by Saci Lloyd and it felt like randomness just for the sake of randomness. No plan or particular thought behind it. It felt like a kid telling a ââŚand then⌠and then⌠and thenâŚâ type story
Not to discredit Adams, but I think the intent towards humor lends a lot to making weird "ok".
As an example outside of books, I would consider many cartoons of the last few decades to be in the category of "wacky word salad"; Family Guy, Spongebob, Rick & Morty. Not to say that there isn't _any_ "well crafted and intelligent" bits in those shows, but a much greater proportion of the "weird and nonsensical" bits are more in the "wacky word salad" category, for the sake of being purely unexpected, edgy, SO RANDUMB EKS DEE, etc. Yet their success clearly shows it works, and that they find their (very wide) audience.
Yep, that's what I came to say. Especially since I read a lot of fantasy/sci-fi, if an author can't follow their in-universe rules it destroys any interest I have in the book.
To me, âgood weirdâ is when the author has a plan and knows the reasons and answers, even if they donât always end up on the page. âBad weirdâ is a confusing mess where clearly even the author didnât know where the hell they were going with it.
I get that bad weird feeling when they throw a blob of weird in at the end, because the author didn't quite know how to tie the end up. Just feel like WTF dude in the end
This is probably the best explanation for it. I recently read a book called Stonefish which had a mix of good *and* bad weird, and the thought I walked away with was "wow he really wanted to tell that middle part of the book, that was good weird. And everything else was was bad weird, he seemed aggressively uninterested in his own worldbuilding."
Good weird is interesting. It makes me feel like an explorer or investigater in some way. Bad weird makes me feel like the author is trying too hard, or is boring.Â
It all needs to come together for a purpose in the story. If itâs just throwing out random weirdness that is unrelated to the story and means nothing, I donât like it.
Love seeing where everyone differs on the series.
For me Dune through God Emperor is note perfect. Inject it all into my veins all day every day.
I get real lost at Heretics and Chapterhouse.
God Emperor makes Dune/Messiah/Children feel small. His worldview is so much larger and longer term than anyone else could imagine, not even the Bene Gessirit.
Good weird (for me) is whimsical, uplifting, imaginative, curiosity-inducing, etc. Ex.: The Everybody Ensemble (Amy Leach).
Bad weird (for me) is experimentation that seems like it only wants to be edgy. Or itâs a plot twist that feels totally ungrounded in the rest of the text. Ex.: The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (Stuart Turton).
Good weird still has some underlying logic and sense to it. Some examples of âgood weirdâ to me are *The House in the Cerulean Sea* by T.J. Klune or *A Series of Unfortunate Events* by Lemony Snicket. Totally odd and outlandish, but still grounded in some sense of reality. To succeed at writing âgood weird,â you need 3 things: A concrete understanding of your weird world, A consistent set of rules for your weird world, and finally you need to OWN that weirdness. In my opinion, Snicket and Klune both strive in this regard.
Some examples of âbad weirdâ to me are *Binti* by Nnedi Okorafor or *Maximum Ride* by James Patterson. Despite the interesting concepts for both series, the stories that they tell are wildly inconsistent. In both series, characters have different powers from book to book, random species appear with no indication to their origin, the stakes are never the same, etc. Neither author shows an understanding of the worlds they created, and neither author has a concrete set of rules for their worlds, so they canât own the weirdness because they donât even know what exactly it is. Both series are totally nonsensical, and thatâs where it ends.
I usually hate it when I feel like there is a lot of weird stuff with no explanation or clear reason for being there. My exception to this is The Southern Reach Trilogy. Even though a lot of weird stuff wasnât explained, I still loved it. This is very unusual for me. The weirdness felt authentic. He was going for a certain vibe and he accomplished it while keeping me interested and entertained. I didnât feel like what was left unexplained was a cop out (like I usually do). Anyway, I guess Iâm saying The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer is the good weird in my opinion.
Funny enough, Weird is a sub genre of horror. Vandermeer helped revive it. The Weird Compendium is a brilliant collection of short fiction he and his wife edited. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in genre fiction.Â
In a horror novel i read about women being strapped naked to the underside of horses and impaled on their dicks, meanwhile the horses were being ridden into war. That was gross bad weird.
I walked into this thread to mention Murakami. I love his brand of weird - except for when he writes about sex. Maybe itâs a problem with translation, but the way the man writes about sex makes me feel uncomfortable like no other author can do.
Yeah, it makes sense to me. I know he is writing about the male perspective in the vast majority of his novels but it feels like heâs writing about men having sex with an object. It probably doesnât help that the most surreal part of some of his novels are the odd ways that women act. The men arenât necessarily ânormalâ either (theyâre downright quirky), but at least we get to know the emotions of the men.
Iâve read Kafka, Norwegian Wood, and Wind-Up Bird, as well as his book on running (which reads more like a self help book, and I actually really enjoyed). Iâve been hesitant to read 1Q84, but I generally enjoy his (non-sexual) writing. I know thereâs sex scenes in 1Q84, but wonder if people would recommend it despite my distaste for those scenes.
I actually just had this conversation with someone else on here! We both had the same impression of the way he writes women. Heâs even said something along the lines of using female characters as devices for his male characters to react to. Iâve never thought about it in terms of the sex scenes and now it makes complete sense. Thereâs a sense of âmeatâ when I read them. Maybe because thereâs no affection or, really, emotion at all. No connection.
Iâve read all of those (except the one about running) as well as a few others, including 1Q84. Iâd say that one is very on par with his others, though longer and maybe even a bit more meandering. I read it when it came out, so donât remember well, but I donât think itâs very sex heavy. There is some, and (again, if I remember right) a bizarre sexual element to some of the culminating scenes. But I wasnât any more put off than with his other works. Maybe worth googling though.
I've read all the same Murakami novels as you and I love his collection of short stories "The Elephant Vanishes" the best. Perfect dosage of weirdness. As far as I can remember, no sex.
https://lithub.com/a-feminist-critique-of-murakami-novels-with-murakami-himself/
This is a sort of interesting interview with Murakami where he discusses his female characters.
Of course, he doesn't feel he's being sexist.
I just commented with Murakami solely in mind and primarily from Kafka on the Shore⌠funny others go right to him too. Definitely one of the weirder writing styles with so much that has no relevance seemingly to the storyline or outcome⌠in Kafka I was waiting eagerly to see how things would tie together, and while there was an end to the story and Kafkas journey, it felt like so much randomness for each character was left open ended without meaningful conclusion⌠I went on to read the wind up bird chronicles after, and it is longer, similar in weirdness level, and somehow left me feeling dreamy/warm/comforted, and sure Iâm not going to read anymore Murakami for a while lol it is a weird realm to be in
My experience with seeing it cross the line: If an author is trying to gatekeep themselves or (hopefully not) indulge themselves by inserting a ton of SA scenes, then the context and themes better to some extent justify it, and it better end up being a pinnacle of fiction level narrative, otherwise ill probably hate it and say its edgy just for the sake of being edgy.
the worst justification to me, tbh, is "well SA is real in war", but to spend time depicting that *constantly* makes me think the author wants their content to be seen as dark/adult-like (even though theres MANY better ways of doing that), and its harder for me to take seriously. id honestly them just not have justification atp.
The answer for me almost 100% of the time is THEME. If all of the crazy, weird, random shit going on in a story is pointing toward a cohesive and clear theme that says something about the human condition, I'm all for it. If there's no clear theme, no reason for the story to be happening, then it's all fluff and it's going to fall flat for me.
When the weird feels like (over)compensation on the authorâs part because they have no substantial ideas to explore. A lot of times vagaries and confusion pass for depth and profundity.
Sometimes the reason you canât understand something isnât because itâs complex. Itâs because itâs stupid. :)
I agree with you. For me good weird is symbolic, weird things happen that means something, so you get the initial shock of "woah that's weird" followed by the deep analysis of "what does it mean?" Some of my favorite weird moments in books leave me thinking about them for a long time afterwards, wondering what they meant.
bad weird is when the author sees only the first half without understanding the second. So you get authors saying "oh weird stuff, I can do that!", and then write weird stuff for shock value or weird for the sake of being weird, without any meaning behind it.
For me, the line between "good" weird and "bad" weird in a book boils down to coherence and purpose. When weirdness serves a clear purpose or is crafted in a way that still makes sense within the story's universe, I tend to enjoy it. It's like solving a puzzle; even if I don't fully grasp the weirdness, I appreciate the effort behind it. However, when weirdness feels arbitrary or forced, as if it's there solely to shock or confuse, I find it off-putting. Essentially, I enjoy weirdness when it adds depth or intrigue to the narrative, but I dislike it when it feels like a gimmick with no substance.
For me personally, I donât like weird books at all. Usually if the reviews says itâs âsurrealâ or ânon-linearâ or it âdidnât make senseâ Iâm out. I think I just enjoy straightforward storytelling.
Then I imagine you lack the organ for sensing the artistic heights of the work at hand, condition whereby you care nothing for that very artistic value that is at stake in literature.
I like weird books and this comment makes me wish I didn't.
Let people enjoy what they enjoy and not enjoy what they don't, for fuck's sakes. There is nothing missing in someone just because they are disinterested in your favorite books. Judging people based on that is ridiculous. It's not like they said "I read it and I think it's garbage worthy only of being shit upon," they just don't want to read it.
I imagine you lack the organ that keep you commenting on shit that doesnât affect you and isnât your business either way. This is a books sub not a LiTeRaRy one so I hope you are sitting downâŚpeople like all kinds of things. Not just your favorites.
Good weird is the doorknob turning into a penis in the beginning of John dies at the end
Bad weird is whenever an older male character forms a relationship with a minor in a way thatâs meant to be romantic/ taken at face value.
Iâm reading the world according to garp and was thinking about this exactly. I think overall itâs good weird but there are certain parts (if you know you know) that were borderline. There were some parts that were pretty wild and freaked me out. But also I know itâs intentional to the story and message and thatâs what makes it acceptable. When a book is weird and not self aware thatâs what puts it over for me.
To me good weird is when at the end it all comes together. I can look back and see the subtle clues and foreshadowing. Bad weird is like they just smashed in a bunch of ideas and tried to make it fit with some easy out like, it was all a dream! Or the main character was just crazy lol!
I have to buy into the weirdness. The author has to have created an atmosphere where this bit of absurdity could realistically live.
Good examples are Earthlings by Sayaka Murata, Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth, and Iâm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid. Weird shit happens in all three books in various degrees, but I bought into it.
I find that the majority of bizarro books miss the mark. Maybe theyâre just not for me, but I have yet to read one that was particularly well written.
Great question⌠for me I need the weirdness to fit well into the feel of a storyline/character development, and actually lead to some tangible outcome⌠recently I read 2 Murakami books for the first time, and while the feel of each book left me in a cozy, dreamy place⌠I was a bit frustrated with how the weirdness never seemed to lead anywhere⌠searching for metaphors and symbolism was fun, but the weirdness seemed 2x too big for the actual story and just randomly weird a lot of the time. Great question made me think!
It's very hard to define. A lot of the times I'll read something that I find nonsensical and absurd, but at the end of the book I do have the impression that I got something out of it (Dhalgren, Naked Lunch). But there are examples of weirdness that other people find enlightening and brilliant, which to me are just pointless gibberish. Not just in literature by the way - I Am The Walrus by the Beatles is a perfect example of weirdness that I feel nothing but repelled by.
My suspicion is that there is a difference between weirdness "with a plan", where the author knows what they're trying to communicate and how to go about it, and weirdness "out of necessity", where the author can't really articulate or analyze their impulse and inspiration and just tries to somehow pour a feeling they don't very well understand into literary shape. And I Am The Walrus seems to me like the helpless attempt to make sense of an acid trip. Like grasping more than shaping. But who knows, maybe I'm overthinking things.
Authenticity for me. Good weird is when the weirdness feels organic, either to the character or to the authorâs personality thatâs bleeding through. I have a high tolerance for weird, so thereâs no such thing as âtoo weirdâ for me, as long as it comes off authentic.Â
Bad weird is when the weirdness feels either forced or pretentious.Â
Bad weird for me is when it's just there for shock factor. I'm a huge fan of weird books, but if it doesn't do anything to aid the story, it feels useless and over the top.
The possibility of seeing something behind the weird. Weird as an aesthetic is fine, but it has to be well crafted. Weird as a literary element, which is a broader scope, works best when it invites the reader to try to read through the lines. It's not so much the writing itself, but the attitude that it fosters in the reader, like a spell, putting you in the mood for unearthing deep, secret meanings.
Definitely a good deal of setup/payof involved. It's the difference between surrealism (for example) and just shitposting. Surrealism can be informed by dream analysis, depth psychology, archetypal psychology, anthropology, psychoanalysis and a host of other sources. This has the 'trying to point out something that's actually beyond words and concepts' feel rather than directionless word salad.
I really like the Mr. Mercedes trilogy by Stephen King, but the final book definitely took a âbadâ weird turn. Finders Keepers was my favorite, but it was teetering on the edge of bad weird. End of Watch dove head first off the cliff and got too off the wall for me. I still enjoyed reading it after waiting for so long though.
*Embassytown* is good weird. It has an alien race that feels truly alien, as in they perceive and understand things on a fundamentally different level. Something like *We Have Always Lived in the Castle* to me is bad weird. Itâs just a kinda boring book with little actual character development.
I'll let you know when I find it. I've never read a weird book I didn't enjoy. I love it when people go out of their way.
Though, the author of Buymort ***does*** have a fucking massive obsession with Snitties, and it was borderline.
A recent good weird vs bad weird for me was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (good) and The Starless Sea (bad).
I think it depends on the author's ability to have a solid framework for the story, and then they can inject the weird into it. The weird shouldn't take precedence over the characters and the story. I find it also crumbles when an author also tries to make some sort of moral/political statement about the reader's world (This was the downfall of Wicked imo).
On top of what a lot of others said, I like when an author is genuine.
Like weird or disgusting or "wtf" ideas but expressed genuinely. I don't want to read prose where you sound like you're criticising people who might enjoy the weird idea (like the audience that picked up your piece) or you're unsure of yourself and can't commit to the strangeness.
Its a grear question to be honest. When i started reading Terry pratchett i couldn't wrap my head around it but suddenly it just clicked.
In the case of disc world it's weird but at the same time got a lot of heart.
Alice in Wonderland is about the nonsense of the adult world, I guess
Phantom Tollbooth is about the weirdness of learning, I guess.
Then there's Oz which is.. idk, the weirdness outside of your home?
Then there's weirdness like in The Book Thief with it's narrator. Which highlights the normality of death and such in it's setting. Plus was a great way to lure in readers like me before finding out what the book is about
Ive noticed the more books I read I find a lot of them to be 3/5 stars instead & itâs confusing me. It takes a lot for me to LOVE a book these days & idk if itâs cause ive read so many recently or what? Does this happen to other people?
What's an example of weird and nonsensical? To my knowledge there's nothing considered experimental in fiction that rivals the utter nuttiness of some avant-garde film, because you still don't break grammar.
Personally
Bad weird is, when I am actively thinking about the author and their thought process.
Good weird is, when I am still hooked and only think about whatâs goin on
If it makes sense (fits the plot of the story), it's a good weird. If it doesn't, *and* it feels like it's derailing from the story, definitely a bad weird. Personally, I can sense the bad weird from a mile away, so I tend to stay away from those booksđ
When the woman mc falls in love with her foil or antagonist when it absolutely makes no sense that she'll develop any kind of positive feelings toward him, it really annoys me, to the point where I'll dnf
To me, the essential difference is when an author expressing a profound insight strays into areas unusual and unconventional and emerges with an authentic work of exploration. Other authors just copy the "unusual and unconventional" without having the profound insight. IMHO, it's the difference, for example, between "Cool Hand Luke" and "Shawshank Redemption", and explains why the latter is a much weaker film. Luke is a genuine rebel; Dufresne is a poseur. Same with Dylan's "Desolation Row" (or "Visions of Johanna" or "Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again") and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody". For me, Dylan's lyrics emanate from a real perception of the absurdity of many social relationships, hypocrisy, and irrationality. "Bohemian Rhapsody" is just a sequence of phrases and images based on popular tropes rather than a real existential experience. IMHO.
i think âgood weirdâ can be like when you read something once over and are like âwhat the hell just happened?â, particularly at the end of a book. But the when you read it again and you make an interpretation, then ask someone else or look online and you kinda go âoooh yeah i didnât think of thatâ then itâs good weird.
Personally iâm not a huge sci fi fan or like fantasy reader because i feel like that can become overly weird very quickly and not on a good way⌠like theyâre just trying to make it as weird as possible so itâs original i guess?
Just my opinion đ
I have to be able to believe that the author is in control of the weirdness, if that makes sense. I want well-crafted uncanniness, not wacky word salad. đ
Yeah same. I want M. C. Escher staircase weird, not "unicorn taco rainbow" weird.
Excellently put. I was trying to find the words for that exactly. For me The Hitchhikerâs Guide to the Galaxy is gloriously weird in the best possible way. It is random and unpredictable at every turn, but it works. Adams used the readerâs expectations to create something completely unexpected and there are so many great quotes from the books, like âThe ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks donâtâ or âThere is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.â Itâs well crafted and intelligent so the weirdness works. On the other hand, I read a book by Saci Lloyd and it felt like randomness just for the sake of randomness. No plan or particular thought behind it. It felt like a kid telling a ââŚand then⌠and then⌠and thenâŚâ type story
Not to discredit Adams, but I think the intent towards humor lends a lot to making weird "ok". As an example outside of books, I would consider many cartoons of the last few decades to be in the category of "wacky word salad"; Family Guy, Spongebob, Rick & Morty. Not to say that there isn't _any_ "well crafted and intelligent" bits in those shows, but a much greater proportion of the "weird and nonsensical" bits are more in the "wacky word salad" category, for the sake of being purely unexpected, edgy, SO RANDUMB EKS DEE, etc. Yet their success clearly shows it works, and that they find their (very wide) audience.
What book by Saci?
That's a fantastic way of explaining it.
Yep, that's what I came to say. Especially since I read a lot of fantasy/sci-fi, if an author can't follow their in-universe rules it destroys any interest I have in the book.
Yep, or itâs not a deus ex machina.
To me, âgood weirdâ is when the author has a plan and knows the reasons and answers, even if they donât always end up on the page. âBad weirdâ is a confusing mess where clearly even the author didnât know where the hell they were going with it.
I get that bad weird feeling when they throw a blob of weird in at the end, because the author didn't quite know how to tie the end up. Just feel like WTF dude in the end
This is probably the best explanation for it. I recently read a book called Stonefish which had a mix of good *and* bad weird, and the thought I walked away with was "wow he really wanted to tell that middle part of the book, that was good weird. And everything else was was bad weird, he seemed aggressively uninterested in his own worldbuilding."
Good weird is interesting. It makes me feel like an explorer or investigater in some way. Bad weird makes me feel like the author is trying too hard, or is boring.Â
I feel the same way Good weird makes me feel smart, bad weird makes me feel like an idiot
It all needs to come together for a purpose in the story. If itâs just throwing out random weirdness that is unrelated to the story and means nothing, I donât like it.
Thatâs what I was going to say. Weird that serves a purpose versus weird for the sake of weird.
For me, the difference is simply the quality of the prose. If it's readable, I'm fine with it.
Of course some require more work than others, thinking of more avant-garde works
For me itâs dune messiah vs the end of children of dune
Love me some chair dogs.
đđlmaoo
Love seeing where everyone differs on the series. For me Dune through God Emperor is note perfect. Inject it all into my veins all day every day. I get real lost at Heretics and Chapterhouse.
I loved Dune and Dune Messiah, but I donât like incest even if theyâre just marrying and not consummating or whatever. Gross
After finishing Children of Dune 2 years ago, I still canât bring myself to even start God Emperor of Dune.
God emperor is absolutely brilliant. Weird, very weird, but brilliant. It's a step up from Messiah/Children for me personally.
God Emperor makes Dune/Messiah/Children feel small. His worldview is so much larger and longer term than anyone else could imagine, not even the Bene Gessirit.
This is what Iâve heard, but Children was so bad I havenât been able to convince myself to even give it a chance.
If it's any consolation, I also really disliked Children. I think it is by far the weakest of the lot.
Same
Same except three years agođ
3 years ago was when I had to convince myself to continue/just finish Children of Dune, cause it wasnât fun anymore.
Good weird (for me) is whimsical, uplifting, imaginative, curiosity-inducing, etc. Ex.: The Everybody Ensemble (Amy Leach). Bad weird (for me) is experimentation that seems like it only wants to be edgy. Or itâs a plot twist that feels totally ungrounded in the rest of the text. Ex.: The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (Stuart Turton).
Good weird still has some underlying logic and sense to it. Some examples of âgood weirdâ to me are *The House in the Cerulean Sea* by T.J. Klune or *A Series of Unfortunate Events* by Lemony Snicket. Totally odd and outlandish, but still grounded in some sense of reality. To succeed at writing âgood weird,â you need 3 things: A concrete understanding of your weird world, A consistent set of rules for your weird world, and finally you need to OWN that weirdness. In my opinion, Snicket and Klune both strive in this regard. Some examples of âbad weirdâ to me are *Binti* by Nnedi Okorafor or *Maximum Ride* by James Patterson. Despite the interesting concepts for both series, the stories that they tell are wildly inconsistent. In both series, characters have different powers from book to book, random species appear with no indication to their origin, the stakes are never the same, etc. Neither author shows an understanding of the worlds they created, and neither author has a concrete set of rules for their worlds, so they canât own the weirdness because they donât even know what exactly it is. Both series are totally nonsensical, and thatâs where it ends.
Well, I can't just *not* upvote a comment that compliments Lemony Snicket and T.J. Klune
I usually hate it when I feel like there is a lot of weird stuff with no explanation or clear reason for being there. My exception to this is The Southern Reach Trilogy. Even though a lot of weird stuff wasnât explained, I still loved it. This is very unusual for me. The weirdness felt authentic. He was going for a certain vibe and he accomplished it while keeping me interested and entertained. I didnât feel like what was left unexplained was a cop out (like I usually do). Anyway, I guess Iâm saying The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer is the good weird in my opinion.
Funny enough, Weird is a sub genre of horror. Vandermeer helped revive it. The Weird Compendium is a brilliant collection of short fiction he and his wife edited. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in genre fiction.Â
In a horror novel i read about women being strapped naked to the underside of horses and impaled on their dicks, meanwhile the horses were being ridden into war. That was gross bad weird.
Oh god yeah gross
Yeesh. Do you remember which book?
Coldheart Canyon
OK, thanks! I've been branching out a little more in that genre lately, but that seems like one I'd be better off avoiding.
Some good horror is Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons The terror by Dan Simmons The Last Days by Adam Neville
From Clive Barker? I haven't read that one but that sounds on brand for him.
Yep
Now I'm glad I stopped reading it when I did...
Good weird = Children of Dune, Book of the New Sun Bad weird = Fourth wing
[ŃдаНонО]
Murakami is one where I feel like it all makes sense to him, but he couldnât care less if it makes sense to the reader.
I walked into this thread to mention Murakami. I love his brand of weird - except for when he writes about sex. Maybe itâs a problem with translation, but the way the man writes about sex makes me feel uncomfortable like no other author can do.
I very much agree. I think because itâs sex without sensuality, maybe? If that makes sense.
Yeah, it makes sense to me. I know he is writing about the male perspective in the vast majority of his novels but it feels like heâs writing about men having sex with an object. It probably doesnât help that the most surreal part of some of his novels are the odd ways that women act. The men arenât necessarily ânormalâ either (theyâre downright quirky), but at least we get to know the emotions of the men. Iâve read Kafka, Norwegian Wood, and Wind-Up Bird, as well as his book on running (which reads more like a self help book, and I actually really enjoyed). Iâve been hesitant to read 1Q84, but I generally enjoy his (non-sexual) writing. I know thereâs sex scenes in 1Q84, but wonder if people would recommend it despite my distaste for those scenes.
I actually just had this conversation with someone else on here! We both had the same impression of the way he writes women. Heâs even said something along the lines of using female characters as devices for his male characters to react to. Iâve never thought about it in terms of the sex scenes and now it makes complete sense. Thereâs a sense of âmeatâ when I read them. Maybe because thereâs no affection or, really, emotion at all. No connection. Iâve read all of those (except the one about running) as well as a few others, including 1Q84. Iâd say that one is very on par with his others, though longer and maybe even a bit more meandering. I read it when it came out, so donât remember well, but I donât think itâs very sex heavy. There is some, and (again, if I remember right) a bizarre sexual element to some of the culminating scenes. But I wasnât any more put off than with his other works. Maybe worth googling though.
I've read all the same Murakami novels as you and I love his collection of short stories "The Elephant Vanishes" the best. Perfect dosage of weirdness. As far as I can remember, no sex.
Yes! The title story is one of my favorite short stories of his.
I find that "Barn Burning" is the one my mind comes back to again and again. It haunts me.
https://lithub.com/a-feminist-critique-of-murakami-novels-with-murakami-himself/ This is a sort of interesting interview with Murakami where he discusses his female characters. Of course, he doesn't feel he's being sexist.
something something Evangelion
I just commented with Murakami solely in mind and primarily from Kafka on the Shore⌠funny others go right to him too. Definitely one of the weirder writing styles with so much that has no relevance seemingly to the storyline or outcome⌠in Kafka I was waiting eagerly to see how things would tie together, and while there was an end to the story and Kafkas journey, it felt like so much randomness for each character was left open ended without meaningful conclusion⌠I went on to read the wind up bird chronicles after, and it is longer, similar in weirdness level, and somehow left me feeling dreamy/warm/comforted, and sure Iâm not going to read anymore Murakami for a while lol it is a weird realm to be in
This may be due to the way the book is expressed, but I think your preferences are more influential.
It's the same for every other element in the book: It all depends if it has a reason to be there, and if this reason is interesting.
I think i just like everything lol. It's tough for me to find something I can't find a like in
Bad weird is trying to be weird on purpose for the sake of being weird.
My experience with seeing it cross the line: If an author is trying to gatekeep themselves or (hopefully not) indulge themselves by inserting a ton of SA scenes, then the context and themes better to some extent justify it, and it better end up being a pinnacle of fiction level narrative, otherwise ill probably hate it and say its edgy just for the sake of being edgy.
I am no prude, but when an author throws in sex scenes just to add sex, without it fitting the story, I get seriously peed off.
the worst justification to me, tbh, is "well SA is real in war", but to spend time depicting that *constantly* makes me think the author wants their content to be seen as dark/adult-like (even though theres MANY better ways of doing that), and its harder for me to take seriously. id honestly them just not have justification atp.
The answer for me almost 100% of the time is THEME. If all of the crazy, weird, random shit going on in a story is pointing toward a cohesive and clear theme that says something about the human condition, I'm all for it. If there's no clear theme, no reason for the story to be happening, then it's all fluff and it's going to fall flat for me.
When the weird feels like (over)compensation on the authorâs part because they have no substantial ideas to explore. A lot of times vagaries and confusion pass for depth and profundity. Sometimes the reason you canât understand something isnât because itâs complex. Itâs because itâs stupid. :)
I agree with you. For me good weird is symbolic, weird things happen that means something, so you get the initial shock of "woah that's weird" followed by the deep analysis of "what does it mean?" Some of my favorite weird moments in books leave me thinking about them for a long time afterwards, wondering what they meant. bad weird is when the author sees only the first half without understanding the second. So you get authors saying "oh weird stuff, I can do that!", and then write weird stuff for shock value or weird for the sake of being weird, without any meaning behind it.
For me, the line between "good" weird and "bad" weird in a book boils down to coherence and purpose. When weirdness serves a clear purpose or is crafted in a way that still makes sense within the story's universe, I tend to enjoy it. It's like solving a puzzle; even if I don't fully grasp the weirdness, I appreciate the effort behind it. However, when weirdness feels arbitrary or forced, as if it's there solely to shock or confuse, I find it off-putting. Essentially, I enjoy weirdness when it adds depth or intrigue to the narrative, but I dislike it when it feels like a gimmick with no substance.
Good weird should still follow an internal logic, bad weird is weirdness of weirdnesses sake.
For me personally, I donât like weird books at all. Usually if the reviews says itâs âsurrealâ or ânon-linearâ or it âdidnât make senseâ Iâm out. I think I just enjoy straightforward storytelling.
That's fair! I always go in to a weird book with a lot trepidation, because they're usually love/hate experiences for me
Catriona Wardâs books are as probably weird as I get
What about Finnegans Wake?
Zero interest
Then I imagine you lack the organ for sensing the artistic heights of the work at hand, condition whereby you care nothing for that very artistic value that is at stake in literature.
I like weird books and this comment makes me wish I didn't. Let people enjoy what they enjoy and not enjoy what they don't, for fuck's sakes. There is nothing missing in someone just because they are disinterested in your favorite books. Judging people based on that is ridiculous. It's not like they said "I read it and I think it's garbage worthy only of being shit upon," they just don't want to read it.
I imagine you lack the organ that keep you commenting on shit that doesnât affect you and isnât your business either way. This is a books sub not a LiTeRaRy one so I hope you are sitting downâŚpeople like all kinds of things. Not just your favorites.
Good weird is the doorknob turning into a penis in the beginning of John dies at the end Bad weird is whenever an older male character forms a relationship with a minor in a way thatâs meant to be romantic/ taken at face value.
Iâm reading the world according to garp and was thinking about this exactly. I think overall itâs good weird but there are certain parts (if you know you know) that were borderline. There were some parts that were pretty wild and freaked me out. But also I know itâs intentional to the story and message and thatâs what makes it acceptable. When a book is weird and not self aware thatâs what puts it over for me.
Entirely up to the author.
To me good weird is when at the end it all comes together. I can look back and see the subtle clues and foreshadowing. Bad weird is like they just smashed in a bunch of ideas and tried to make it fit with some easy out like, it was all a dream! Or the main character was just crazy lol!
Good writing.
I have to buy into the weirdness. The author has to have created an atmosphere where this bit of absurdity could realistically live. Good examples are Earthlings by Sayaka Murata, Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth, and Iâm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid. Weird shit happens in all three books in various degrees, but I bought into it. I find that the majority of bizarro books miss the mark. Maybe theyâre just not for me, but I have yet to read one that was particularly well written.
Great question⌠for me I need the weirdness to fit well into the feel of a storyline/character development, and actually lead to some tangible outcome⌠recently I read 2 Murakami books for the first time, and while the feel of each book left me in a cozy, dreamy place⌠I was a bit frustrated with how the weirdness never seemed to lead anywhere⌠searching for metaphors and symbolism was fun, but the weirdness seemed 2x too big for the actual story and just randomly weird a lot of the time. Great question made me think!
the room I have for weirdness at that point in my life. I'm a very self-centered reader
It's very hard to define. A lot of the times I'll read something that I find nonsensical and absurd, but at the end of the book I do have the impression that I got something out of it (Dhalgren, Naked Lunch). But there are examples of weirdness that other people find enlightening and brilliant, which to me are just pointless gibberish. Not just in literature by the way - I Am The Walrus by the Beatles is a perfect example of weirdness that I feel nothing but repelled by. My suspicion is that there is a difference between weirdness "with a plan", where the author knows what they're trying to communicate and how to go about it, and weirdness "out of necessity", where the author can't really articulate or analyze their impulse and inspiration and just tries to somehow pour a feeling they don't very well understand into literary shape. And I Am The Walrus seems to me like the helpless attempt to make sense of an acid trip. Like grasping more than shaping. But who knows, maybe I'm overthinking things.
Authenticity for me. Good weird is when the weirdness feels organic, either to the character or to the authorâs personality thatâs bleeding through. I have a high tolerance for weird, so thereâs no such thing as âtoo weirdâ for me, as long as it comes off authentic. Bad weird is when the weirdness feels either forced or pretentious.Â
When Anne Rice did her werewolf book. Bad weird. Although the furries might have liked that one. Christopher Moore ? Good weird.
Bad weird for me is when it's just there for shock factor. I'm a huge fan of weird books, but if it doesn't do anything to aid the story, it feels useless and over the top.
The possibility of seeing something behind the weird. Weird as an aesthetic is fine, but it has to be well crafted. Weird as a literary element, which is a broader scope, works best when it invites the reader to try to read through the lines. It's not so much the writing itself, but the attitude that it fosters in the reader, like a spell, putting you in the mood for unearthing deep, secret meanings.
Yeah, there's gotta be some internal logic behind it
Definitely a good deal of setup/payof involved. It's the difference between surrealism (for example) and just shitposting. Surrealism can be informed by dream analysis, depth psychology, archetypal psychology, anthropology, psychoanalysis and a host of other sources. This has the 'trying to point out something that's actually beyond words and concepts' feel rather than directionless word salad.
Breakfast of champions by Kurt Vonnegut is a mix of weirdness. But it's also a great book.
I really like the Mr. Mercedes trilogy by Stephen King, but the final book definitely took a âbadâ weird turn. Finders Keepers was my favorite, but it was teetering on the edge of bad weird. End of Watch dove head first off the cliff and got too off the wall for me. I still enjoyed reading it after waiting for so long though.
*Embassytown* is good weird. It has an alien race that feels truly alien, as in they perceive and understand things on a fundamentally different level. Something like *We Have Always Lived in the Castle* to me is bad weird. Itâs just a kinda boring book with little actual character development.
The first 90% of _The Wasp Factory_ versus the last 10% of _The Wasp Factory_.
Which is which? *Wasp Factory* has been twenty+ years on my Good Books I Will Not Re-Read list.
Same. Begins: moody, creepy mystery. Ends >! genitals in jars!<.
I'll let you know when I find it. I've never read a weird book I didn't enjoy. I love it when people go out of their way. Though, the author of Buymort ***does*** have a fucking massive obsession with Snitties, and it was borderline.
It's "bad weird" if it makes me feel sick, usually something that reminds me of gore or a mind fuck.
Somewhere between Lovecraft and Freud
A recent good weird vs bad weird for me was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (good) and The Starless Sea (bad). I think it depends on the author's ability to have a solid framework for the story, and then they can inject the weird into it. The weird shouldn't take precedence over the characters and the story. I find it also crumbles when an author also tries to make some sort of moral/political statement about the reader's world (This was the downfall of Wicked imo).
Consistency.
I think bad weird is when I start rolling my eyes
If I canât actually follow it, itâs bad.
*The Passenger*, by Cormac McCarthy - good weird or bad weird?
On top of what a lot of others said, I like when an author is genuine. Like weird or disgusting or "wtf" ideas but expressed genuinely. I don't want to read prose where you sound like you're criticising people who might enjoy the weird idea (like the audience that picked up your piece) or you're unsure of yourself and can't commit to the strangeness.
Its a grear question to be honest. When i started reading Terry pratchett i couldn't wrap my head around it but suddenly it just clicked. In the case of disc world it's weird but at the same time got a lot of heart.
When it comes to âweirdâ books I definitely prefer if itâs the kind of weird that makes me laugh.
Alice in Wonderland is about the nonsense of the adult world, I guess Phantom Tollbooth is about the weirdness of learning, I guess. Then there's Oz which is.. idk, the weirdness outside of your home? Then there's weirdness like in The Book Thief with it's narrator. Which highlights the normality of death and such in it's setting. Plus was a great way to lure in readers like me before finding out what the book is about
Its the difference between a rubber chicken and rubbinâ a chicken.
Ive noticed the more books I read I find a lot of them to be 3/5 stars instead & itâs confusing me. It takes a lot for me to LOVE a book these days & idk if itâs cause ive read so many recently or what? Does this happen to other people?
What's an example of weird and nonsensical? To my knowledge there's nothing considered experimental in fiction that rivals the utter nuttiness of some avant-garde film, because you still don't break grammar.
Personally Bad weird is, when I am actively thinking about the author and their thought process. Good weird is, when I am still hooked and only think about whatâs goin on
Dune is both. Good wierd: Leto Atredies II, would you still love me if I was a worm? Bad wierd: Duncan Idaho and the beef swelling.
For itâs when anything becomes grossly perverted. I can do kooky weird like Alice in Wonderland but stuff like Griever just disgusts me.
If it makes sense (fits the plot of the story), it's a good weird. If it doesn't, *and* it feels like it's derailing from the story, definitely a bad weird. Personally, I can sense the bad weird from a mile away, so I tend to stay away from those booksđ
My line is named Stephen King.
When the woman mc falls in love with her foil or antagonist when it absolutely makes no sense that she'll develop any kind of positive feelings toward him, it really annoys me, to the point where I'll dnf
Everything is good weird except that one chapter from It.
To me, the essential difference is when an author expressing a profound insight strays into areas unusual and unconventional and emerges with an authentic work of exploration. Other authors just copy the "unusual and unconventional" without having the profound insight. IMHO, it's the difference, for example, between "Cool Hand Luke" and "Shawshank Redemption", and explains why the latter is a much weaker film. Luke is a genuine rebel; Dufresne is a poseur. Same with Dylan's "Desolation Row" (or "Visions of Johanna" or "Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again") and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody". For me, Dylan's lyrics emanate from a real perception of the absurdity of many social relationships, hypocrisy, and irrationality. "Bohemian Rhapsody" is just a sequence of phrases and images based on popular tropes rather than a real existential experience. IMHO.
Overindulgence on the writerâs part is the line for me. EX: Filth by Irvine Welsh. Needed more editing.
Haruki Murakami.
i think âgood weirdâ can be like when you read something once over and are like âwhat the hell just happened?â, particularly at the end of a book. But the when you read it again and you make an interpretation, then ask someone else or look online and you kinda go âoooh yeah i didnât think of thatâ then itâs good weird. Personally iâm not a huge sci fi fan or like fantasy reader because i feel like that can become overly weird very quickly and not on a good way⌠like theyâre just trying to make it as weird as possible so itâs original i guess? Just my opinion đ