Literary theme analysis, by a book like {foo}
Books about Absurdism
The Metamorphosis
by Franz Kafka
A man's transformation into an insect and the surreal journey that follows.
Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a "monstrous vermin". He initially considers the transformation to be temporary and slowly ponders the consequences of this ... (Wikipedia)
The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy
by Stanisław Lem
A satirical sci-fi journey of a man struggling to make sense of a world of surrealism and absurdity.
Ijon Tichy is sent to the Eighth World Futurological Congress in Costa Rica , by professor Tarantoga . The conference is set to focus on the world's overpopulation crisis and ways of dealing with it. ... (Wikipedia)
Endgame
by Samuel Beckett
A darkly humorous exploration of the human condition and the inevitability of death.
Samuel Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969; his literary output of plays, novels, stories, and poetry has earned him an uncontested place as one of the greatest writers of our ... (Goodreads)
The Bald Soprano and The Lesson: Two Plays
by Eugène Ionesco
Mme Smith : Tiens, il est neuf heures. Nous avons mangé de la soupe, du poisson, des pommes de terre au lard, de la salade anglaise. Les enfants ont bu de l'eau anglaise. Nous avons bien mangé ce ... (Goodreads)
Moscow to the End of the Line
by Venedikt Erofeev
A surreal, comedic journey through the Soviet Union and its culture.
In this classic of Russian humor and social commentary, a fired cable fitter goes on a binge and hops a train to Petushki (where his "most beloved of trollops" awaits). On the way he bestows upon ... (Goodreads)
The Master and Margarita
by Mikhail Bulgakov
A fantastical, satirical examination of Soviet life, intersecting with the supernatural.
The novel has two settings. The first is Moscow during the 1930s, where Satan appears at Patriarch's Ponds as Professor Woland . He is accompanied by Koroviev, a grotesquely-dressed valet; Behemoth , ... (Wikipedia)
The Complete Stories
by Franz Kafka
A collection of Kafka's surreal and haunting short stories, exploring the human condition and the absurdity of existence.
The Complete Stories brings together all of Kafka’s stories, from the classic tales such as “The Metamorphosis,” “In the Penal Colony,” and “A Hunger Artist” to shorter pieces and fragments that Max ... (Goodreads)
Invitation to a Beheading
by Vladimir Nabokov
A man's surreal experience in a dystopian world of psychological and physical torment.
Narrated omnisciently , the novel opens with Cincinnatus C., a thirty-year-old teacher and the protagonist, being sentenced to death by beheading for the crime "gnostical turpitude" in twenty days' ... (Wikipedia)
The Third Policeman
by Flann O'Brien
A bizarre yet darkly funny tale of a man's descent into a surreal world of mischievous creatures and strange events.
The Third Policeman is set in rural Ireland and is narrated by a dedicated amateur scholar of de Selby , a scientist and philosopher. , The narrator, whose name we never learn, is orphaned at a young ... (Wikipedia)
Waiting for Godot
by Samuel Beckett
Two men wait for a mysterious figure who never arrives, reflecting on their lives and existence.
Two men, Vladimir and Estragon, have met near a leafless tree. Estragon spent the previous night lying in a ditch and receiving a beating from some unnamed assailants. The two men discuss a variety ... (Wikipedia)
Survivor
by Chuck Palahniuk
A darkly humorous look at the trappings of modern society and the state of human existence.
The novel opens, in medias res, to Tender Branson, who has just hijacked an airliner, released its passengers, and is now sitting in the cockpit telling his life story to the cockpit voice recorder . ... (Wikipedia)
Guards! Guards!: The Play
by Stephen Briggs
An imaginative retelling of Terry Pratchett's popular Discworld novel, set in the city of Ankh-Morpork.
Adapted for the stage by Stephen Briggs, in this book the city of Ankh-Morpork is under threat from a 60 foot fire-breathing dragon, summoned by a secret society of malcontented tradesmen. Defending ... (Goodreads)
The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
by Franz Kafka
A collection of surreal stories exploring the depths of the human condition.
Virtually unknown during his lifetime, Franz Kafka is now one of the world’s most widely read and discussed authors. His nightmarish novels and short stories have come to symbolize modern man’s ... (Goodreads)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
by Tom Stoppard
A humorous exploration of fate and free will, seen through the eyes of two minor characters in Shakespeare's "Hamlet".
Hamlet told from the worm's-eye view of two minor characters, bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Echoes of Waiting for Godot resound, reality and illusion mix, and where fate leads heroes to a ... (Goodreads)
Foam of the Days
by Boris Vian
Unexpected romance between a wealthy man and a singer, set in a surreal, dreamlike world.
In a surreal world where animals and inanimate objects reflect the emotions of humans, Colin is a wealthy young man with a resourceful and stylish valet , Nicholas, and a loyal best friend, Chick. ... (Wikipedia)
The Pillowman
by Martin McDonagh
A darkly comic tale of a writer accused of murder, testing the limits of storytelling.
Ariel and Tupolski interrogate Katurian in a police room, adopting a good cop/bad cop routine with Ariel happily playing the bad cop. At first Katurian does not know why he is being questioned, and ... (Wikipedia)
The Clay Machine Gun
by Victor Pelevin
A surreal journey through post-Soviet Russia, blending Buddhist philosophy and Russian history. A satirical commentary on the human condition.
The novel is written as a first-person narrative of Pyotr Pustota (English: Pyotr Void ) and in the introduction to this book it is claimed that unlike Dmitriy Furmanov 's book Chapayev , this book ... (Wikipedia)
The Fall
by Albert Camus
A man's journey into alienation and despair, driven by a sense of absurdity in life.
The Fall, ( French :, La Chute, ) is a philosophical novel by Albert Camus . First published in 1956, it is his last complete work of fiction. Set in Amsterdam , The Fall consists of a series of ... (Wikipedia)
Wilt
by Tom Sharpe
A hilarious comedy of errors, as an Englishman struggles to keep his sanity while escaping his chaotic life.
Henry Wilt, tied to a daft job and a domineering wife, has just been passed over for promotion yet again. Ahead of him at the Polytechnic stretch years of trying to thump literature into the heads of ... (Goodreads)
Rhinoceros
by Eugène Ionesco
A surrealist play about a town succumbing to mass political conformity.
The play starts in the town square of a small provincial French village. Two friends meet at a coffee shop: eloquent, intellectual and prideful Jean, and the simple, shy, kind-hearted drunkard ... (Wikipedia)
Molloy / Malone Dies / The Unnamable
by Samuel Beckett
A trilogy of novels exploring the themes of identity, existence, and language through fragmented narratives and stream-of-consciousness writing.
Malone is an old man who lies naked in bed in either asylum or hospital —he is not sure which. Most of his personal effects have been taken from him, though he has retained some: his exercise book, ... (Wikipedia)
The Myth of Sisyphus
by Albert Camus
An essay on understanding the absurdity of life, and realizing there is meaning in even the most mundane tasks.
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves—and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, ... (Goodreads)
Blow-Up and Other Stories
by Julio Cortázar
A collection of short stories exploring the surreal and unexpected, often blurring the line between reality and imagination.
A young girl spends her summer vacation in a country house where a tiger roams . . . A man reading a mystery finds out too late that he is the murderer's victim . . . In the fifteen stories collected ... (Goodreads)
Journey to the End of the Night
by Louis-Ferdinand Céline
A darkly comic, nihilistic journey of self-discovery, following a man into the heart of an absurd world.
Céline’s masterpiece—colloquial, polemic, hyper-realistic, boiling over with black humor Céline’s masterpiece—colloquial, polemic, hyper realistic—boils over with bitter humor and revulsion at ... (Barnes & Noble)
This Census-Taker
by China Miéville
A boy witnesses a traumatic event and struggles to recall the details, while living with his strange and possibly dangerous father.
The father makes keys for the townspeople who come to visit him, which have magical properties attributed to them. The relationship between the parents is tense, and the boy occasionally witnesses ... (Wikipedia)
Death and the Penguin
by Andrey Kurkov
A Ukrainian journalist's surreal journey of self-discovery and moral soul-searching.
Viktor is an aspiring writer with only Misha, his pet penguin, for company. Although he would prefer to write short stories, he earns a living composing obituaries for a newspaper. He longs to see ... (Goodreads)
Hocus Pocus
by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
A darkly comedic tale of a man's struggle to cope with the absurdity of life.
Eugene is fired from his job as a college professor after having several of his witticisms surreptitiously recorded by the daughter of a popular conservative commentator. Eugene then becomes a ... (Wikipedia)
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Five Parts
by Douglas Adams
Intergalactic adventure full of comedic twists, exploring the nature of the universe.
* The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy * The Restaurant at the End of the Universe * Life, the Universe and Everything * So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish * Mostly Harmless Suppose a good friend ... (Goodreads)
Amerika
by Franz Kafka
A young man's surreal journey through a bizarre and dystopian version of America.
The story describes the bizarre wanderings of sixteen-year-old European immigrant Karl Roßmann, who was forced to go to New York City to escape the scandal of his seduction by a housemaid. As the ... (Wikipedia)
Happy Days
by Samuel Beckett
Two characters, Winnie and Willie, are stuck in a barren landscape, reflecting on their past and present lives.
Winnie is embedded waist-deep in a low mound under blazing light, with a large black bag beside her. She is awakened by a piercing bell and begins her daily routine with a prayer. Talking incessantly ... (Wikipedia)
Welcome to the Monkey House
by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
A collection of short stories exploring the absurdities of human life.
Welcome to the Monkey House is a collection of Kurt Vonnegut’s shorter works. Originally printed in publications as diverse as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and The Atlantic Monthly , ... (Goodreads)
The Elephant Vanishes
by Haruki Murakami
Collection of short stories depicting the surreal and mysterious aspects of life.
Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780679750536 With the same deadpan mania and genius for dislocation that he brought to his internationally acclaimed novels A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled ... (Goodreads)
Frankenstein in Baghdad
by Ahmed Saadawi
A quest for justice in a war-torn Baghdad, as a supernatural creature stalks the city.
In the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq , a junk-dealer named Hadi al-Attag collects the scattered body parts of bomb victims with the intention of giving them a proper burial. Al-Attag first ... (Wikipedia)
The Antipope
by Robert Rankin
A hilarious and absurd tale of a man who becomes the Antipope and his quest to save the world from the forces of evil.
Jim Pooley and John Omally live in the London borough of Brentford, spending much of their time drinking in the Flying Swan, backing horses, womanising, and being generally feckless. Their problems ... (Wikipedia)
The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
by Albert Camus
Philosophical essays on the absurd human condition, questioning the value of life.
One of the most influential works of this century, this is a crucial exposition of existentialist thought. Influenced by works such as Don Juan, and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a ... (Goodreads)
Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography
by Lemony Snicket
A mysterious narrator's tongue-in-cheek account of his own life, filled with dark humor.
A Warning from the Publisher: Many readers have questions about Lemony Snicket, author of the distressing serial concerning the trials of the charming but unlucky Baudelaire orphans, published under ... (Goodreads)
The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch
by Neil Gaiman
A boy's memories of his grandfather's puppet show reveal dark family secrets and the blurred lines between reality and fantasy.
A dark and frightening fully painted novella, MR. PUNCH tells the tale of a young boy's loss of innocence results from a horrific confrontation with his past. Spending a summer at his grandfather's ... (Goodreads)
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil
by George Saunders
A satirical novella about a small country that is invaded and taken over by a tyrannical leader named Phil.
The story focuses on the border disputes between the countries of Inner and Outer Horner, the former of which is "so small that only one Inner Hornerite at a time could fit inside, and the other six ... (Wikipedia)
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