The Gentry Reader: Tales of wonder
4. We (Yevgeny Zamyatin)
Written a over 25 years before Orwell's 1984, zamyatin's stunning dystopian tale is every bit as bitter and scathing. The hero of the tale, D-503, lives in One State, an urban construction made of glass. In his completely regimented environment, falling in love with I-330 – from a rebellious league, is a dangerous move. He must face The Great Benefactor, the dystopian anti-God and, ultimately, undergo the Great operation – the removal of his imagination. Zamyatin creates a completely beliveable mathematical, emotionless over-surveilled world, a pathetic kind of well-ordered hell. When you're thinking takes of wonder, We is one of the first to come to mind.
3. Moon Palace (Paul Auster)
A vast yarn surrounding Marco Stanley Fogg and his maverick uncle Victor, Auster's dazzling book is his most expansive and, yes, awe inspiring. The story is a constant release of small revelations, building until its own grand unveiling. All of Auster's themes are present: starvation, familial intrigue, the symbolic coding of everyday life – but fused together perfectly in this gargantuan story that peels away layer upon layer of meaning until it is finally stripped naked, exposing the true nature of story itself. Unbelievable.
2. McTeague (Frank Norris)
Frank Norris' tale of greed and violence in old San Francisco is one of the most compelling novels of all time, ending on an unimaginably epic scale. McTeague is driven to madness by his scrooge of a wife, Trina, who hides their money away until the couple are on the verge of destitution. McTeague, the true brute of all fiction, murders her and flees to the desert, pursued by his vengeful old friend and, ultimately, involved in a the ultimate struggle on the salt flats of death valley. No where else has true avarice and monetary violation been depicted. Eric von Stroheim was sufficiently owled over to film the book line for line in his equally notorious grand folly, Greed.
1. Ubik (Philip K. Dick)
Of all tales of wonder and imagination, thiis is the one not to ignore. Without doubt, this is the most thrilling, marvellously plotted and outrageously inventive novel from science-fiction's one true genius. Impossible to condense into bitesize, the book anticipates the themes of The Matrix and the concept of layers of unreality. Hopping between constructed worlds inside the subconscious of a demented demi-god, this remarkable tale is woven with the fabric of crazed inspiration and should be read by anyone boasting a pair of eyes and even half a brain. It really is an essential read.
If you can suggest any other tales of wonder, we;d like to hear from you…
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