Five Books That Conjure Entirely New Worlds
The five books listed below are capable of conjuring entirely new worlds, transporting readers to different realms and perspectives. These novels and poetry collections are not just mere fantasies, but rather they offer a glimpse into the human experience, exploring themes of reality, identity, and the complexities of the human mind.
Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov, is a novel that consists of a long poem and extensive endnotes that build up a rich and detailed story about an exiled king, an assassination plot, and an unknown European land. The novel blurs the lines between reality and fantasy, leaving the reader to decide what is true and what is not.
Primeval and Other Times, by Olga Tokarczuk, is a collection of interwoven vignettes that explore the lives of the inhabitants of a village in Poland during the 20th century. The book is a dreamlike and visceral portrayal of the human experience, touching on themes of folklore, ritual, and strife.
Brodeck, by Philippe Claudel, is a novel that tells the story of a stranger who arrives in a remote French village, disturbing the everyday existence of its inhabitants. The novel is a heartbreaking and stunning work of fiction that explores the clash between different views of reality and the secrets that people keep.
The Ravicka novels, by Renee Gladman, are a series of books that explore the concept of architecture and the idea of an imaginary city-state. The novels are a defamiliarization of our world, showing us how it works in peculiar and modern ways.
Dark Matter, by Aase Berg, is a work of phantasmagorical, erotic, postapocalyptic unease that exists in a nightmare state that entangles nature and the pollution of human-built environments. The book is a hybrid composition of prose and poetry that has a tactile quality that colonizes the reader without mercy.
These five books are capable of conjuring entirely new worlds, transporting readers to different realms and perspectives. They offer a glimpse into the human experience, exploring themes of reality, identity, and the complexities of the human mind.