House of Leaves is pretty non-standard. For older works, books like: Finnegan's Wake To the Lighthouse
James Joyce's Ulysses, if you want to go that far back. Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire is another experimental piece. Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker. Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange. Almost any fiction by William Gass qualifies, I think.
Tried Ulysses, didn't get far. Really difficult read but the little I read taught me about the importance of grammar haha
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner Samuel Beckett's Trilogy Tree of Codes by Jonathan Safran Foer (gimmicky in my opinion)
Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby, Jr. - a very unusual style of prose but surprisingly easy to read (I thought)
Too bad, it's a great novel. So is Portrait. I could never get into Finnegan's Wake, probably because of the need for a translation as I was reading it.
I penetrated ten pages into Finnegans Wake once, and decided I couldn't get any further without powerful computer equipment. It's easily the most difficult book I've ever tried to read, and probably the most difficult book ever written. I've set it aside for my declining years.
Holy crap! I've just 'looked inside' this on amazon out of sheer curiosity. Four words spring to mind; Life, Is, Too, and Short.
And you're just looking at it as a reader. Imagine the state of mind James Joyce must have been in to write it!
Crank, by Ellen Hopkins, for a YA version. (Actually, probably anything by Hopkins, but Crank is the one I've read)
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban. Not my usual kind of thing, but man, that is one hell of a fantastic story. And it could NOT have been told without the experimental prose.
strictly speaking it's poetry, but John Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. it makes my eyes go weird trying to read it!
My brain went weird trying to read Milton. It's one of the main reasons I never went for my Masters in English. Every place I considered going for the Masters required a year's study of flipping Milton. I cannot stand Milton. His writing, his outlook. His religious maschochism. Everything. And yes, I've read it, or at least great chunks of it. Gritting my teeth, trying to find some reason to like it. I couldn't. I honestly don't consider him to be one of the English language's finest authors ever, but obviously some people do.
What if the breath that kindl'd those grim fires awak'd should blow them into sevenfold rage and plunge us in the flames? Or from above should intermitted vengeance arm again his red right hand to plague us?
I know, this is where i'm grateful i'm not doing English, i'm only attempting to read it because it was the base for one of my favourite albums (though i might call it a bad job and just enjoy the album)
Aargh. I need a pill. Words cannot describe how uninterested I am in following somebody's convoluted search for truth and sense and justice within their chosen religion. If you don't feel it, you don't. I don't.
We had a book club back in the day (it's been over 5 years now) and read Titus Groan. If you're interested, you can read through the comments here.
