My Favorite Absurdist Literature
Explore a curated list of the best absurdist literature books that challenge reality and logic. Discover my favorite absurdist reads for thought-provoking, unconventional storytelling.
Book
The Ubu Plays
by Alfred Jarry
Alfred Jarry is regarded as one of the founders of modern avant-garde theatre-- "Dada, Surrealism, Pataphysics, Theatre of Cruelty, the Absurd--all owe a debt to Jarry." (Encore) This volume contains his three classic Ubu texts: Ubu Roi, Ubu Cocu and Ubu Enchaîné. Through the lucid translations of Connolly and Taylor, the reader comes to realize that the violent and loathsome Ubu is Jarry's dark metaphor for man in the modern age. As Ubu himself said, "We shall not have succeeded in demolishing everything unless we demolish the ruins as well."
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ID: 0143037579
(Type: books)
Book
The Stranger
by Albert Camus
With the intrigue of a psychological thriller, The Stranger—Camus's masterpiece—gives us the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach. With an Introduction by Peter Dunwoodie; translated by Matthew Ward. Behind the subterfuge, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd" and describes the condition of reckless alienation and spiritual exhaustion that characterized so much of twentieth-century life. “The Stranger is a strikingly modern text and Matthew Ward’s translation will enable readers to appreciate why Camus’s stoical anti-hero and Âdevious narrator remains one of the key expressions of a postwar Western malaise, and one of the cleverest exponents of a literature of ambiguity.” –from the Introduction by Peter Dunwoodie First published in 1946; now in translation by Matthew Ward.
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ID: 0802151345
(Type: books)
Book
The Bald Soprano, and Other Plays
by Eugène Ionesco
Four original plays by French author Eugène Ionesco.
Book
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead
by Tom Stoppard
Acclaimed as a modern dramatic masterpiece, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead is the fabulously inventive tale of Hamlet as told from the worm's-eve view of the bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two minor characters in Shakespeare's play. In Tom Stoppard's best-known work, this Shakespearean Laurel and Hardy finally get a chance to take the lead role, but do so in a world where echoes of Waiting for Godot resound, where reality and illusion intermix, and where fate leads our two heroes to a tragic but inevitable end. Tom Stoppard was catapulted into the front ranks of modem playwrights overnight when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead opened in London in 1967. Its subsequent run in New York brought it the same enthusiastic acclaim, and the play has since been performed numerous times in the major theatrical centers of the world. It has won top honors for play and playwright in a poll of London Theater critics, and in its printed form it was chosen one of the "Notable Books of 1967" by the American Library Association.
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ID: 0451158717
(Type: books)
Book
Rhinoceros, and Other Plays
by Eugène Ionesco
A collection of three modern plays by the master of the absurd and member of the French Academy.
Book
The Supermale
by Alfred Jarry
The act of love is of no importance, since it can be performed indefinitely.' With that remark, the gentleman adventurer Andre Marcueil sets into motion an outrageous plot of scientific experiments nd technological heroism focused on author Alfred Jarry's trinity of obsessions: sex, alcohol, and bicycles. Like a mock Jules Verne, Jarry describes the manner in which the 'Supermale' ultimately proves his claim; after 82 times with a woman, attending doctors hooks him up to a machine instead with whom he merges in the book's final climax.'