gawain Lynch

if we can count comics, Moore's Promethea too, one of the volumes is a trip around the Tree of Life, i think the whole narrative can be mapped on the Tarot Majors too

Mark Danielewski's Only Revolutions is a book length prose poem that you read from the ends in to the center. i haven't gotten through it but respect the ambitious structure

i feel like Hal Duncan's Vellum & Ink had something interesting structurally between them but i don't think i finished them, specifically bc i waited too long to start Ink after Vellum & got completely lost

Honorable mention/not sure if it counts but the language was interesting enough that I'm tempted to include it: The Tide Will Erase All by Justin Hellstrom is an Improbability Drive-style apocalypse told by a ten(?) year old but might also be a radio/satellite announcement of their story after the fact? needs a revisit

OH SHIT Koji Suzuki's Ring Cycle. Ring is a horror novel that happens on an entirely different level of operation than what we find out about it on Spiral & Loop

Jeff Vandermee's Dead Astronauts, i actually don't know how to describe what he did with it but it's nuts

Blake Butler's There Is No Year is decidedly nonlinear, bordering on nonsensical, with upsetting vibes and such perfect pacing that I couldn't put it down

Matt Bell plays in this territory a lot; pretty much anything by him is going to be fighting you back a little but my introduction was the short story "The Cartographer's Girl"

John Elizabeth Stintzi takes a pretty oblique approach to structure in Vanishing Monuments and, I understand, in My Volcano. (Disclaimer: they are also a friend of mine, but I make the recommendation in earnest)

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins is like if Warren Ellis tried to write House of Leaves, and I mean that as a compliment

I'm sure you're aware of Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez, but it is, in fact, all that and a bag of chips, especially in its structure

Monica Ojeda does some fun things with structure, especially in Nefando but definitely also in Jawbone, though I'll note that Nefando especially deals in some very dark territory

Steven Millhauser's short stories are pretty distinctly nonlinear and often outright weird in a very fun way -- I love his collection The Barnum Museum, notably the source of the short story that inspired the movie The Illusionist

I feel like Ayse Papatya Bucak's The Trojan War Museum fits here, but I also just feel like that collection is underrated, so cum grano salis

I think the movie is better-known, but Laszlo Krasznahorkai's Satantango is formally and topically very weird in a way that I found delightful

The Bridge by Iain Banks

and

Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh

(both have the dude in a coma)

See Under: Love by David Grossman. It's in four parts, two of them are straightforward lit fic, one is salmon point-of-view, if I recall correctly, one is a story told in dictionary definitions.

And short stories:

Stet by Sarah Gailey (the story emerges from the footnotes)

Kissing the Witch by Emma Donoghue

Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge

The Angel of History by Rabih Alameddine

Dogs at the Perimeter by Madeleine Thien

if we can count comics, Moore's Promethea too, one of the volumes is a trip around the Tree of Life, i think the whole narrative can be mapped on the Tarot Majors too

Mark Danielewski's Only Revolutions is a book length prose poem that you read from the ends in to the center. i haven't gotten through it but respect the ambitious structure

i feel like Hal Duncan's Vellum & Ink had something interesting structurally between them but i don't think i finished them, specifically bc i waited too long to start Ink after Vellum & got completely lost

Honorable mention/not sure if it counts but the language was interesting enough that I'm tempted to include it: The Tide Will Erase All by Justin Hellstrom is an Improbability Drive-style apocalypse told by a ten(?) year old but might also be a radio/satellite announcement of their story after the fact? needs a revisit

OH SHIT Koji Suzuki's Ring Cycle. Ring is a horror novel that happens on an entirely different level of operation than what we find out about it on Spiral & Loop

Jeff Vandermee's Dead Astronauts, i actually don't know how to describe what he did with it but it's nuts

Blake Butler's There Is No Year is decidedly nonlinear, bordering on nonsensical, with upsetting vibes and such perfect pacing that I couldn't put it down

Matt Bell plays in this territory a lot; pretty much anything by him is going to be fighting you back a little but my introduction was the short story "The Cartographer's Girl"

John Elizabeth Stintzi takes a pretty oblique approach to structure in Vanishing Monuments and, I understand, in My Volcano. (Disclaimer: they are also a friend of mine, but I make the recommendation in earnest)

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins is like if Warren Ellis tried to write House of Leaves, and I mean that as a compliment

I'm sure you're aware of Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez, but it is, in fact, all that and a bag of chips, especially in its structure

Monica Ojeda does some fun things with structure, especially in Nefando but definitely also in Jawbone, though I'll note that Nefando especially deals in some very dark territory

Steven Millhauser's short stories are pretty distinctly nonlinear and often outright weird in a very fun way -- I love his collection The Barnum Museum, notably the source of the short story that inspired the movie The Illusionist

I feel like Ayse Papatya Bucak's The Trojan War Museum fits here, but I also just feel like that collection is underrated, so cum grano salis

I think the movie is better-known, but Laszlo Krasznahorkai's Satantango is formally and topically very weird in a way that I found delightful

The Bridge by Iain Banks

and

Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh

(both have the dude in a coma)

See Under: Love by David Grossman. It's in four parts, two of them are straightforward lit fic, one is salmon point-of-view, if I recall correctly, one is a story told in dictionary definitions.

And short stories:

Stet by Sarah Gailey (the story emerges from the footnotes)

Kissing the Witch by Emma Donoghue

Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge

The Angel of History by Rabih Alameddine

Dogs at the Perimeter by Madeleine Thien

Tam Lin is a Scottish folktale, usually presented in ballad form, dating back to at least the 16th Century. It has been summarized and re-told by different people over the years, including Overly Sarcastic Productions. It is the subject of a one-act opera, and was the inspiration for a 1970 movie that updated the story to the present day.

The fairy queen yells at Tam Lin in every version analyzed except for the Anais Mitchell version. Her version is an outlier in many respects, since the entire parade is left out, Janet simply grabs hold of Tam Lin mid-conversation.

Another oddity is Pentangle's version, which was written for the movie and consists of a jumble of images meant to complement scenes from the film, without a coherent narrative.

The biggest surprise to me is how few versions mention Janet seeking an abortion, something that I had always thought of as a central part of the story.

One thing I wish I could have looked at in more depth is the balance between versions that describe Tam Lin's transformations before he goes through them, and versions that describe them as they happen. As they happen is more common, but some songs will do the entire sequence twice.

Going into this, I had two versions prominent in my mind: Anais Mitchell's pop-folk version that leaves out much of the story, and Anne Briggs' very traditional (and very long) version. Because of this, I thought perhaps we would see a decrease in the complexity of the story over the years, but that's not the case, it's basically flat. I think a better comparison might be to separate into traditional and revised versions, although that is something of a judgment call.

There were so many minor discrepancies I couldn't even keep track of them all, but these four stood out because they are so oddly specific. Even the main character's name and the setting aren't consistent across versions, if they're even mentioned at all. Some versions don't even give the main character a name!

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”

And this:

"'I wish it need not have happened in my time,' said Frodo.

'So do I,' said Gandalf, 'and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.'"

And this:

"I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend."

And this:

“Many that live deserve death and some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be so eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the wise cannot see all ends."

And this:

“True courage is about knowing not when to take a life, but when to spare one.”

And clearly they were all written partly because he survived the war, because of what he’d seen and done and learned. But at the same time the unwillingness to lose faith, the courage and strength that this man had to believe in these things after going through hell! It makes the nihilists look so cheap, so uninteresting! People who’ve went through concentration camps and wars believe in humanity anyway, isn’t that proof that hope and love exist? And many, many, many of them did not return or returned broken and cruel and traumatised to the point when no faith in others was possible for them, and nobody can blame them. But there were many who refused to lose faith and hope. They have seen some of the worst that life has to offer and came back believing that we shouldn’t be eager to deal out death in judgement and should love only that which the sword defends.

“It didn’t take me ten seconds, it took me forty years.”

I had a friend in college who was an absolutely amazing artist. I loved seeing his work! One time I said something to the effect of "I could never do that."

Talent is THE RATE at which you learn things, not whether or not you can learn certain skills at all.

She’s wearing Blue

He is, very specifically, the one heading down (to his death) (you could also give significance to the color red here)

That guy is literally headed to his death and they both know it, this is their last meeting

Apolaki Wept. (click for high res.)

Extracurriculars,

The Soil Club

Apiarists’ Society

The Kristen Applebees Campaign Committee

(Added a Games Club because Mazey deserves it)

Oisin has started the paperwork for an Adaine Abernant appreciation society