Anti-Novel, Anti-Bourgeois

[berlitz23]

We need to embrace Ergodic literature, because it shatters the conventions that have been established in our society. We need to encourage more experimental work and people need to write more in unchatered territory. In fact, most books we read are authoritarian because the writer imposes his reading on us. Overall, Ergodic literature requires special effort to comprehend or read, perhaps due to a "non linear" structure. The term is derived from the Greek words ergon, meaning "work" and hodos, meaning "path". Ergodic literature demands an active role of the reader, such that they become "users" who may need to perform complex semiotic operations to construct the reading.
For example, ergodic literature may require following a very unconventional page layout in order to understand a novel, or in the case of ebooks, readers may need to constantly use hyperlinks to follow the narrative, or use menus to continue reading in a new location. By comparison, conventional "nonergodic" literature simply requires the reader to turn pages and follow the text in sequential order.





Naked Lunch, The Soft Machine, Nova Express and The Ticket That Exploded by William S. Burroughs, to greater or lesser extent composed using the cut-up technique
Composition No.1, a novel on cards written by Marc Saporta in 1961
Dictionary of the Khazars: A Lexicon Novel and Landscape Painted With Tea by Milorad Pavic
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
Rayuela by Julio Cortazar
253, both the print and online versions, by Geoff Ryman
The Dionaea House by Eric Heisserer
The Unfortunates by B. S. Johnson
Other Electricities by Ander Monson
Ibid: A Life by Mark Dunn
Riddley Walker
City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

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[Random Precision]

I find it hard to imagine why a novel with a linear narrative can be described as "bourgeois" in any way. Many socialist writers such as Upton Sinclair, Jack London and George Orwell used the form to great effect. Whereas some non-conventional narrative fiction (even some of the authors you mention) has become kitsch for petty-bourgeois elitists the world over. The point is that a novel's politics are not determined by the structure of the narrative, but by the narrative's content.

But while we're on the subject, Roobin on Lenin's Tomb has written some pretty good political introductions to the Beat writers Jack Kerouac (http://leninology.blogspot.com/2008/06/beat-primer.html), William S. Burroughs (http://leninology.blogspot.com/2008/07/beat-primer-part-2-burroughs.html) and Allen Ginsberg (http://leninology.blogspot.com/search/label/Ginsberg).

[Dystisis]

I find this very interesting, bourgeois or not, (hah) alternative use of culture and art is progressive (you know, for the society and culture) it doesn't usually matter who takes interest in it.

[Led Zeppelin]

Marxist writing on art and literature: Literature and Revolution (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1924/lit_revo/index.htm)

I tend to agree with Trotsky that you can't just lump styles of literature or art in a category of "bourgeoisie" and then ban it.