Fragmentary novel
A fragmentary novel is a novel made of fragments, vignettes, segments, documents or chapters that can be read in isolation and/or as part of the greater whole of the book. These novels typically lack a traditional plot or set of characters and often are the product of a cultural crisis[1][2][3][4][5][6] The oldest fragmentary novels are part of the (proto)-picaresque novel tradition.[7][8] Some of these fragmented novels are also categorized as short story collections or epistolary novels. Some fragmentary novels are (posthumously) published unfinished novels or are partly lost novels.[9][10][11]
Examples in chronological order
- Petronius – Satyricon (Late 1st century AD) (incomplete)
- Apuleius – Asinus aureus (The Golden Ass) (Late second century AD)
- François Rabelais – La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel (Gargantua and Pantagruel) (1532-1564)
- Laurence Sterne – Tristram Shandy (1759)
- Friedrich Schiller – Ghost-Seer (1789)
- Novalis – Die Lehrlinge zu Sais (The Novices at Sais) (1798)
- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel – Lucinde (1799)
- Novalis – Hymns to the night (1800)
- Novalis – Heinrich von Ofterdingen (1802)
- Karl Marx – Skorpion und Felix, Humoristischer Roman (Scorpion and Felix) (1837)
- Henri Murger – Scènes de la vie de bohème (1849)
- William Makepeace Thackeray – A Shabby Genteel Story (1857) (unfinished)
- Jane Austen – The Watsons (1871) (unfinished in 1805)
- Jean Paul – Der Komet oder Nikolaus Marggraf (1862)
- Gustave Flaubert – Bouvard et Pécuchet (1881)
- Sherwood Anderson – Winesburg, Ohio (1919)
- António Ferro – Leviana: novela em fragmentos (Frivolous) (1921)
- Joseph Roth – Das Spinnennetz (The Spider's Web) (1923)
- Ernest Hemingway – In our Time (1925)
- John Dos Passos – Manhattan Transfer (1925)
- Franz Kafka – Amerika (1927) (unfinished)
- Giorgio de Chirico – Hebdomeros (Hebdomeros, the Metaphysician) (1929)
- Evelyn Waugh – Vile Bodies (1930)
- John Dos Passos – USA Trilogy (1930-1936)
- Flann O'Brien – At Swim-Two-Birds (1939)
- Thomas Wolfe – The Hills Beyond (1941)
- Scott Fitzgerald – The Last Tycoon (1941) (unfinished)
- William Faulkner – Go Down, Moses (1942)
- Robert Musil – Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (The Man Without Qualities) (1943)
- A.E. van Vogt – The Mixed Men (1945)
- Raymond Queneau – Exercices de style (Exercises in Style) (1947)
- Ray Bradbury – The Martian Chronicles (1950)
- A.E. van Vogt – The Voyage of the Space Beagle (1950)
- Ray Bradbury – The Illustrated Man (1951)
- Franz Kafka – Wedding Preparations in the Country (1954) (unfinished)
- William S. Burroughs – Naked Lunch (1959)
- William Burroughs – The Soft Machine (1961)
- Vladimir Nabokov – Pale Fire (1962)
- Doris Lessing – The Golden Notebook (1962)
- Julio Cortázar – Hopscotch (1963)
- Kurt Vonnegut – Cat's Cradle (1963)
- Fritz Leiber – The Wanderer (1964)
- Bob Dylan – Tarantula A Fragmentary Novel (1966)
- Richard Brautigan – Trout Fishing in America (1967)
- Mikhail Bulgakov – Мастер и Маргарита (The Master and Margarita) (1967) (unfinished in 1940)
- John Brunner – Stand on Zanzibar (1968)
- Gilbert Sorrentino – Mulligan Stew (1968)
- Jerzy Kosinski – Steps (1968)
- Charlotte Strandgaard – Indimellem holder de af hinanden (Now and then they care for one another) (1969)
- Kurt Vonnegut – Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)
- J. G. Ballard – The Atrocity Exhbition (1970)
- Tomás Rivera – …y no se lo tragó la tierra (…And the Earth Did Not Devour Him) (1971)
- Ishmael Reed – Mumbo Jumbo (1972)
- Italo Calvino – Le città invisibili (Invisible Cities) (1972)
- B. S. Johnson – See The Old Lady Decently (1975)
- Renata Adler – Speedboat (1976)
- Michael Ondaatje – Coming Through Slaughter (1976)
- Barry Hannah – Airships (1978)
- Ingeborg Bachmann – The Book of Franza (1978) (unfinished)
- Georges Perec – Life a User's Manual (1978)
- Italo Calvino – Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore (If on a winter's night a traveler) (1979)
- Raymond Carver – What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (1981)
- Philip K. Dick – VALIS (1981)
- D. M. Thomas – The White Hotel (1981)
- Fernando Pessoa – The Book of Disquiet (1982)
- Astrid Roemer – Over de gekte van een vrouw (On the madness of a woman) (1982)
- Sandra Cisneros – The House on Mango Street (1983)
- Keri Hulme – The Bone People (1984)
- Milorad Pavić – Hazarski rečnik (Dictionary of the Khazars) (1984)
- Truman Capote – Answered Prayers (1986)
- Ken Kesey – Demon Box (1986)
- David Markson – Wittgenstein's Mistress (1988)
- Marion Bloem – Vaders van betekenis (1989)
- Georges Perec – 53 jours (1989) (unfinished)
- W. G. Sebald – Vertigo (1990)
- A. S. Byatt – Possession (1990)
- Tim O'Brien – The Things They Carried (1990)
- Michael Ondaatje – The English Patient (1992)
- Susanna Kaysen – Girl, Interrupted (1993)
- Carole Maso – Ava (1993)
- Irvine Welsh – Trainspotting (1993)
- David Markson – Reader’s Block (1996)
- Don DeLillo – Underworld (1997)
- Anna Pammrová – Antieva (1997)
- Libuše Moníková – Der Traumel (2000)
- Mark Z. Danielewski – House of Leaves (2000)
- Jim Crace – The Devil's Larder (64 short pieces) (2001)
- Adi Sorek – Seven Matrons (2001)
- David Markson – This is not a novel (2001)
- Ian McEwan – Atonement (2001)
- Hugo Burel – Tijeras de Plata (2003)
- Audrey Niffenegger – The Time Traveler's Wife (2003)
- David Mitchell – Cloud Atlas (2004)
- Roberto Bolaño – 2666 (2004)
- David Markson – Vanishing Point (2004)
- Mark Z. Danielewski – The Fifty Year Sword (2005)
- Mark Z. Danielewski – Only Revolutions (2006)
- Daniel Handler – Adverbs (2006)
- Olga Tokarczuk – Bieguni (Flights) (2007)
- György Dragomán – The White King (2007)
- David Markson – The Last Novel (2007)
- Michael Müller – Caoutchouc (2008)
- Micheline Marcom – A Brief History of Yes (2008)
- Elizabeth Strout – Olive Kitteridge (2008)
- Geraldine Brooks – People of the Book (2008)
- Vladimir Nabokov – The Original of Laura (2009) (unfinished in 1977)
- Joanna Kavenna – The Birth of Love (2010)
- Janusz Głowacki – Good Night, Dżerzi (2010)
- Umberto Eco – Il cimitero di Praga (The Prague Cemetery) (2010)
- Laurent Binet – HHhH (2010)
- Jennifer Egan – A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010)
- David Gordon – The Serialist (2010)
- Tom Rachman – The Imperfectionists (2010)
- T. C. Boyle – When the Killing's Done (2011)
- Hari Kunzru – Gods Without Men (2011)
- Bae Suah – 서울의 낮은 언덕들 (Recitation) (2011)
- Tea Tulić – Kosa posvuda (Hair Everywhere) (2011)
- David Foster Wallace – The Pale King (2011) (unfinished in 2008)
- Zadie Smith – NW (2012)
- Nguyễn Một – Moving against the sun (2012)
- Junot Díaz – This is How You Lose Her (2012)
- Ariana Harwicz – Die, My Love (2012)
- Mark Haddon – The Red House (2012)
- Sergio De La Pava – Personae (2013)
- Drew Gates – Blockpanda (2013)
- Jenny Offill – Dept. of Speculation (2014)
- Fabiano Gummo – Presente Contínuo, volume 1: 2013 (2014)
- Juan Alvarez – Nunca te quise dar en la jeta, Javier (Javier: I never wanted to beat you in your mug) (2015)
- Rodrigo Hasbún – Los afectos (Affections) (2015)
- Guillem López – Challenger (2015)
- Peter Rock – Spells (2016)
- Mishka Hoosen – Call it a Difficult Night (2016)
- Carolyn Zaikowski – In a Dream, I Dance by Myself, and I Collapse (2016)
- Michael Chabon – Moonglow (2016)
- Han Kang – The White Book (2016)
- Carla Badillo Coronado – Abierta sigue la noche (2016)
- Fabiano Gummo – Presente Contínuo, volume 2: 2015 (2016)
- Fabiano Gummo – Presente Contínuo, volume 3: 2017 (2018)
- Jenny Offill – Weather (2020)
References
- ^ Wood, Carl (1973). "IN OUR TIME: Hemingway's Fragmentary Novel". Neuphilologische Mitteilungen. 74 (4): 716–726. JSTOR 43342874.
- ^ Power, Chris (2016-11-03). "Refreshing breaks: how fragmented stories can be fulfilling reading". the Guardian. Retrieved 2018-04-14.
- ^ Gioia, Ted. "The Rise of the Fragmented Novel". fractiousfiction.com. Retrieved 2018-04-14.
- ^ "Narrative Patterning : Alternate History and Fragmented Narrative – Cognitive Edge". Cognitive Edge. Retrieved 2018-04-14.
- ^ Booker, M. Keith (2000). Ulysses, Capitalism and Colonialism: Reading Joyce After the Cold War. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 9780313312434.
- ^ "The Shattered Novel: Rules of Fragmented Fiction by Samantha Edmonds – Grist". Grist. 2017-10-29. Retrieved 2018-04-14.
- ^ "What's a Picaresque? The Top 5 Novels". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2018-04-14.
- ^ Mancing, Howard (1979). "The Picaresque Novel: A Protean Form". College Literature. 6 (3): 182–204. JSTOR 25111277.
- ^ Lane, Anthony (2017-03-06). "Reading Jane Austen's Final, Unfinished Novel". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2018-04-14.
- ^ Laurence, Talairach-Vielmas (2014-06-02). "Saverio Tomaiuolo, Victorian Unfinished Novels: The Imperfect Page". Miranda (in French) (9). ISSN 2108-6559.
- ^ Victorian Unfinished Novels – The Imperfect Page | S. Tomaiuolo | Palgrave Macmillan.