LitQueuelitqueue

After

The Long Take

Robin Robertson2018

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

1 more ↓

  • Atonement

    Ian McEwan2001

    A young girl misinterprets an event in 1935, leading to a false accusation. The story follows the consequences across WWII and into the present.

    Same elegiac register

    pace0·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • Don Quixote

    Kathy Acker1986

    A woman undergoes an abortion and adopts the persona of Don Quixote to pursue a quest in a fragmented, postmodern landscape.

    elegiac → sardonic

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

  • Translated Accounts

    James Kelman2001

    Anonymous witnesses describe life under a military regime. The prose uses broken, bureaucratic syntax to mimic a literal translation.

    elegiac → bleak

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • Gravity's Rainbow

    Thomas Pynchon1973

    During the end of WWII, an American lieutenant's sexual encounters seem to predict where German V-2 rockets will fall. The narrative is fragmented.

    elegiac → sardonic

    pace0·prose+1·bleak0

To recover

3 more ↓

  • The Duke and I

    Julia Quinn2000

    A duke and a debutante enter a fake courtship to avoid social pressure. They navigate Regency London's marriage market while hiding their deal.

    elegiac → playful

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

  • On Dublin Street

    Samantha Young2012

    An American woman in Scotland enters a sex-only arrangement with her roommate's brother to avoid emotional intimacy. It is a contemporary romance.

    elegiac → warm

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

  • Night Pleasures

    Sherrilyn Kenyon2002

    An immortal warrior and a skeptical accountant are handcuffed together while being hunted by supernatural predators.

    elegiac → playful

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

Faster

3 more ↓

  • Candide

    Voltaire

    A naive young man travels the world while his tutor insists that everything is for the best. He encounters a series of global catastrophes.

    elegiac → sardonic

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1

  • The Da Vinci Code

    Dan Brown2003

    A symbologist and a cryptologist flee the police while solving puzzles hidden in art. They search for a secret regarding the Holy Grail.

    elegiac → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

    A man does arithmetic to stay alive on Mars. Problem, attempt, result, repeat.

    elegiac → wry

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

Slower

3 more ↓

  • Umbrella

    Will Self2013

    A psychiatrist in 1971 treats a woman who has been catatonic for decades. The prose shifts between eras and consciousnesses without paragraph breaks.

    elegiac → clinical

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

  • Translated Accounts

    James Kelman2001

    Anonymous witnesses describe life under a military regime. The prose uses broken, bureaucratic syntax to mimic a literal translation.

    elegiac → bleak

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • The English Patient

    Michael Ondaatje1992

    Four people shelter in a ruined Italian villa at the end of WWII. They care for a burned, anonymous man who recounts his past in the desert.

    Same elegiac register

    pace-1·prose0·bleak0

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • The North Water

    Ian McGuire2016

    A disgraced surgeon joins a whaling expedition where a psychopathic harpooner commits a murder. The crew becomes trapped in the Arctic ice.

    elegiac → cold, still noir

    pace+1·prose0·bleak+1

  • The Road

    Cormac McCarthy2006

    A father and son walk through a landscape of ash and scavengers toward the coast. They carry only what fits in a shopping cart.

    elegiac → bleak

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

  • The Underground Railroad

    Colson Whitehead2016

    Two slaves escape a Georgia plantation via a literal underground train system while being pursued by a slave catcher.

    elegiac → bleak

    pace+1·prose0·bleak+1