If you like experimental or otherwise less traditional fiction, ACOR is running a regular reading list under the title “XFX,” short for Experimental Fiction. The selections generally will be a part of my regular reading, introduced and reviewed on the ACOR web log, and open to questions, interpretations and general discussion. But since this type of fiction is special to me and often revealing to other readers, I’m going to keep a separate accounting of the reading under the tab “XFX.”
Those readers from the Yahoo Group “Experimental Fiction” are welcome to this new version of the reading path that hopefully will continue to meet its goal to “Exercise Your Imagination.”
The current schedule of reading in XFX is always published under the group tab. We recently completed reading Henry Miller’s Tropic of Capricorn and are now reading The Dog King by Christoph Ransmayr (translated from the German). Briefly, The Dog King is a tasty bit of revisionist history. Germany has lost World War II and suffers a long and degrading occupation by the Allied forces. The village of Moor came under the command, eventually, of Major Elliott. Under orders, Elliott took away all technology from the villagers, forcing them to live a Medieval, agricultural existence. But this is only the surface narrative: we have to read the novel to get into the complexity of the fiction.
I have read two previous Ransmayr titles: The Terrors of Ice and Darkness and The Last World. I recommend both titles which rank among the more memorable titles I have read in many years. If it sounds good, join in reading The Dog King and consider other titles by the author for future reading.
A Celebration of Reading 