Zack Weinberg1d ago
Literary freaks of the Fediverse! What is your favorite piece of _bizarre_ writing that is old enough to be public domain? Must be English or available in translation; preferably in the 40-60,000 word range; shouldn't be so old that it starts sounding like Shakespeare or Chaucer.
Show threadAndrew (Television Executive)

@zwol The Night Land

It's a massive, ~600 page fantasy novel written around 1910, that features an absolutely bizarre plot, but is also written in an entirely made up english dialect.

I highly recommend reading the wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Land

The Night Land - Wikipedia

Mar 26 at 5:44pmWeb
Show threadZack Weinberg1d ago
@ajroach42 oh wow. just the first few pages. haven't seen anything like this since I read _The Worm Ouroboros_.
Show threadAndrew (Television Executive)1d ago
@zwol The House on the Borderlands by the same author is also supremely weird.
Show threadZack Weinberg19h ago
@ajroach42 House on the Borderlands is short enough that I could read it all the way through in a couple hours -- which I finished just now. Man. That was a trip, in multiple senses of the word.
Show threadAndrew (Television Executive)51m ago
@zwol hodgeson was an exceptionally strange dude.
Show threadTobin Baker1d ago
@ajroach42 @zwol is the 90% abridged version "The Dream of X" good enough?
Show threadAndrew (Television Executive)1d ago

@tobinbaker @zwol it's a different experience.

I've read dream of X, years ago. I just started reading nightland for the first time a few days ago.

Night land is overwhelming and enormous. It feels entirely different from dream of X, even though I know it is the source material for dream of X.