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In search of metaphyctions
May. 14th, 2021 06:47 amHullo, do you know any books.
I've been listening to too much true crime and it isn't helping me plot this novel. I keep thinking what I need are murderers and spies, and they are not what I need.
On the last day of my Crave subscription I watched Tenet, which I enjoyed, even though sometimes it was more like a Bond film than a metaphysical thriller. Because it invoked time and entropy, it stirred many ideas for my novel project, including a possible ending.
So this is the sort of mindset I want to be in. A Tenet, Primer, Upstream Colour, Inception, Arrival kind of mood. More with space, dimensions, and/or perception than time, though. For preference. Although I hadn't really given that much thought to the time element of my own story, so maybe.
Therefore, I am in search of what I sometimes call metaphyctions or metaphysical novels (or stories, films, series, podcasts, poems):
I have read and loved Italo Calvino's Cosmicomics, Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman, A.M. Klein's The Second Scroll, and G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday -- Cosmicomics is probably the closest to what I'm thinking of, since it cheerfully and poetically takes up all sorts of scientific ideas with such absolute ludicrous confidence.
David Eagleman's Sum might be in a similar category, though I didn't connect as much to that, and Ted Chiang's work maybe -- kind of bounced off of it, but willing to try again.
I have some Borges but could use some direction with him.
{rf}
N.B. Of course "Metaphyction" is in practice (or at least in speech) a useless word, since it would sound exactly the same as "metafiction," but I can't help that.
I've been listening to too much true crime and it isn't helping me plot this novel. I keep thinking what I need are murderers and spies, and they are not what I need.
On the last day of my Crave subscription I watched Tenet, which I enjoyed, even though sometimes it was more like a Bond film than a metaphysical thriller. Because it invoked time and entropy, it stirred many ideas for my novel project, including a possible ending.
So this is the sort of mindset I want to be in. A Tenet, Primer, Upstream Colour, Inception, Arrival kind of mood. More with space, dimensions, and/or perception than time, though. For preference. Although I hadn't really given that much thought to the time element of my own story, so maybe.
Therefore, I am in search of what I sometimes call metaphyctions or metaphysical novels (or stories, films, series, podcasts, poems):
speculative fiction in which the process of discovering and negotiating the laws of a given reality is the engine of the plot, or an important part of the action. These can be physical or metaphysical laws.
Eccentric nonfiction also welcome. I have read and loved Italo Calvino's Cosmicomics, Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman, A.M. Klein's The Second Scroll, and G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday -- Cosmicomics is probably the closest to what I'm thinking of, since it cheerfully and poetically takes up all sorts of scientific ideas with such absolute ludicrous confidence.
David Eagleman's Sum might be in a similar category, though I didn't connect as much to that, and Ted Chiang's work maybe -- kind of bounced off of it, but willing to try again.
I have some Borges but could use some direction with him.
{rf}
N.B. Of course "Metaphyction" is in practice (or at least in speech) a useless word, since it would sound exactly the same as "metafiction," but I can't help that.
