Grappling with the nature of existence seems to be a preternatural pursuit for humans. Quoting from the Book of Bokonon (referenced later), this is how it goes:
Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly,
Man got to ask himself why, why, why?
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land,
Man got to tell himself he understand.
Absurdism is born out of the belief that meaningless is rampant, so why not celebrate it? Classics of the genre include Kafka’s Metamorphosis (“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.”), Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (“Nothing happens. Nobody comes, nobody goes. It’s awful.”), and Heller’s Catch-22 (“Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can’t stop them from doing.”).
Components of an absurdist novel
Those who want to poke sacred cows are welcome to the party. Characters are typically disillusioned, purposeless, directionless, and nihilistic. You likely wouldn’t want to read about these characters unless there is some balancing element to propel the story—a wicked streak of humor underlying the saga, clever satire to entertain you, dark visions to add some intrigue to the tale, or the hope that the protagonists will find some just cause to motivate them.
Common elements in absurdist fiction, varying in intensity and flavor, include:
- Fantastical events taking place in a disjointed, disrupted timeline
- Dark humor injected liberally and unexpectedly
- Incongruous plot devices and bizarre turns of storyline
Some examples might help clarify things.
Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind by Molly McGhee
Here is a little gem that was published in November 2023, and is a sterling example of the craft. Written by Molly McGhee, Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind puts the protagonist in an impossible scenario, facing bone-numbing debt and lured by a government loan forgiveness program that sounds too good to be true, but just might be his only hope of salvation.
The program, however, turns out to be devilishly difficult and sinister at its core, auditing the dreams of workers, tapping into their nightmares and worries, purging anything that could hamper their production and slow the Great American Machine. The problems begin when the lines start to blur between waking and dreams, reality and unreality, and morality and immorality.
The novel has a dreamy, surrealistic quality, as befits a novel that involves dipping into the dreamworld and the discovery of the archive—the run-off of the dream repairs—injects dark shadows and mysterious beings into the story, byproducts of the ambitious endeavor.
Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami
Books by Haruki Murakami tend to sneak up on you. You might think you’re reading a conventional novel, and the book will suddenly veer into weird terrain and suddenly you’re in the catacombs underneath a hotel or at the bottom of a well or encountering strange creatures during a nighttime walk.
Killing Commendatore takes the lead character, a portrait painter who has been recently divorced, to the retreat of a famous artist’s mountain home, who is ill in the hospital. When he discovers an unknown painting by the artist, hidden in the attic, mystery starts piling on top of mystery. A two-foot-tall character begins appearing in the house, a deep bell peals eerily in the middle of the night, a unexplained pit with unknown contents is discovered just outside the property, and a neighbor with a complex history become tangled in the painter’s life.
Untangling the multiple mysteries in the story becomes the object in the second half of the novel, a quest that takes on surreal dimensions as our hero ventures into worlds discovered in the course of the tale. By this time, you’re thoroughly wrapped in the enigmas within the storyline and have been persuaded by Murakami to accept them. The gradual insertion of layers of unreality is a technique that Murakami and other writers in this genre use effectively to lull the reader into acceptance of an increasingly askew world.
Something Happened by Joseph Heller
Joseph Heller’s second novel, written during the bloom of fame that surrounded the release of Catch-22, takes us inside the skull of a thoroughly unlikable character, a businessman who is a mass of contradictions, an adulterer, a betrayer, and a thorough schmuck. It’s absurdist maybe in the point-of-view, which captures the fragile mental fireworks that color life in the corporate world. It’s an uncomfortable book to dwell within, perhaps because we recognize so many traits—the phobias, obsessions, and anxieties—of the protagonist, Bob Slocum.
“I’ve got bad feet. I’ve got a jawbone that’s deteriorating and someday soon I’m going to have to have all my teeth pulled. It will hurt. I’ve got an unhappy wife to support and two unhappy children to take care of. (I’ve got that other child with irremediable brain damage who is neither happy nor unhappy, and I don’t know what will happen to him after we’re dead.) I’ve got eight unhappy people working for me who have problems and unhappy dependents of their own. I’ve got anxiety; I suppress hysteria. I’ve got politics on my mind, summer race riots, drugs, violence, and teen-age sex. There are perverts and deviates everywhere who might corrupt or strangle any one of my children. I’ve got crime in my streets. I’ve got old age to face. My boy, though only nine, is already worried because he does not know what he wants to be when he grows up. My [15 year old] daughter tells lies. I’ve got the decline of American civilization and the guilt and ineptitude of the whole government of the United States to carry around on these poor shoulders of mine. And I find I am being groomed for a better job. And I find – God help me – that I want it.”
Something does happen in the final two pages of the novel, which are the culmination of events that took place in the prior 567 pages. Heller spent some ten years grooming this novel, so it’s definitely deliberate.
Vineland by Thomas Pynchon
One of Pynchon’s most underrated novels, this book spans the 60’s in California and pits forces of the American government—fighting any and all drugs during Reagan era—and the counterculture in the fictional town in Vineland (somewhere in Anderson Valley). In the heady mix, varied locales, and amidst a dizzying cast of characters, the story unfolds as an epic struggle between Brock Vond and Zoyd over Frenesi Gates, Zoyd’s ex-wife. Zoyd, in typical Pynchon style, remains without a last name throughout the novel.
Pynchon typical style is to seed his works with multiple absurdities, constantly exaggerating events, stretching descriptions, emphasizing points and embellishing details, and painting a picture that regularly skirts with the tame progression of narrative. His work promises a zesty, fun-filled ride with jabs about American culture strewn like bread crumbs along the way.
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut likes to keep readers off balance and his stories tend to be filled with twists, turns, and odd coincidences that are jarring and unexpected. Cat’s Cradle starts with a journalist who becomes curious about an eccentric scientist who apparently has discovered a substance known as ice-nine that causes spontaneous freezing of anything it touches, risking total annihilation of all living things on the earth. This leads on a journey around the world to locate family members who have inherited ice-nine and maybe don’t realize how perilous the situation is.
The journey takes him to the island of San Lorenzo, where he tracks the strange origins of the Bokonon religion, encounters the one punishment for all crimes—petty or not—the hook, gets connected with the woman of his dreams and marries her, and through a strange series of coincidences becomes the President of San Lorenzo. The pace gets frantic as the danger from ice-nine becomes more urgent.
The final entry from last page of the Book of Bokonon, as written by Bokonon himself, lazing by the side of the road:
“If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who.”
Guidelines for writing absurdist fiction
If this literary form appeals to you, here are a few guidelines for writing an absurdist work:
- Be coherent, even if the world itself isn’t – Readers need a grounding point. Provide a character, setting, or framework that is identifiable and constant.
- Inject elements into the story that are not normal in everyday life – Elements might be talking dogs, shape-shifting cats, miniature humans wandering into a scene, strange landscapes appearing unexpectedly, unusually vivid colors, strange accelerations of time.
- Read the masters of the craft – Don’t skimp on your education. Soak up the lessons from the masters, from Kafka to Beckett to Camus to Vonnegut. You’ll get a sense of range and possibility from the different approaches used by each.
- It’s more than just being weird – If the intent is just to be as weird as you possibly can, your book will be a complete failure. Use the absurd to dig deeper into the human condition, explore the mysteries of life, expose the fallibility of treasured beliefs, and mine the corridors of the subconscious.
- Have fun with your ideas – Absurdism is a chance to break a few boundaries and let your imagination loose for a while. Enjoy the freedom and take advantage of it.
Enjoy the process and see where your mind takes you!
Republished with permission by BookBaby.