One Cut of the Dead is a meta-movie that I absolutely loved. One of the reviews started off by comparing it to ‘medium bending’ books like this:
>Some novels trust you to be able to stick with strange decisions and styles to push through to a few final pages or chapters or lines that achieve the near-impossible, they redefine and reframe the previous ones, they shed a new light, and radically change your thoughts on the previous material/project as a whole.
To be clear, I’m not looking for zombie books. I’m looking for great books whose structure and format are unusual/unorthodox, or that ‘break the 4th wall’ in creative ways. The best example I can think of is Slaughterhouse Five, but I think that’s a mild example for those who know of more extreme examples.
Thanks!
by ezeeetm
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“Pale Fire” by Vladimir Nabokov is a poem, with the novel written in the footnotes. The novel mocks Nabokov’s own life.
“If on a winter’s night a traveler” by Italo Calvino is about someone trying to read “If on a winter’s night a traveler”
“House of Leaves” by Mark Z. Danielewski is a haunted-y house horror novel to push the boundaries of what you can do with a book as a format. Full disclosure, I found some of the timelines kind of dull, but a lot of people find it mind-bendingly cool, I feel like it’s something you shouldn’t miss out on.
“The Wolf’s Feast” by Christine Morgan has one story that starts off as a poem, and you eventually realize is >!fucking Gargoyles fanfic, she’s tricked you into reading her Gargoyles fanfic, and it’s not bad at all!<
“Cloud Atlas” by David Mitchell is a series of. . . nested universes I guess? It’s a series of stories that slowly unfold in a very pleasing way.
I haven’t seen this movie but I have read Slaughterhouse Five so hopefully these are close to what you mean:
* **The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood**, structured as a story within a story within a story. Each layer of story is a different genre, with the innermost layer being a pulp sci fi fantasy, the second layer being some kind of scandalous romance or literary fiction, and the outer layer being a fictional memoir.
* The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir, starting with **Gideon the Ninth**. The first book is a young adult space fantasy that uses fairly conventional storytelling techniques, but the second book is extremely different. It alternates between second and third person, with an unreliable narrator. I found this stylistic shift very impressive. Be warned that these books have extremely mixed reviews and are very much love-it-or-hate-it.
* **The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro**. Uses only one storytelling technique throughout. It’s the weirdest way of telling a story I have seen. This is a story out of a dream, told in the way dreams happen which is to say disjointed and rambling. Also a love-it-or-hate-it kind of book.
* I second If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. I was too young for it when I read it so the sex scenes kind of grossed me out, but it sounds like exactly what you are looking for.
{{Use of Weapons}} has a strange chronological order (starts in the middle and goes both ways) and also will make reevaluate all that happened in it near the end