I enjoy weird fiction. I don’t mean weird in the sense of the story itself is odd—though I like those, too! I mean weird in the sense that the storytelling itself doesn’t follow a linear path from page 1 to page 2, etc.
Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves is one of the more famous entries into this genre. The story is a piece of metafiction—it’s a non-fiction analysis of a fictional documentary about a house that is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. Everyone who encounters the house is eventually driven mad—and that includes both the author who failed to complete the book and the editor who attempts to finish it. The typography reflects the editor’s descent into madness—text will appear sideways or diagonally, sometimes only a single word on a page, and other times large empty shapes appear in the middle of pages.
Fancy literary theorists call this kind of thing ergodic literature. Gen-Xers like me may have first encountered it in elementary school in a Choose Your Own Adventure book. You might also have seen it on Netflix—the “Bandersnatch” episode of Black Mirror, and the “Kimmy Versus the Reverend’’ episode of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt both allow viewers to choose what happens next. Episodes in the series Kaleidoscope can be watched in any order.
A couple of years ago, I published a nonfiction, hypertext book called Screens, Research and Hypertext. Readers can explore any of eight different interconnecting themes.
Writers and artists and musicians experimenting with form dates back to what scholars call the modernist period. Modernism started around 1920. It’s a reflection of generational trauma—many of its leading figures survived the trenches of World War I and returned trying to make sense of a world that was capable of far more horror than anyone had previously imagined.
Right around that same time, the Irish Modernism movement began to take off.
The movement included the poet W.B. Yeats, who popularized the idea that the persona of the poet itself is this sort of ever-shifting thing. Yeats believed that the poetry creates the poet every bit as much as the poet creates the poetry.
It included the author, James Joyce, whose Ulysses reimagines Homer’s The Odyssey, but told over a single day in Dublin, and written mainly in a stream-of- consciousness style with no real chapter titles or breaks between scenes.
And, if you squint just a little bit, it included the playwright Samuel Beckett whose works emphasized the absurdities of human existence. Beckett is best remembered for Waiting for Godot, in which the two lead characters discuss their many troubles while waiting for the titular Godot to arrive. (Spoiler: Godot never arrives.)
Much of the Irish Modernist tradition deliberately sets Ireland in opposition to the United Kingdom. The UK had long treated Ireland more like a colony than like a part of the country. Irish were prohibited from voting, openly mocked and discriminated against, relegated to dangerous jobs at low pay and faced frequent food shortages.
It’s probably not a coincidence that so many of us in Appalachia have Irish ancestry and that much of our music, art and culture has its roots in Ireland. It’s also not a coincidence that West Virginia coal miners were fighting wars against out-of-state mine owners at the same time Irish revolutionaries were fighting for home rule from the UK.
On May 31, the Pocahontas County Opera House will close out its 2023-4 season with Irish artist and musician Ceara Conway. I’m especially excited for her visit.
Conway works in that Irish Modernist tradition.
Her works experiment with form, blending music, text, testimonials and live performance to create these sort of one-off multimedia experiences. It’s going to be a super cool, one-of-a-kind experience!
While you’re Waiting for Conway (note: I’ve been assured that this wait will have an actual payoff), stop by your local branch of the library.
We can hook you up with Yeats or Joyce or Beckett if you want. But don’t worry if weird literature isn’t to your taste. We’ve lots of perfectly normal fiction set in Ireland. (Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad series is great for anyone who loves a good mystery/thriller/whodunnit.)
More a history fan? Let us help you learn about the history of the fiddle or Irish coal miners in Appalachia or where we got our penchant for moonshine. Or stop by our genealogy room at McClintic and find out if you have Irish roots.
Grab your tickets to see Ceara Conway. In the meantime, visit us at the library and find out all the ways our lives here in Pocahontas County have been shaped by Irish culture.
Happy reading!