Published in 1985, Blod Meridian is considered to be one of the greatest works of American literature. The novel is a dark, haunting, and violent tale set in the American Southwest during the mid-1800s, and follows a teenage runaway known only as “the Kid” as he joins a group of scalp hunters led by the enigmatic and terrifying Judge Holden. The novel is known for its poetic, almost biblical prose and its vividly descriptive depictions of the harsh and brutal landscape of the Southwest. The book is a meditation on the nature of evil and violence, and its effect on the human psyche. The narrative is filled with visceral and disturbing scenes of murder, torture, and brutality, and the characters are all deeply flawed and morally ambiguous. The central character, Judge Holden, is one of the most fascinating and enigmatic figures in American literature. He is a towering figure, both

Virgil’s Palinurus was Aeneas’s helmsman who fell victim to the god of sleep. His namesake in this complex, beautiful novel, is also a guide to a novel that straddles the conscious and subconscious, life and death. A combination of Dante’s Virgil, Lemuel Gulliver and the little prince, Palinuro leads readers through congeries of cultural and medical reference. Having been raised largely free of a “”disgust for life,”” Palinuro, his beloved cousin Estefania and pedantic cousin Walter describe the body in detail that both repels and enchants. On the face of it, this is the story of Palinuro, a more or less contemporary medical student who lives with his cousin Estefania, and an overheated imagination. But it is also about the power (and powerlessness) of words to define and influence. Palinuro’s obsessive fantasizing about the personal life of objects in his room (including an unbeatable passage on the dying days of

In his novel “Petersburg”, Andrey Bely, a Russian modernist writer who was active in the early 20th century tells the story of a young man named Nikolai Apollonovich Ableukhov who is drawn into a complex web of political intrigue and personal conflict in the city of St. Petersburg. The story of the novel revolves around Nikolai’s involvement in a revolutionary plot to assassinate a high-ranking government official. Along the way, he becomes involved with a cast of characters who are all vying for power and influence in the city. These characters include his own father, a wealthy merchant; his sister, who is engaged to a powerful politician; and a group of radical revolutionaries who are plotting the assassination. As the novel progresses, Nikolai becomes increasingly disillusioned with the revolution and the people he has become involved with. He struggles with feelings of guilt and betrayal and ultimately decides to turn

While riding a busy bus at noon, Raymond Queneau witnesses a disagreement between two men, one accusing the other of purposely jostling him. When a seat becomes available, the accuser takes it. Later, Queneau spots the same man being told by a friend to fix a missing button on his coat. “Exercises in Style,” a seminal work of the Oulipo literary group, recounts this ordinary occurrence in ninety-nine different ways, utilizing various styles such as the sonnet, alexandrine, onomatopoeia, and Cockney. One chapter, labeled “Abusive,” vehemently criticizes the events, while another, “Opera English,” elevates them to grandeur. A true experimental masterpiece!