syllabus hole problem! a novel in english (from anywhere but originally written in english) from the 1990s short (≈250 pages) great (ideally funny rather than depressing) ???? - ThreadSky

annakornbluh.bsky.social • 81 days ago

syllabus hole problem!

a novel in english (from anywhere but originally written in english)

from the 1990s

short (≈250 pages)

great

(ideally funny rather than depressing)

????

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arjm5184.bsky.social•81 days ago

Seamus Deane, Reading in the Dark.

bethn8r.bsky.social•81 days ago

Tom Robbins, Skinny Legs and All?

andywoodcock.bsky.social•81 days ago

The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester - very clever, very funny, very discussible

uniongoth.bsky.social•81 days ago

Timbuktu by Paul Auster

citizense.bsky.social•81 days ago

Tropic of Orange and Mona in the Promised Land are probably a bit too long. Let me think some more.

citizense.bsky.social•81 days ago

Maureen McHugh's China Mountain Zhang?

citizense.bsky.social•81 days ago

I paired Bharati Mukherjee's The Holder of the World with The Scarlet Letter in ENGL 124....

citizense.bsky.social•81 days ago

Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories fits the bill perfectly!

citizense.bsky.social•81 days ago

OK, hear me out but Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and any arc of the Sandman graphic novel were true icons of the '90s and would provide much grist for the mill of the Author Question (are any not messed up?)

citizense.bsky.social•81 days ago

Terry Pratchett, either on his own or with Gaiman in Good Omens.

So much Discworld goodness that decade (although I'm most partial to his banking and post office novels in the series)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld

languor.bsky.social•81 days ago

Harry Mathews- The Journalist

abilancini.bsky.social•81 days ago

Something by Rachel Cusk?

chiday.bsky.social•81 days ago

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha?

thathoberekguy.bsky.social•81 days ago

Fight … Club?

gmacdonald.bsky.social•81 days ago

I’m biased, but:

Alasdair Gray, Poor Things (1992)

*Funny
*the Frankenstein stuff
*formally fun
*yeah yeah, the recent film
*set in Glasgow (bias, again)
*socialistish

gipperfish.bsky.social•81 days ago

Lot of good choices in the other replies. How about Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2? Campus novel, anticipates every AI discussion we are not having, etc.

mannahattamamma.bsky.social•81 days ago

Well there's Parable of teh Sower but it's not funny. Brilliant, but not funny. What about G Willow Wilson's Alif the Unseen? Funny, smart, full of "easter eggs" about pop culture (but it's from the early 2000s......

tripleblip.bsky.social•81 days ago

One half of white teeth?

thomashendrickson.bsky.social•80 days ago

England, England. Julian Barnes.

plewis.bsky.social•81 days ago

On the funnier side, Eric Kraft had some GREAT short novels in the 90s -- and they are very Proustian, with lots of other literary allusions, a lot to discuss

My favorite is Reservations Recommended, but the only one I'd avoid is Leaving Small's Hotel, which is longer and gets a little dark

plewis.bsky.social•81 days ago

Lives of the Monster Dogs! Also Martin Dressler

wordbird20.bsky.social•81 days ago

High Fidelity

julianisland.bsky.social•81 days ago

I used to teach this and it was fun - great film to pair with it as well

jagdillard.bsky.social•81 days ago

Headlong — Michael Frayn (and assign watching Noises Off for extra credit)

mitchtherieau.bsky.social•81 days ago

Tropic of Orange fits the bill

blakestricklin.bsky.social•81 days ago

Robert Glück’s Margery Kempe

catemcgowan.com•81 days ago

GENERATION X by Douglas Coupland. 192 pages.

mikemaddenlaw.bsky.social•81 days ago

I’d go with Shampoo Planet by Douglas Coupland - 312 pp, but such an easy read, while nailing the spirit of the times.

annakornbluh.bsky.social•81 days ago

seriously considering a coupland! fondly recall microserfs as the best of the early 4.

sml47.bsky.social•81 days ago

A few potential options:

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

Jazz by Toni Morrison

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead

The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat

Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh

jemgilbert.bsky.social•81 days ago

Angela Carter, Wise Children

pollys.bsky.social•81 days ago

Do you find Jamaica Kincaid's An Autobiography of My Mother too depressing? It fits your criteria otherwise.

wolcotthenry.bsky.social•81 days ago

The intuitionist? Buddha of suburbia? Bridget Jones’s Diary?

annakornbluh.bsky.social•81 days ago

buddha works cuz such a funny update of moll flanders (lit history survey) but want something different...intuitionist might be right! bjd maybe not interesting enough to teach?

wolcotthenry.bsky.social•81 days ago

I’d teach bjd as way of talking about problems of how you update courtship novel and novel of letters/documents when you’re pre dating sites and pre email?

wolcotthenry.bsky.social•81 days ago

It also was so foundational to “chick lit” boom that has given us the Emily Henry and Colleen Hoover of it all-which lets you talk about female readership/way novel reader has historically been constructed as female. Also conduct book/female self regulation stuff w all the toxic stuff re wt & cigs

wolcotthenry.bsky.social•81 days ago

But obvs depends what you teach before. Could be interesting to teach w Jennifer writer op Ed about how chick lit not being reviewed/taken seriously? Interesting on serialization recasting too-(orig written as paper column) could teach against Twitter fiction?

wolcotthenry.bsky.social•81 days ago

*weiner

publicwondering.bsky.social•81 days ago

What about Geek Love by Katherine Dunn? Is the fact that it was published in 1989 disqualifying?

rebeccashapiro.bsky.social•81 days ago

Talking It Over?

Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard?

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