Stranger than Fiction - the Twentieth Century Novel

Our last discussion of The Brother's Karamazov officially ended the Literary Deep Dive Series. Now we're going to change things up. Rather than read extensively into a single author, we will read a broad sampling of twentieth century novels, as curated by Edwin Frank, the author of Stranger than Fiction - Lives of the Twentieth Century Novel. Frank is the editorial director of New York Review Books, and his book, Stranger than Fiction, examines some thirty novels spread across the twentieth century - many of them non-canonical and non-western, to see how the radical shifts of the last century led to changes in the discipline of novel-writing. Those of you who are veterans of my old Age of Anger meetup will recognize this discussion format, where a primary text dictated our reading program.

Our first meeting leads back to ... Dostoevsky! Frank identified Notes from Underground as the first twentieth century novel, written forty-five years before the fact, and we will re-read this novella before marching bravely into the twentieth century.

Hope to see you there!