Fragmentary novel explained

A fragmentary novel is a novel made of fragments, vignettes, segments, documents or chapters that can be read in isolation and/or as part of the greater whole of the book. These novels typically lack a traditional plot or set of characters and often are the product of a cultural crisis.^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]} The oldest fragmentary novels are part of the (proto)-picaresque novel tradition.^{[7] [8]} Some of these fragmented novels are also categorized as short story collections or epistolary novels. Some fragmentary novels are (posthumously) published unfinished novels or are partially lost novels.^{[9] [10] [11]}

Examples in chronological order

• Petronius – Satyricon (Late 1st century AD) (incomplete)
• Apuleius – The Golden Ass (Late second century AD)
• François Rabelais – The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel (1532-1564)
• Laurence Sterne – Tristram Shandy (1759)
• Friedrich Schiller – The Ghost-Seer (1789)
• Novalis – Heinrich von Ofterdingen (1802)
• Karl Marx – Skorpion und Felix, Humoristischer Roman (Scorpion and Felix) (1837)
• Henri Murger – Scenes of Bohemian Life (1849)
• William Makepeace Thackeray – A Shabby Genteel Story (1857) (unfinished)
• Jane Austen – The Watsons (1871) (unfinished in 1805)
• Gustave Flaubert – Bouvard et Pécuchet (1881)
• Sherwood Anderson – Winesburg, Ohio (1919)
• Ernest Hemingway – In Our Time (1925)
• John Dos Passos – Manhattan Transfer (1925)
• Franz Kafka – Amerika (1927) (unfinished)
• Giorgio de Chirico – Hebdomeros (Hebdomeros, the Metaphysician) (1929)
• Evelyn Waugh – Vile Bodies (1930)
• Flann O'Brien – At Swim-Two-Birds (1939)
• Thomas Wolfe – The Hills Beyond (1941)
• William Faulkner – Go Down, Moses (1942)
• Robert Musil – The Man Without Qualities (1943)
• Raymond Queneau – Exercises in Style (1947)
• Ray Bradbury – The Martian Chronicles (1950)
• A.E. van Vogt – The Voyage of the Space Beagle (1950)
• William S. Burroughs – Naked Lunch (1959)
• Vladimir Nabokov – Pale Fire (1962)
• Julio Cortázar – Hopscotch (1963)
• Mikhail Bulgakov – The Master and Margarita (1967) (unfinished in 1940)
• Jerzy Kosiński – Steps (1968)
• Tomás Rivera – …y no se lo tragó la tierra (…And the Earth Did Not Devour Him) (1971)
• Italo Calvino – Invisible Cities (1972)
• Renata Adler – Speedboat (1976)
• Georges Perec – Life a User's Manual (1978)
• Sandra Cisneros – The House on Mango Street (1983)
• Milorad Pavić – Dictionary of the Khazars (1984)
• Truman Capote – Answered Prayers (1986)
• David Markson – Wittgenstein's Mistress (1988)
• W. G. Sebald – Vertigo (1990)
• A. S. Byatt – Possession (1990)
• Tim O'Brien – The Things They Carried (1990)
• Michael Ondaatje – The English Patient (1992)
• Mark Z. Danielewski – House of Leaves (2000)
• Ian McEwan – Atonement (2001)
• David Mitchell – Cloud Atlas (2004)
• Roberto Bolaño – 2666 (2004)
• David Foster Wallace – The Pale King (2011) (unfinished in 2008)
• Zadie Smith – NW (2012)
• Michael Chabon – Moonglow (2016)
• Jenny Offill – Weather (2020)

External links

• Fractious Fiction by Ted Gioia - DEAD LINK

Notes and References

1. Wood. Carl. 1973. IN OUR TIME: Hemingway's Fragmentary Novel. 43342874. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen. 74. 4. 716–726.
2. Web site: Refreshing breaks: how fragmented stories can be fulfilling reading. Power. Chris. 2016-11-03. the Guardian. en. 2018-04-14.
3. Web site: The Rise of the Fragmented Novel. Gioia. Ted. fractiousfiction.com. 2018-04-14.
4. News: Narrative Patterning : Alternate History and Fragmented Narrative – Cognitive Edge. Cognitive Edge. 2018-04-14. en-US.
5. Book: Booker, M. Keith. Ulysses, Capitalism and Colonialism: Reading Joyce After the Cold War. 2000. Greenwood Publishing Group. 9780313312434. en.
6. News: The Shattered Novel: Rules of Fragmented Fiction by Samantha Edmonds – Grist. 2017-10-29. Grist. 2018-04-14. en-US.
7. News: What's a Picaresque? The Top 5 Novels. PublishersWeekly.com. 2018-04-14. en.
8. Mancing. Howard. 1979. The Picaresque Novel: A Protean Form. 25111277. College Literature. 6. 3. 182–204.
9. Reading Jane Austen's Final, Unfinished Novel. Lane. Anthony. 2017-03-06. The New Yorker. 2018-04-14. en. 0028-792X.
10. Laurence. Talairach-Vielmas. 2014-06-02. Saverio Tomaiuolo, Victorian Unfinished Novels: The Imperfect Page. Miranda . fr. 9. 10.4000/miranda.5981 . 2108-6559. free.
11. Book: Victorian Unfinished Novels – The Imperfect Page S. Tomaiuolo Palgrave Macmillan. en.