/lit/ - Literature

define bizarro.

once i've read a preface of a joe lansdale book from lansdale himself that sort of said that he aimed at getting the b-movie feel.

i don't remember being blown away by the book, don't remember which one, but maybe it's the kind of thing you are looking for.

>>7635

Something that contains a mix of the absurd, satirical, and viewed through a lens that is distorted, unnatural, and hideous. Mix in any other themes and tropes to taste then form it all together with one overarching keystone.

The standard adjective a reader should reach for to describe such work is weird. Weird literary works are hardly a new thing. Except, if you were to take the weird away and the work could stand on what is left over, it's not bizzaro. So weird is the key but it has to have much more.

Bizzaro is largely a marketing term rather than a literary definition. It does succinctly describe a trend in taste for such among a viable (and pliable) market segment.

>>7608

>Is it relevant?

It's popular as such and relevant in the sense of Stephen King, or Raymond Chandler. Among the crew who insist a literary work is something meant to be taught instead of read it's beneath consideration.

I once heard of a book called the Baby Jesus Buttplug. You referring to that type of Bizarro? Because if so I don't think it's relevant. Are there any bizarro stories that are actually good?

>>7654

That's actually another one written by the author in OP's pic. Pretty much nothing you find by him is going to be "good", per-se. There are a few I ended up finding entertaining, but not in the same way I found others entertaining. It was more of a "Toxic Avenger" or "Street Trash" type of entertaining. Actually, now that I think about it, those are probably the best two comparisons I can come up with.

I've admittedly read way too many in the genre, though.

>>7653 pretty much hit the nail on the head when he said that if you take away the weird, there's nothing left to take away from it, and in a way that's really bad. My thoughts, though, are that it's purely garbage entertainment, and that it's not really a bad thing.

I'd say there are some decent novella. I've never spent more than an hour or so reading one and continuously enjoyed it. The poor writing style really starts to bring it down after 100 or so pages. The OP pic, Crab Town, is one of the ones I actually enjoyed.