Recommended Reading List

Alienation

Society is an attempt to build a large collection of people who share the same set of values and morals. However large or small the group that make up a society, you will always end up with a group of individuals who cannot fit within the accepted norm. These novels explore that sense of isolation and alienation by putting these individuals under the spotlight of their literary gaze.

The individual could be an outsider in their own society like The Wasp Factory's Frank, or a visitor to a different society in which they are unable to fit in, like Joseph K. in Kafka's America. The common theme is that they all sit outside, looking in. Trying but failing to cross the barrier to normality.

A novel might take a world in which we are familiar and twist it into a nightmare by showing it in a different light. An alienated individual might react with timity and fear or with violence and aggression. Their very alienation might lead them to greatness or disintegration. There are lots of shades between the various extremes which leads to very interested and varied results.

• Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory Banks most infamous work, the Wasp Factory was his first published novel. The whole novel takes place inside the mind of a particularly hideous adolescent called Frank, who has tortured and murdered his way through his teens. Since it never steps outside his mind there is no need to let reality impinge on Frank's vision of the world, so it remains completely powerful all the way through to the shocking ending. [in print - UK / US]
• Iain Banks - Whit A great straight fiction novel about a young woman from a religious cult sent on a mission to find one of the fold. Banks handles the woman's culture shock wonderfully, as she is slowly drawn into an appreciation of the outside world. There are a number of powerful moments where real life horror impinges on the otherwise light tone of the novel, and the ending is incredible as the foundations of the cult begin to crumble. It is admirable that all the way through Banks treats his subject and character with respect, not going for an anti-cult tirade and leading to a very interesting ending. One of his best. [in print - UK]
• Alfred Bester - Tiger! Tiger! A truly classic science fiction novel that has aged beautifully, a story of a highly unlikeable man who goes through a gradual powerful transformation. Bester does characterisation brilliantly, and you really see the personality of the man alter over the novel. It takes place against a brilliant proto cyberpunk background. [in print - UK / US]
• Simon Maginn - Virgins and Martyrs A young man moves into a new flat and finds himself pushed towards insanity as the past, both distant and recent, impinges violently on the present. A mystery filled novel about religious obsession and paranoia which is filled with powerful and disturbing images. It is possible quite early on to guess what is happening, but the journey is no less powerful for it. [in print - UK]
• Franz Kafka - AmericaA novel of a man stranded in a country he barely understands, a immigrant into America which appears as strange and nightmarish as any of Kafka's worlds. He has small success at building himself up in the world, but as usual things go horribly wrong and the new society he wants to be a part of rejects him as much as the old one he escaped from. An incredible novel about cultural isolation and more proof that Kafka's is one of the best novellists the world has produced. [in print - UK / US]
• Jeanette Winterson - Oranges are not the Only FruitWinterson's incredible first novel about a girl who grows up in an atmosphere of religious orthodoxy and finds herself ostracised when she falls in love with another girl. An excellent novel of oppression, which is nevertheless a warm and funny story, and as usual Winterson manages to weave in some excellent fairy tales. [in print - UK / US]

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