skopia
Morgan Leafy, a British diplomat in a fictional West African state, must bribe an incorruptible Scottish doctor, conceal a venereal infection, and remove the maid lightning killed before the Duchess arrives.
A balloon settles over forty-five blocks of Manhattan and New Yorkers read meanings into it. Barthelme's deadpan collages taught two generations of American writers that a story need not make ordinary sense.
Back from the war, Hazel Motes preaches the Church Without Christ from the hood of a rat-colored car, insisting there was no Fall and nothing needing redemption. O'Connor makes blasphemy sound like faith.
Sent to Paris to pry a young American away from a Frenchwoman, a middle-aged emissary looks around and tells a young painter to live all he can. James called it his best novel.
Billy Pilgrim comes unstuck in time, between a Dresden meat locker during the firebombing and a zoo on another planet. Vonnegut was in that cellar, and writes "So it goes" after every death.
Trying to get grounded for insanity, a bombardier learns that asking to be grounded proves he is sane. Heller runs that loop through a whole war until the deaths stop being funny.
Humbert Humbert explains how he became stepfather to a twelve-year-old girl and drove her across America. Nabokov gives the monster the most beautiful prose in English and dares you to enjoy it.