The 5 Unknown Books by Cult Authors
At times, in the Borgesian labyrinth of literature, there are books that make them lose their traces. Small masterpieces by very famous authors who, for various reasons, end up in oblivion, cataloged as outline works. Yet their value is absolute, and they are all to be rediscovered. So here are the 5 unknown books (plus a bonus) by cult authors .
1. Ray Bradbury – Goodbye to summer
Together with the gothic literature masterpiece The People of Autumn, Farewell to Summer is the most interesting of Bradbury’s unknown books, which touches upon universal themes for our society. In 1929, the summer suddenly refused to end (reminds you of a certain climate change?). This fact will be the background to a civil war between generations, where young people, who have no desire to grow up, will start a conflict against the elderly. A real hymn to the summer of life, with time that inexorable is the background to our lives.
2. Jack Kerouac – Doctor Sax
Well, if Kerouac himself considered Doctor Sax his best novel, there must be a reason, right? Strongly influenced by the reading of comics, this is the novel of the maturity of the hobo of literature, which moves, with an almost touching lyricism, into the dreams and nightmares of the young Kerouac. With a dreamlike trait that will remain unrepeatable in his poetics, Doctor Sax is one of the great (hidden) classics of American literature.
3. Philip K. Dick – Palmer Eldritch’s Three Stigmata
Perhaps the time has come to recognize one thing: Philip K. Dick is among the 10 most important authors of the twentieth century. And he fully demonstrates this in Palmer Eldritch’s The Three Stigmata (and Ubik we talked about here ). A commercialized world, a society based on competition (yes, just like in Infinite Jest), drugs as a tool of control, paranoia. With this novel (and not only) Dick anticipated the themes dear to postmodernism, starting from Pynchon (he himself admitted that during the writing of The Rainbow of Gravity he was reading a Dick novel) to Wallace. In short, Dick proves to be a universal author, capable of escaping the term “genre writer” with his prophetic and philosophical vision of reality. Quoting Palmer Eldritch’s Three Stigmata : “God promises you eternal life. We can put it on the market ».
4. Charles Bukowski – Pulp
Old Charles always got us used to booze, hookers and fights. In Pulp he tries to get away from his style by entering a story with noir hues. The result is surprising, with Nick Belane becoming Bukowski’s depressed, alcoholic detective alter ego. Ah, the genre changes, but here too you will find drunks, prostitutes and fights.
5. Roberto Bolaño – The Third Reich
Roberto Bolaño is, together with Wallace and Mark Linkous (to enter the musical sphere), the greatest loss of the two thousand. His 2666 is one of those novels destined to make school, remaining in the imagination of subsequent generations (will The Savage Detectives have the same fate ?). The Third Reich is a novel that came out posthumously in 2010 but which, in reality, comes from Bolaño’s early period. A writer who, through the story of a wargame champion called the Third Reich, immediately demonstrates his talent, delving into the dark side of the human soul .
Italo Calvino
Italo Calvino is one of those idols that accompany you in the transition period between childhood and teen spirit where you stop reading Goosebumps and move on to more “serious” readings and who risks suffering the comparison with Borges, Perec, Queneau and all ‘ OuLiPo. Despite this, Palomar remains an unmissable book, which represents the summ of Calvino’s path, a great eulogy to the poetry of everyday life where all the insights that have made the author one of the giants of our literature are summarized. From the presentation written by Calvino in 1983: «rereading everything, I realize that the story of Palomar can be summed up in two sentences: a man sets out to reach wisdom step by step. It hasn’t arrived yet. “