Open Thread: Deliciously Weird?

Sometimes the Best Stories Are Just Plain Odd. What’s the Strangest Story You’ve Ever Read?

I love a strange story, something off-kilter, zany, bizarre, whatever deviates from the norm. I’m currently reading Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman. It definitely counts—e.g., the narrator’s soul, named Joe, serves as a separate character in the story. Joe interjects and counsels and even threatens to skedaddle.

Photo by Denis on Unsplash

“I’m leaving,” says Joe.

“What?” responds the narrator, who has forgotten his own name.

“Clearing out. . . . When I am gone you are dead.”

The Third Policeman is bizarre in every way. I’ll be reviewing it soon. But I’ve shared plenty of weird tales already. I recently browsed my fiction archive. Here’s a sampling of some of the oddities I’ve covered so far.

• The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (talking cat!)

• The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi (Pinocchio kills the cricket!)

• The Day the Sun Died by Yan Lianke (corpse oil!)

• It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over by Anne de Marcken (it’s tough being a zombie!)

• Child of God by Cormac McCarthy (how crazy can one man get?!)

• Black No More by George S. Schuyler (African Americans turn white, and caucasians lose their ever-lovin’ minds!)

Not to mention novels by Charles Williams, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut (here and here), and John Wyndham (here, here, and here). And others. That leads me to some questions: What’s the weirdest story you’ve ever read? What was bizarre about it? Did you enjoy it or not?

---

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, please hit the ❤️ below and share it with your friends.

Not a subscriber? Take a moment and sign up. It’s free, and I’ll send you my top-fifteen quotes about books and reading. Thanks again!