Nathanael West's The Dream Life of Balso Snell is weird. Truly weird. Were I to classify it, I'd say literary cubism.
It begins with Balso Snell entering the anus of the Trojan horse and ends with an orgasm. Like I said, weird. During the plot(?) Balso has affairs and there's an interesting parody of Crime and Punishment.
Surprising, the book isn't even modern-day-let's-shock-'em stuff; it was written in 1931. Actually I remember reading two other books by him in college, Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust. They skirted strange but in no way approached the weirdness of Balso Snell.
But it has some almost poetic moments.
1) "I'm like an old actor mumbling Macbeth as he fumbles in the trashcans outside the theatre of his past triumphs." (page 38)
2) "…death is still like putting on a wet bathing suit ..." (page 39) Cool analogy.
I'm pretty sure there were other spots like the above, but mostly I was too busy trying to follow the plot—if there was one—to notice them.
