Stories that aren't Stories

When was the last time you read a formally adventurous novel? You know, the kind of novel poets read even if they don't read that many novels? For some of us, Tom McCarthy's Remainder was the last mainstream instance of a novel strange enough to capture our strange poets' hearts. The Nation has run a review of his new novel, C, which seems to situate his repetitive style in a new context:

McCarthy thus provides all the makings for a toothsome family drama, which C decidedly is not. Nor is it a Bildungsroman or a historical novel, though it might masquerade as either. What matters here is not Bildung or fidelity but return, structured repetition, flickery overlays of pattern. All narrative advances are also descents and reversals.

Does McCarthy's popularity herald a new age of experimental novels? Of novels that poets can like too? We hope so!