Structure or No structure
Is plot the same as structure? I would say not as a novel can have tons of structure but not much plot. But are structureless novels even possilbe? To answer my own question here are:
Four Novels with lots of structure
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
The magical and satisfying structure of this book only becomes apparent about two-thirds in. You realise that what you have been reading up to now is a text itself generated by the action described. It was a moment of suprise and genius to me. And this is the only Murakami book that I really admire.
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
This book has been likened to a Russian Doll, or a folding toy theatre, or at least a set of boxes within boxes. You work your way in, and then out again. I loved all the layers, except that I just didn’t really understand the absolute middle. I preferred the other layers so much, on board a trading vessel, in a Belgian country house, and in a thriller on the coast of California so much more than the weird futuristic bit at the heart of things. Enlighten me?
Life, a User’s Manual by Georges Perec
This, I posit is plot-less but highly structured. Full of lists, games, puzzles, signs, and never meandering. It tries to fix in time a particular building and the people therein, and by the way contrary to popular opinion has very little to do with Paris as a city. Some also say it is emotion-less, as there is no suspense or character identification. I found it moving in its examinations of the unheeded tragedies of its actors. by Georges Perec
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Someone did a timeline for the events depicted in this non-linear novel, and as expected everything tied perfectly – lengths of pregnancies, relative ages, times spent away compared to action at home. One of the pleasures of this masterpiece is the exactitude of action, even if some of it is given in the relating of dreams.
And four books I love with little or loose structure:
The First Man
To the Lighthouse
Jorge Luis Borges books Fictions
William Burroughs The Naked Lunch
Syntax Press 