For beginners, 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' is a great start. It's easy to read and the surreal elements are presented in a rather fun and accessible way.
For beginners, 'The Arrival' by Shaun Tan is a great choice. It's a wordless graphic novel that tells a beautiful and surreal story of immigration. The art is so detailed and expressive that it can easily draw in new readers to the world of surreal graphic novels.
Another great option is 'Memento Mori' by Jonathan Nolan. It's a noir - ish story that has a very surreal way of presenting time. The main character has a condition that makes him unable to form new memories. The way the story unfolds, with him trying to solve a mystery while constantly forgetting things, is both engaging and surreal in nature.
I'd recommend 'The King of the Golden River' by John Ruskin for beginners. It has a kind of fairy - tale like surreal quality with its magic river. Also, 'The Selfish Giant' by Oscar Wilde has a touch of the surreal when the giant's garden changes with the seasons in an almost magical way. 'Bluebeard' is another story that has a surreal and somewhat dark undertone, especially with the locked room full of secrets.
I would also recommend 'The Shining' by Stephen King. While it's a well - known horror novel, it has strong elements of surreal horror. The haunted Overlook Hotel is filled with strange visions, from the elevator full of blood to the ghosts in the corridors. Jack Torrance's descent into madness as he is influenced by the hotel's malevolent forces is a harrowing journey.
Jorge Luis Borges' 'Ficciones' is another must - read. Borges creates stories that are full of labyrinthine concepts and strange, self - referential plots. His use of infinite recursion and the blurring of boundaries between reality and fiction are hallmarks of surreal writing. For instance, in some stories, characters find themselves in a world that defies the laws of logic as we know them.
One of the well - known surreal crime novels is 'The Big Sleep' by Raymond Chandler. It has a complex web of mystery and a unique noir style that often veers into the surreal with its convoluted plots and shadowy characters. Another is 'Perfume: The Story of a Murderer' by Patrick Süskind. The description of the protagonist's extreme sense of smell and the strange murders in the story create a very surreal atmosphere within the crime narrative.
One of the surreal romance novels is 'The Night Circus' by Erin Morgenstern. It has a dream - like setting where a magical circus appears only at night. The relationship between the two main characters, Celia and Marco, is full of mystery and an otherworldly charm.
One surreal mystery novel is 'The Raw Shark Texts' by Steven Hall. It's a mind - bender with a very unique concept of a'shark' that exists in the world of ideas and memories. Also, 'City of Saints and Madmen' by Jeff VanderMeer is set in a strange, surreal city filled with mysteries and odd characters. 'Hard - Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World' by Murakami is another good pick. It has two parallel storylines, one in a very strange, surreal 'Hard - Boiled Wonderland' and the other in a more desolate world, and the mystery lies in how they are related.
Sure. 'The Sandman' by Neil Gaiman is a great surreal graphic novel. It weaves together various mythologies and dreamscapes in a really unique way. The art is also very captivating and helps bring the strange and dreamy stories to life.
Sure. 'Finnegans Wake' by James Joyce is quite surreal. Its complex language and dream - like narrative make it a challenging but interesting read. Also, 'Naked Lunch' by William S. Burroughs contains a lot of surreal elements. It has a fragmented and often disturbing storyline that defies normal expectations of a novel.