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Snoo57923 t1_iuepejo wrote

Reply to comment by alterego879 in A story within a story... by Agai_n

Heart of Darkness... never heard them termed ergodic before. I've always called them frame stories.

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helvetiq t1_iufgg4h wrote

Conrad does it really well, Lord Jim is another good example.

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alterego879 t1_iuer4nn wrote

You know, I may be mistaken in my assumption of the meaning of the term! I first came across it when reading House of Leaves and S. and assumed the term applied those books having stories within stories.

But now that you mention frame stories, well hell. “Let me sit you down and tell you a tale” is exceedingly common in literature and seems to apply to most of my quick list above!

I’ll have to look further into this…

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jess2888 t1_iuglgny wrote

Just looked it up, the simple definition is "any kind of literature that requires special effort to navigate and digest." I'm thinking Infinite Jest or Ulysses would be good examples of that.

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