[maxerickson]

Nobody has suggested Umberto Eco yet.I would try The Island of the Day Before or Baudolino before Foucault's Pendulum.

Alistair Reynolds is space opera done nicely (if you want to look in that direction). Chasm City stands on its own, but there are some similar works there.

Twain fits in with some of your other comments.

[meerita]

Good author. A bit, elitist in their prose and a bit rude with the reader. He makes you read a lot before getting a bit of emotion. In Il nome della rosa he does a masterful work, to me.

I really liked Patricia Highsmith with the sequels of Mr. Ripley. I also love the french book write Jean-Christophe Grangé with their beloved black novel books. Love the all of them.

[youngbenny]

Thanks for the suggestion on Eco. I picked up a few books by Fernando Pessoa too.

[gruseom]

Wait, how'd you get to Pessoa from there?!

Pessoa is fascinating. I believe it was he who wrote:

  Poets pretend
  They pretend so well
  They even pretend
  They suffer what they suffer.

... something that lodged itself in my brain years ago and never left. Pessoa wrote under countless pseudonyms. He is like Kierkegaard in that respect. You might like Fear and Trembling, in fact, based on your list.

[youngbenny]

Pessoa created his own worlds. Reminds me of Henry Darger. Check out IN THE REALMS OF THE UNREAL if you haven't seen it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSzzirIP0No.

[gruseom]

Thanks; I've run across his stuff tangentially a few times but not seen that film.

You might like Gormenghast: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gormenghast_(series)

Wyndham Lewis's novels, especially the Human Comedy that he wrote at the end of his life, are something I've always been meaning to get to. It's hard to tell if they're meaningful or impenetrable.