Please
welcome back Jeanne of the Bookblog
of the Bristol Public Library
as she considers that annoying practice of fake books being mentioned in real
books. On more than one occasion, I have been led on a wild goose chase by an
author. I don’t much appreciate it.
Fictitious
Fiction
I’ve just finished reading a delightful romance book
by Jenny Colgan entitled The Bookshop on the Corner about Nina, a
librarian who loses her job and ends up in a little village in Scotland with a
mobile bookshop. Nina loves books and
especially loves connecting people with just the perfect book. A blurb called it “a Valentine to readers
everywhere,” and so it is. The joy of reading is well portrayed and the
descriptions of the books sound wonderful.
Unfortunately (as far as I’m concerned), the books
are mostly made up. There are a couple
of titles which I suspect I know what book is meant, but the descriptions don’t
really match up exactly with the book.
I’ve seen posts from readers who are intrigued and who want to read the
books mentioned, only to find they don’t exist.
I find this rather puzzling, especially in a novel about connecting
readers to books. Why not use real books?
In other instances, there are perfectly good reasons
for making up books and authors. James
Patterson had a Bookshots with the controversial title of The Murder of Stephen King. Reportedly, it was set around the King’s real
home and, given the public outcry and based on real threats to King in the
past, Patterson decided to cancel the title. If a writer intends to kill off an
author or make him very unlikeable, it’s probably best to invent one to suit
rather than use a real person—unless said author is in on the joke. In Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew’d
by Alan Bradley, part of the plot centers around a set of beloved children’s
books written by the late but equally beloved Oliver Inchbald. Inchbald’s claim to fame centers around a
series of books with a main character modeled on his son, which of course
brought to mind A.A. Milne but considering the end Bradley contrived for
Inchbald, using a created author and book was necessary. Other real books are referenced, usually in
the form of a quotation from Flavia.
Also, Ali Brandon had a wildly popular author of
teen vampire fiction meet her demise in Double Booked for Death, so any
comparisons to the then wildly popular Stephenie Meyer were of course
coincidences. Dean James made sure that
readers wouldn’t think of Nancy Drew or Trixie Belden when he came up with
Electra Barnes Cartwright and her Veronica
Thane series for The Silence of the Library. Clea Simon has built a
series around Dulcie Schwartz’s search for the identity of the eighteenth
century author of the fictitious novel The Ravages of Umbria, a search
which usually leads her to a present day murder.
Then there are those non-existent books which seem
to take on lives of their own. When Dean
Koontz needed a quotation but couldn’t find one he liked, he simply made up The
Book of Counted Sorrows. He was
surprised at the number of requests he got about the book until he finally
wrote a poetry book with that title.
Previously, the most requested non-book for us was The Necronomicon,
the fabled book by the half-mad Arab cited by H.P. Lovecraft and his
followers. Numerous “copies” have
cropped up over the years as some folks produced books by that title.
However, I have to say that my favorite fake book
was part of the plot in Dorothy Gilman’s The Tightrope Walker. This was a standalone novel in which a shy
young woman named Amelia had clung to a book entitled The Maze in the Heart
of the Castle for solace during a very difficult childhood. In The Tightrope Walker, Amelia solves
a murder, all the while recalling that book for comfort and inspiration. Several years after Tightrope Walker,
Gilman published a real book of The Maze in the Heart of the Castle.
I’ve often wondered if she intended to write the book all along or if she only
really formulated the story as she wrote Tightrope Walker.
Does anyone else have favorite examples of
fictitious fiction?
Posts
2 comments:
The one I remember the most is Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless you, Mr. Rosewater and his fictional author character, Kilgore Trout. I sorely wanted to read Mr. Trout's work, but try as I might, I could not find his work. Then one day, like magic, I found a used copy of Venus on a Half Shell at a garage sale. It wasn't until much later that I found out that Vonnegut was not the writer, rather Philip José Farmer was the author. I lost my first copy of Venus on a Half Shell, probably disintegrated from age, but I found another at of all places another garage sale. I probably could not tell you what occurs in the book, but the story of how I found it will always stay with me.
There are several fake books in Nabokov's Pale Fire.
I love Venus on the Half-Shell. I bought a paperback of it years ago & noticed the "author" in the photo was wearing a wig, fake nose, & clown spectacles.
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