Novels About Books

[Tio_Narratore]

I watched The Ninth Gate on tv this weekend, and it started me thinking of novels about books and reading.

The movie was based on Arturo Pérez-Rverte’s The Club Dumas (El Club Dumas); I found the book a better mystery tale than the film.

Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, is a classic in this genre, and Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose (Il nomme della rosa) is a great story of one monk’s attempt to keep a book from view. Eco’s The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (La misteriosa flamma della Regina Loana) reflects a life lived, or remembered, at least, through books. I found The Shadow of the Wind (La sombra del viento) by Carlos Ruiz Zafón an engrossing tale, and particularly liked the concept of “the cemetery of lost books.” And Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler (Se una notte d’inverno un viagiattore) is my favourite for the fun of a novel about reading itself.


What do you think of any of these, if you’ve read them?

Are there any other novels about books or reading that you know and like? Which are they? I wouldn’t mind finding a few more to read, and the theme doesn’t seem to be a subject heading in the LoC.

 

[ChrissieLecker]

"If on a Winter's Night a Traveler" is absolutely brilliant, one of the few books I read twice in the same week.

When I was young I loved Michael Ende's "Neverending Story", and also aimed at younger readers Cornelia Funke's "Inkheart" comes to my mind.

Another recommendably story (for those who like fantasy in a victorian setting) woven around a book (in this case a mysterious diary) is Libba Bray's "A Great and Terrible Beauty" with its two sequels.

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

Two of Mikhail Bulgakov's works--The Master and Margarita, and Black Snow--might be considered books about books, though in my mind they're more surreal Soviet satire about an author and a playwright. If you haven't read Bulgakov (he's a favorite of mine), The Master and Margarita is definitely worth picking up. Black Snow is nowhere near as well known, but it is semi-autobiographical and also good.

Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose might be another. The protagonist decides to write a story about his family's move west, about a century after the fact. It's a great book--it won a Pulitzer in the 1970s--but I don't remember how much of the book focuses on the current day author vs. the family one hundred years ago (I read it about a decade ago).

I don't remember much about F451 (er, I sped through in high school for a class). The Name of the Rose isn't my favorite of Eco's works, but that might be because I read it in a college semiotics class and the other writings were much better. I enjoyed the three listed above much more.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

"If on a Winter's Night a Traveler" is absolutely brilliant, one of the few books I read twice in the same week.

When I was young I loved Michael Ende's "Neverending Story", and also aimed at younger readers Cornelia Funke's "Inkheart" comes to my mind.

Another recommendably story (for those who like fantasy in a victorian setting) woven around a book (in this case a mysterious diary) is Libba Bray's "A Great and Terrible Beauty" with its two sequels.

Thanks, Chrissie,I'lltake a look at them.

Two of Mikhail Bulgakov's works--The Master and Margarita, and Black Snow--might be considered books about books, though in my mind they're more surreal Soviet satire about an author and a playwright. If you haven't read Bulgakov (he's a favorite of mine), The Master and Margarita is definitely worth picking up. Black Snow is nowhere near as well known, but it is semi-autobiographical and also good.

Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose might be another. The protagonist decides to write a story about his family's move west, about a century after the fact. It's a great book--it won a Pulitzer in the 1970s--but I don't remember how much of the book focuses on the current day author vs. the family one hundred years ago (I read it about a decade ago).

I don't remember much about F451 (er, I sped through in high school for a class). The Name of the Rose isn't my favorite of Eco's works, but that might be because I read it in a college semiotics class and the other writings were much better. I enjoyed the three listed above much more.

Thank you, LFT. My daughter urged me to read The Master and Margarita a number of years ago, but told me it was best in Russian; she wasn't completely pleased with the translation. I think I may try it in English anyway.

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

Thank you, LFT. My daughter urged me to read The Master and Margarita a number of years ago, but told me it was best in Russian; she wasn't completely pleased with the translation. I think I may try it in English anyway.

She's right. I learned Russian just so I could read Pushkin in Russian, and Bulgakov is another that doesn't translate well.

But if your choice is English Bulgakov or no Bulgakov, English Bulgakov is best.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

She's right. I learned Russian just so I could read Pushkin in Russian, and Bulgakov is another that doesn't translate well.

But if your choice is English Bulgakov or no Bulgakov, English Bulgakov is best.

It will have to be, unless the French or German translations are better than the English; my facility with Russian is non-existant. And I'm sure my daughter will be pleased to hear you concur with her assessment.

 

[SamScribble]

Admittedly a novel about a poem rather than a novel about a novel, Nabokov’s Pale Fire works quite well for me.

And then there is John Fowles’ Mantissa – which is probably easier to read than to explain. It’s also agreeably erotic.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Admittedly a novel about a poem rather than a novel about a novel, Nabokov’s Pale Fire works quite well for me.

And then there is John Fowles’ Mantissa – which is probably easier to read than to explain. It’s also agreeably erotic.

Yes, Sam, thanks; it's been a long time since I read Mantissa. Always did enjoy Fowles, though, just the right touch of unreality to make it fiction rather than an imitation of life.

 

[sr71plt]

IThe movie was based on Arturo Pérez-Rverte’s The Club Dumas (El Club Dumas); I found the book a better mystery tale than the film.

Interesting. This was a case where I thought the movie was better than the book.

As I recall, I wasn't too impressed with Shadow of the Wind--which, interestingly, I bought and started to read thinking that it was Club Dumas that I was buying (whereas when I started reading Club Dumas I didn't realize I'd already seen The Ninth Gate). I think I have another "novel on books" on my nightstand to read, but it's so buried I can't find it at the moment.

I like such books, though--and like to write them too. Sabb and I together, as Shabbu, have two GM books out that are novels set in the writing of novels in the villa in which Lawrence Durrell wrote much of his Alexandria Quartet (which in real life I rented for a couple of years) and weaving in venues and parallel characters Durrell used in some of his books (The Tree of Idleness and I Met a Man).

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Interesting. This was a case where I thought the movie was better than the book.

As I recall, I wasn't too impressed with Shadow of the Wind--which, interestingly, I bought and started to read thinking that it was Club Dumas that I was buying (whereas when I started reading Club Dumas I didn't realize I'd already seen The Ninth Gate). I think I have another "novel on books" on my nightstand to read, but it's so buried I can't find it at the moment.

I like such books, though--and like to write them too. Sabb and I together, as Shabbu, have two GM books out that are novels set in the writing of novels in the villa in which Lawrence Durrell wrote much of his Alexandria Quartet (which in real life I rented for a couple of years) and weaving in venues and parallel characters Durrell used in some of his books (The Tree of Idleness and I Met a Man).

The Shadow of the Wind had its weak points, but it was romantic,it had its cemetery of lost books, and it was set in Barcelona. Hit mein the weak spots.

I found The Ninth Gate visually enjoyable. I must say, I'm not that big on films. As for the novel, it may just be that I enjoy the reading, and perhaps a bit too much of what Eco calls "pretext" - reading the story as a text from which to make your own tale. Maybe it's my tale I remember so fondly from The Club Dumas.

And thanks for the suggestions.

 

[Ember_on_ice]

OK, this thread may be dead, but I've just found it, so I'm trying a little CPR.

A friend and I have been making a habit of reading books about books for the past few years.

So far, my favorites have been:
People of the Book (Geraldine Brooks)
A modern-day book restoration specialist is called to assess a very old handmade copy of The Haggadah; the background of the tome is told episodically, with the modern portions of the plotline holding the historical threads together.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows)
Wonderful story about the people of the Channel Islands coping with occupation during WWII by forming a reading club.

84 Charing Cross Road (Helene Hanff)
A romance that takes place - via letters, across an ocean and several decades - between a rare-book seller in England and a collector in New York.

Bachelor Brothers' Bed & Breakfast (Bill Richardson)
The story of a hidden treasure of a B&B, where guests come specifically to while away the hours reading. There are lots of quirky locals, and much of the story revolves around the running of the B&B itself, but the premise is that everyone there loves books.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Thanks for the suggestions, Ember, and for the CPR; the thought of your giving me mouth-to-mouth is a plo bunny in itself...

 

[sr71plt]

Since this thread I've read Michael Gruber's The Book of Air and Shadows. I remember enjoying it, but not as much as I was led to believe I would (about Shakespearean writings popping up).

 

[Ember_on_ice]

Thanks for the suggestions, Ember, and for the CPR; the thought of your giving me mouth-to-mouth is a plo bunny in itself...

OK, now you have to explain what a "plo bunny" is. Maybe it's a typo? Maybe it's something I would have learned had I dated in high school? Maybe it's a medical term related to CPR, but I didn't learn about it when I got certified by the Red Cross...

 

[sr71plt]

Typo for "plot bunny" (an idea for a story plot), I'm sure.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I ejoyed "Aunt Julia and the scriptwriter" by Mario Vargas Losa not only for it's writerly plot but also its non-linear timeline.
The narrator tells us about his early days learning to write. About every third chapter, he begins; "I had an idea for a story," and then he tells us his plot bunny, and then concludes; "But I never finished writing it..." until we start anticipating that punchline and laughing before he reaches it.

At the same time, he tells us about a radio drama scriptwriter who cannot let anything end.

Around the time I read this, I'd picked up an older work that I guess isn't Fowles, where the universe is a university and salvation is called "passèdness" and damnation is "Failedness" but I never could finish the damn thing...

"Pale Fire" is brilliant and also readable-- as long as you have the least bit of exposure to academia you'll laugh all the way through it.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

From 1969, there is Irving Wallace’s "The Seven Minutes," about a fictional court case over a supposedly obscene book.

I doubt that it ranks in quality with the other suggestions, but it certainly fits the forum.

 

[YDB95]

James Michener's The Novel is about an elderly and successful author who has just completed his final novel, and a young author who is murdered just as he completes his first novel. The latter novel is in an avant-garde style and has the critics salivating, while every inkling the reader gets indicates that it's pretentious and boring and, well, bad. A brilliant satire of the world of literary criticism, if you ask me, especially since Michener was a very rare example of an author who commanded respect from critics while still writing novels that were both enjoyable and of literary value.

 

[sr71plt]

James Michener's The Novel is about an elderly and successful author who has just completed his final novel, and a young author who is murdered just as he completes his first novel. The latter novel is in an avant-garde style and has the critics salivating, while every inkling the reader gets indicates that it's pretentious and boring and, well, bad. A brilliant satire of the world of literary criticism, if you ask me, especially since Michener was a very rare example of an author who commanded respect from critics while still writing novels that were both enjoyable and of literary value.

Michener took a critical drubbing for The Novel, and he didn't like to talk about it. It is partly autobiographical--or so, he said, although he'd never say which character was the autobiographical part. I've never thought he took the young writer from his own life, as his The Fires of Spring was more autobiographical on his start as a writer--and the character that was him in that book is unlike the young writer in The Novel. I didn't think it was one of his better ones.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

SOPHIES CHOICE has a chapter or two about an inept junior editor who rejected a book that became a huge best-seller for a competing publisher.