A homage to metafiction and unreliable narrators in the form
of fictional books.
Fiction seems to engender more fictions and when you can
have a fictional or fanciful book to support a story, it gets even better. At the best, they are the story itself and at the
least, they are whimsical ornaments to a story. I have chosen twelve fictional books for their strength in supporting
a story and their longevity and in some cases, for nostalgia purposes. Some you have probably read, a couple are probably
obscure and no doubt I left a few off that you would have had on the
list. Some are quite old and others are
topical, but here is the list nonetheless.
I would like to challenge the blog reader to make their own
list and make suggestions to add to this list.
I hope that this list will spur you to research and read or watch the
stories that these glorious fakes have supported. Many of these are books or guides that can be helpful or harmful
to the reader. I have provided links to
get people exploring around if they haven’t read or seen that particular
story. They are pretty much in order as
I thought them up – that is to say, in random order, kinda.
Junior Woodchuck Guidebook (Disney’s Donald Duck and Scrooge
McDuck series) The Junior Woodchuck Guidebook is a book of wisdom and
knowledge used by Huey, Dewey and Louie which they consult when they need
information. The manual is a satire of
the Boy Scout manual and appeared in 1951.
There is a lot of nostalgia for me personally in these stories. Many of them are decades old, but for me they
are timeless.
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhikers Guide series) A handy handbook for galactic
travelers and hitchhikers. It is a
hilarious series of books (and one mediocre move). Don’t forget your towel.
The Enchiridon ( from the Adventure Time cartoon
series) The Enchiridon is book discovered in present
Earth by Simon Petrikov, which ends up on the strange paratime or parallel
world of Ooo. It is basically a
handbook about how that multiverse works as well as a gate; that and the wizard he becomes who sings the theme song to Cheers to keep his sanity -- he fails.
The Necronomicon (H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos) Supposedly the Necronomicon exists in several editions in
several languages, written by the mad Arab, Abdul Al Hazarad about his
experiences and travels in several dimensions and dealings with strange
creatures and sentient beings.
Handbook for the Recently Deceased (from the movie Beetlejuice) A book issued to all recently dead
giving the rules and regulations for being undead. If you don’t want to transgress the Neitherworld, you need to
read the book. Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse,
Betelgeuse – hey a star appeared.
Tobin’s Spirit Guide (from the movie Ghost Busters) A helpful book that listed types of ghosts
and spirits for the investigators. Tobin's Spirit Guide is mentioned several times in the movie, but doesn’t hold a candle to the real
spirit guide, Mr. Boston’s which I have often consulted over the years.
The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, more
commonly known as The Book, by Emmanuel Goldstein (from the George Orwell’s
book Nineteen Eighty-Four). It is a
clandestine volume circulated secretly as a plot against Big Brother. Remember we have always been enemies of
Oceania … no wait, ... friends, wait … darn, the teleprompter broke.
The King in Yellow (from a series of stories by Robert W.
Chambers, one of which is The King in Yellow).
This is a book with a play of
the same name that drives the reader to madness. These stories had influence on a young H. P. Lovecraft.
Encyclopedia Galactica
(Issac Asimov’s Foundation series) It is the sum of all knowledge in an attempt to shorted a galactic dark age. The Encyclopedia Galactica and the
Encyclopedia Foundation set up to author the book are the centerpieces of a
series of books that are set in the far future.
A First Encyclopedia of Tlön (Jeorg Luis Borges from the book Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius) This might be a obscure reference, but I
highly recommend Collected Fictions, which contains this and other stories as a
one-stop-shop for a huge chunk Borges’ fantastic short fiction stories of
magical realism. He also has several
other interlocking fictional books referenced such as The Garden of Forking
Paths, a poem by Ts'ui Pen, but now I am cheating by citing two references.
The Grasshopper Lies Heavy by Hawthorne Abendsen (from
Phillip K. Dick’s Man in the High Castle).
A book supposedly written by using the I Ching. The Man in the High Castle takes place in a
parallel universe where the Allies lost WWII and the US is occupied by the
Germans and the Japanese. It’s always
been one of my favorite because it muses about authenticity and reality. If that doesn't tempt you, the read the linked analysis: http://www.nineroses.com/pkd/tmithcnf.html
The Collected Monographs of Sherlock Holmes (no, wait I made
that one up to introduce all the monographs of Sherlock Holmes as one title –
that makes it a fictional book referencing fictional monographs from a book of
fiction.) Do note, I cheat at
lists. Here is a list of his monographs
referenced in his stories that I have fictitiously gathered into one book: Chaldean Roots in the Ancient Cornish
Language, Early English Charters, Malingering, Of Tattoo Marks, On Secret
Writings, On the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus, On the Study of Tobaccos and
their Ashes, On the Surface Anatomy of the Human Ear, On the Typewriter and Its
Relation to Crime, Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with Some Observations
upon the Segregation of the Queen, Upon the Dating of Old Documents, Upon the
Influence of a Trade upon the Form of the Hand, Upon the Tracing of Footsteps,
Upon the Uses of Dogs in the Work of the Detective, The Whole Art of Detection
Thus endeth my List of Twelve. What got me on the subject is that an original copy of
Schindler’s List (one of four is on sale on eBay for $3 million, which I looked
over with an eye to spotting a possible fake with my interest in props such as
featured on Propnomicon. But this got
me thinking of the fake Hitler Diaries that were “discovered”, put up for sale
in 1983 and then shown to be a fraud.
Now follow me if you can, that got me on the subject of fictional books,
and The Junior Woodchuck Guide jumped to mind followed quickly by The
Enchiridon and the Necronomicon. The
rest just followed. This pretty much ends
my quick view of 12 fictional books referenced in books of fiction, although I
got by with a few cheats and multiple references. Of course being your unreliable narrator, I might be lying too.
Other links of interest on fictional books in books of
fiction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musaeum_Clausum The great granddaddy of fake works published
first in 1684. This was my find of the
day, whoopee!
Digression: That
leads us to fictional autobiographies, but that is another story, but I leave
you with two that stand out in my mind:
Robert Graves’ novel I, Claudius is written as a recently-discovered
autobiography penned by the late Emperor himself. Also along that line are the George Macdonald Fraser’s Harry Flashman books, supposedly written by the great man himself.
The dark and eldritch origins of the Junior Woodchucks.
