Much like a "skier's mountain" or a "band's band," is this the kind of book that only appeals to a narrow audience that likes to pick apart the mechanics of a book?
Or is this a book like Harry Potter, which was panned by the critics, but otherwise is awesome popular fiction?
The 'hook' of Pale Fire is this: ostensibly you're reading a long-form poem with a foreword and footnotes and editing by a friend of the poet (a poet of some eminence), but it soon becomes apparent that the editor is trying to jam his own life story into those footnotes.
If you like that idea, I think you'd like the book.
Other books I know of that play with part or all of the text itself being an artifact of the fiction:
- The Third Policeman, Flann O’Brian. Fictional scholar of a fictional esoteric philosopher weaves his commentary on same philosopher into an account of his… journey.
- If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, Italo Calvino. You(!) embark on an adventure to find the book you believed you purchased, which was If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino.
- The Princess Bride, William Goldman. This has a very different framing narrative from the film, and is very much worth a read.
_House of Leaves_, Mark Danielewski. This one has at least two layers of meta story. The body of the text is a long-form analysis written by a blind man of a fictional film. The extensive footnotes are of the guy who found the manuscript after the blind man died.
S. by Doug Dorst and J.J. Abrams is a book called Ship of Theseus with hand-written back and forth marginal notes from two college students who take turns borrowing it from a library. It comes with loose pieces of literature stuck in the pages. It's not on the literary level of Pale Fire or anything but it was definitely enjoyable.
Other good book series that put the book into the story, by one of my favorite authors, Gene Wolfe:
The Book of the New Sun
Soldier of the mist
In both, the author presents himself as a translator for a text he came across which was written by the main character of the story. In the first, the text came from the distant future. In the second, ancient Greece. They are both incredible.
Book of the New/Long/Short Sun were absolute masterpieces at telling a story within a world where the books and authors themselves exist.
Gene Wolfe really outdid himself, it's always incredible to me to reread the series and find that the books are written in a way that's not only engaging and interesting on a first read through, but equally captivating and enjoyable in new ways when you reread them and appreciate all the subtleties.
I'm reminded of Canada's first weird tale (probably), 'A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder' by James De Mille.
The narrative structure of Strange Manuscript is that of a story within a story. The frame story has four characters. Lord Featherstone, a British aristocrat, has fled the boredom of society to cruise the south seas in his yacht. He is accompanied by Dr. Congreve, a medical doctor who is knowledgeable in such fields as geography, botany, and paleontology; by Noel Oxenden, a Cambridge scholar who is an expert on philology; and by Otto Melick, "a littérateur from London". The four are becalmed in mid-Atlantic when they discover a copper cylinder containing a letter and a manuscript written on an unusual material which the doctor later identifies as papyrus. To while away the time, they take turns reading the manuscript aloud, pausing between turns to discuss its contents and debate its authenticity.
The author seems to have been a rather cool dude
Among the books from his library presented by the family to Dalhousie College are hymnologies of the Greek Church, a beautiful set of Euripides, works in modern Greek, Sanskrit, and Persian showing signs of use, as well as French, German and Italian classics with pencilled marginalia, all attesting the breadth of his intellectual interests. Since his death, his best book, A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder has been published by Harper's. It anticipates such romances as King Solomon's Mines, being a tale of wild adventures in an Antarctic Topsy-turveydom where lovers fly about on tame pterodactyls, and utter unselfishness is the chief aim in life of the highly civilised (but cannibal) inhabitants. [...] De Mille was a tall, handsome, dark man, an excellent teacher, a good conversationalist, best in monologue, an amateur musician, an adept at caricatures and comic verses; in short, a most unusual personality.
Another interesting variant of "annotations are the star" is "But What of Earth?" by Piers Anthony. It's an old school sort of sci fi story, but the publisher rewrote it in the publishing process. Eventually Anthony got the rights back and published the first draft with the editor's changes and his commentary on it. I think it was intended to be commentary on the publishing business, but as a way of knowing an author, you come away feeling like you know the guy in a way you don't get from carefully crafted stories.
It's one of those old paperbacks I know I wouldn't have tossed, but darned if I can find my copy to reread. Maybe I loaned it and it found a new home. Maybe you have it.
(Do remember, he is a 55 year old man writing this in the '80s. Some of his world view is… archaic?… in the greater society today.)
You want the Tor version from 1989, not the Laser version from 1976.
Yeah, strangely enough I never connected Pale Fire to House of Leaves until this article and thread. Puts a slightly different spin on House of Leaves for me.
It is an elaborate joke on works with lots of footnotes and editorial commentary. If you are familiar with this kind of text you migt enjoy it. Otherwise it will probably fall flat.
If you like Borges or Gödel, Escher, Bach you will enjoy this.
I think it is more accessible than the mountains of literary analysis would lead you to believe. It's a fun read even if you didn't dig into every single line, it's short, and it's funny.
Much like a "skier's mountain" or a "band's band," is this the kind of book that only appeals to a narrow audience that likes to pick apart the mechanics of a book?
Or is this a book like Harry Potter, which was panned by the critics, but otherwise is awesome popular fiction?