[Dragaera] Jasper Fforde

[Jerry Friedman]

--- Ken Koester <kkoester at email.ers.usda.gov> wrote:

> Casey Rousseau wrote:
> 
> >KG> == writ by Kenneth Gorelick
> >KK> == writ by Ken Koester
> >
> >  
> >
> Nono--"KK" is writ by Snarkhunter, obviously ;-)
> 
> >KK> The conceit of imagining that literary works, characters, plots,
> etc, 
> >KK> are real and interact with the real world is interesting enough
> (cf. 
> >KK> Tom Holt for other treatments of this basic idea) & you can have a
> lot 
> >KK> of fun with it, but I don't find myself as compelled by them.
> >
> >KG> See Robert Heinlein for a discussion of fictons.
> >
> >Better yet, see Pirandello's  Sei Personaggi in Cerca d'Autore (Six
> >Characters in Search of an Author).
> >
> 
> Well, yes.  If you want a serious treatment, that is.  Or for a complete

> 180, Butor's =La modification=, in which you yourself are a character.  
> Or Sarraute's =Les fruits d'or=, in which the work itself is a 
> character.  Or perhaps best of all, Sterne's =Tristram Shandy= in which 
> the physical object could be considered a character.

I am gratified, in course, to meet another admirer of Tristram
Shandy.  (Nay, madam, the book,--not the character,--though come
to that, the character himself is,--very well, I fear I try your
patience.)

> Although I 
> sometimes think Firesign Theater gave him a real run for his money.  The
> 20th century gets real excited by the notion of dissolving the bounds 
> between work of art, artist, partaker of art, etc., ad inf., ad nausem, 
> ad astra per asperagus (& bonus points if you know the author & short 
> story that appears in).

If we're going to get all encyclopedic about it, see
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metafictional_texts>.  I
just edited it, including mentioning a certain author who's
popular around here.

Much as I love /Athyra/ (which didn't get any votes in the
recent poll of favorite Brust!) and /Agyar/, there's only
one thing by Steven that I'd say is done as well as that
kind of thing has ever been done: the author interview in
FHYA.  I hope that doesn't seem like faint praise.

Jerry Friedman
My trip to Kenya: <http://geraldfriedman.tripod.com>


       
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