Stories Within Stories

Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
catalog said:
Bolano also has a lot of his characters telling stories to one another. the one i like is the one where you've got someone retelling the orestia late at night. also the nightwatchman and the old guy having their conversations. can't remember the names of the actual books sorry
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I read a nice book by him this year, By night in Chile, which is quite short, almost a novella really, but it uses this technique extensively.

Ought to read some more Bolaño, it's good stuff.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I say "nice" - this is Bolaño we're talking about, so there's a section about a basement room in some wealthy couple's country mansion where spooks used to torture and murder suspected political dissidents during the dictatorship.

OTOH, there are some light-hearted bits too, such as the pervy old priest who's constantly trying to talk the young narrator into a letting him bum him.
 
C

catalog

Well-known member
Think I've read almost all bolano but I stopped during woes of the true policeman and have not read any of the stuff put out after that. But for a while I was devouring. A few bits still stick with me but whenever I go back and try to reread him, I get a bit stuck.

Apart from the third reich, that's perfect, possibly even better on the reread.

So if you liked by night in Chile, try that next, it's a short one too.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Ta, will try and track down a copy.

His main big one other than 2666 is The Savage Detectives, isn't it?
 
C

catalog

Well-known member
I thought savage detectives was amazing when I first read it, it would have been 2007 or so. But did not finish on the reread.
 
V

version

Well-known member
Mr. Tea said:
Did you like 2666, though? A tough read, but I really liked it.
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Haven't read that one. I've only read Savage Detectives.

If I read another it'll be one of the short ones, Distant Star or The Third Reich or By Night in Chile.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
you said:
Christopher Priest! A few of his novels play with dream narratives, imagined worlds. Particularly The Affirmation. Insidious novel.

D.M Thomas's The White Hotel too.

These are not clearly mise en abyme or hypodiegetic a la 'and I met a man who said "when I was a boy I..."' The border, the difference is murkier, hazy, or only revealed later after immersion.
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Yes that's true, it's very far from a simple matter of "This is reality, here is a story inside it" - you get all that psychoanalysis and dream exploration stuff too. Whtie Hotel also gets a mention in one of the later Adrian Mole books I think so that gives it an extra bonus point.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
catalog said:
Don Quixote has a bit of this going on, though maybe not quite what you mean. But as i remember it, quixote goes off with sancho and they are having adventures for a while. Then they meet this couple who have heard of the adventuring and are compiling it all into a book. and they arrange further adventures for him. so a bit like synechdoche new york maybe (keep meaning to watch that again).
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It's almost like the reverse, the actual story works to almost generate a story within itself or something.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
IdleRich said:
Very dark book I thought.
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Yeah, in parts - reading a quick summary of it makes me think it's probably darker than I remember it. Also it's the literary critic who's trying to chat up the narrator, who is a priest.

I loved the lengthy bit where he makes a long trip to Europe and encounters all these priests who are mad into falconry, because the falcons scare eat or scare off the pigeons who'd otherwise nest in the rooves of the ancient churches and abbeys and mess up the stonework with their acidic poo.
 
jenks

jenks

thread death
David Keenan - Monument Maker is full of nested, buried stories that also comment and reflect on each other. In fact he’s in the process of creating this whole Keenan universe where characters re-occur in other novels. I think he’s out there like Alan Moore on a psychedelic quest.
 
jenks

jenks

thread death
Esc&Ctrl - Steve Hollyman. Just arrived yesterday from Influx. Two parallel stories interwoven complete with two alternative sets of footnotes which constantly draw attention to the Pomo nature of footnoting in lit texts. Essentially having its cake and eating it but done really well - it’s a detective story sort of. Very readable, quite funny too.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
In fact Monument Maker sounds good too... 3hr bus journey today so great chance to do some reading... looking forward to it.
 
william_kent

william_kent

Well-known member
seems like everyone else has covered the good, time for me to rake through the shit:

Naked Lunch - the film; I'm sure that, before the time, people were like "Only Cronenberg can film this unfilmable novel", and then he did and it was...as the kids say,,,"meh"... not good, for sure he used Exterminator as the frame, but it totally fell flat..really bad... bug terminator snuffs up chemicals and has hallucinations that vaguely resemble the Burroughs "routines"

Will Self - Cock and Bull - the only text I've read by this Burroughs wannabe, awful, just a pastiche of those Hammer Studio "portmanteau" films where Rod "Record breaker" Castle is in a train carriage and recounts some "scary story" to the other occupants... pathetic....

and "Creepshow", using the same device as the "starring Rod Castle" Hammer films, four rubbish shorts wrapped in a nebulous layer of shit
 
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