Saturday, November 22: Mississippi Mud
STORIES ABOUT STORIES
by John M. Floyd
There’s no accounting for personal tastes. Whether the subject is fashion, entertainment, food, politics, you name it . . . we all have our prefer- ences. But in the publishing world, one thing that I find interesting — and a bit surprising — is that so many readers have said they don’t enjoy stories about books, writers, and writing.
Why is that? I have no idea. I don’t know if they feel the subject is too dull or if they think the author might be blowing his own horn or what, but for some reason that’s an area many readers don’t like, and (with except- ions, of course) not many books or movies about books have made it big.
Personally, I do enjoy stories that explore the subject of books and authors, but I’m probably not your typical reader because I’m fascinated by almost anything that deals with writing or publishing. And I can also see why an author would choose to write about that topic, because it’s a world he understands.
How about you? Do you, whether you’re an author or not, like reading stories about writers and/or writing? Do you avoid them? Does it matter? Can you think of any such stories, right off the bat, that you’ve enjoyed or hated?
Let me refresh your memory. The following is by no means a complete list, but I’ve come up with a few novels and short stories and films that have authors or writing as their central theme. See what you think:
Novels:
The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield
Misery, Stephen King
Bag of Bones, Stephen King
Booked to Die, John Dunning
Rough Draft, James W. Hall
The Novel, James Michener
The Bookman’s Wake, John Dunning
The Book Thief, Marcus Zusak
The Dark Half, Stephen King
Oracle Night, Paul Auster
The Bookman’s Promise, John Dunning
The Sign of the Book, John Dunning
Atonement, Ian McEwan
Youngblood Hawke, Herman Wouk
Blue Angel, Francine Prose
The Bookwoman’s Last Fling, John Dunning
The Hours, Michael Cunningham
Lisey’s Story, Stephen KingShort stories:
“The Lesson of the Master,” Henry James
“A Thousand Dollars a Word,” Lawrence Block
“Lost in the Funhouse,” John Barth
“Word Processor of the Gods,” Stephen King
“How to Become a Writer,” Lorrie Moore
“My Twelfth Twelfth Story Story,” Richard Grayson
“Bookscout,” John Dunning
“Secret Window, Secret Garden,” Stephen King
“Family Furnishings,” Alice MunroMovies:
“Finding Forrester” (2000)
“Adaptation” (2002)
“The Muse” (1999)
“Neverwas” (2005)
“Deconstructing Harry” (1997)
“Miss Potter” (2006)
“Sunset Blvd.” (1950)
“I Capture the Castle” (2003)
“Beloved Infidel” (1959)
“Shadowlands” (1993)
“Wonder Boys” (2000)
“The Man From Elysian Fields” (2001)
“8 1/2” (1963)
“Finding Neverland” (2004)
“My Favorite Year” (1982)
“The Whole Wide World” (1996)
“Barton Fink” (1991)
I’m sure I’ll think of more later, but that’s at least a few. (For some reason, I didn’t like most of the films listed here, except for “Adaptation,” “The Man From Elysian Fields,” and “Miss Potter” — but I did enjoy most of the novels and short stories. Go figure.)
If you do like this kind of thing, maybe this will help steer you to an enjoyable read, or DVD. And if it’s a subject you’re a bit tired of, this might at least give you some titles to avoid.
To each his own . . .
BROKEN by Karin Fossum is about the relationship between the writer and a character.
In THE ATHENIAN MURDERS by Jose Carlos Somoza the modern-day translator of an ancient Greek text is alarmed to find references to himself in the text.
Once again this is something I never thought about before reading criminalbrief. Guess that means I have no opinion. After seeing the lists I’m surprised by how often Stephen King has written about books and writing. I’m also surprised to find how many books you have read and movies you have seen on the subject. I thought I had a good memory, but . . .
Lawrence Block’s Bernie Rhodenbarr is a bookseller as well as a burglar. The short story “The Burglar Who Smelled Smoke” is a locked-room mystery set in a private library. Loved ’em!
Agatha Christie had a recurring minor character named Ariadne Oliver who was a mystery writer. People were always coming to her with “wonderful” ideas for stories they “didn’t have time” to write … I had to laugh when someone said she’d already done all the heavy lifting for the masterpiece in her own mind, and there was really nothing left for Mrs. Oliver to do except, of course, for the actual writing!!
I just sold my sixth short story about Shanks, a mystery writer. Guess the subject works for me.
Don’t forget Donald E. Westlake’s THE HOOK, about a successful writer who dries up and hires a less successful writer to do his novel – and incidentally, to kill his wife.
Rex Stout has PLOT IT YOURSELF and MURDER BY THE BOOK.
You folks have reminded me just how poor my memory IS. For instance, I loved Westlake’s THE HOOK, and simply neglected to include it. And I’ve read several of Rob’s Shanks stories, as well as Block’s whole “Burglar” series. (Jeff, I actually like Rhodenbarr better, in some ways, than Matt Scudder.)
Some of the other “stories about stories” I didn’t even know about, which is part of the fun of posting a subject like this — I get pointed toward a lot of good reading material.
Bernie would be a lot more fun to have lunch with than Scudder, particularly since you would know Bernie wasn’t burgling your house on his lunch break….
I’ve always thought it was interesting that Lawrence Block has burglars (Bernie) and contract killers (John Keller) as the PROtagonists of some of his series. And he actually makes that work.
By the way, Block is one of those writers, like King and Hemingway and L’Amour and Welty and Deaver and a few others, who I think writes as well in the short form as he does in the long.