References of other books in fictional prose- Good or not so good?

[Kyriakos]

Given that my main aspiration in my younger years was to examine Kafka's work and pretty much approximate it (and at the time i had roughly zero publications/ correlation or causation??), and Kafka notably did not refer to other books in his fiction (or virtually never did anyway), i was at first very much against such allusions.
Mainly because i accepted that if you base something (even to a small, fleeting degree) of your story on the reader(s) actually being familiar with the other text you allude to, then chances are they will find it less enjoyable to keep on reading. Moreso if they have not read the other work you mentioned. And no one likes to not be able to follow a story.

But in more recent times i often include some stuff about other books or events (for example presocratic philosophy and so on). Surely they are not the core of the actual story there. They either work as to set the tone of how the narrator thinks (eg deluded hipsterism, or more ominous/sinister), OR they are part of a subplot of the story.
Even so, though, it can be a pretty dangerous game to play, to keep such a balance. It doesn't have to be the "fault" of the writer either if the balance doesn't work. For example Borges tends to fill his stories with references to tens of other works, which is cool, but it likely has the effect that fewer people connect the foreground of the story with the backgrounds spoken of here and there. Sometimes that can be part of the game of the story (eg the subtitle of "The house of Asterios" is an allusion to a very specific older story, and if the reader readily identifies it then the mood of the story's climax is eroded significantly).

*

Anyway, what is your view on including allusions to other works or events (eg historical) in a fictional story?

 

[Borachio]

Dunno.

I'm trying to think of references to other books I've encountered in fictional prose before.

I think they're pretty thin on the ground to be honest. I remember Golding referencing the Bible fairly frequently in one novel of his. But it was about some fundamentalist Christian type.

Jean Winterton did the same in Oranges are not the Only Fruit.

Surely it must be more common than I can recollect, though.

Why don't you write about some struggling writer who dreamt he was trapped in one of Kafka's novels?

 

[Gori the Grey]

You should check out a book by Ovid, called Metamorphoses, Kyriakos.

 

[Kyriakos]

Ovid does not hold much as that relevant, though, cause he specifically set to write about previous myth

@Borachio: That would be something that hacks of the W.Allen type would do, not my 'Viceroy of God' self

 

[Gori the Grey]

Ovid as a counter to this claim, I mean.

Kafka notably did not refer to other books in his fiction

Anyway, no, allusion, reworking is the very stuff of literature. Lesser artists borrow; great artists steal outright.

Virgil to Homer, Dante to Virgil, Milton to all three, Joyce to everyone.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Problem is that the more one sets as prerequisites for readers to actually even follow the lines of the story, the less likely he is to have the work read. No one likes to have to stop midway so as to look stuff up. Sometimes this can ruin interest outright. In an ideal situation (maybe) one would include such allusions and have a basis to think they help what is narrated in some manner he considers as probable, but literature should not take many things for granted, and perhaps even allusions can easily go overboard with readers.

Of course there are variations to all things. I can use allusions expected to be known by virtually all readers. Eg the Minotaur is not really including by itself the readers having read the whole myth circle of Theseus. The 'labyrinth' does not demand one knowing all of the myths dealing with Daedalos. Atlas holding the sphere of the sky, again, does not have to be supported by other readings, nor even to be tied to the circle of Herakles.
But if less globally known names/sequences are alluded to... then the reader can be lost, and ideally one has to keep a balance in that too: not water down his meaning beyond recognition/redemption, but also be conscious that he is not writing the story so that his own self will read it and find it oh-so interesting

Of course there is always room for games using that: one can include a lesser known story/allusion etc, and make it a focal point of the story that the narrator seems to think that everyone will readily identify it. In the end it seems he has his own strange reasons for such a view, and so on.

 

[warpus]

And so John stood tall on the hill, looking down on the city below. Memories of time spent with Sarah flashed in front of his eyes, as the dark clouds above slowly covered the moon.

He raised the contraption up to his shoulder, aimed, and pulled the trigger. A rocket exited with a fiery boom and made its way to the unsuspecting civilians below.

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed!", he yelled out into the sky, as the nuclear mushroom cloud in front of him lit up the valley.

--

So I think if you work it into your story well enough nobody will mind. I didn't really do a great job, but I don't know any other quotes from a written text off the top of my head.

 

[bhsup]

That brought a tear to my eye.

 

[Kyriakos]

Given that i got a serious reply in another forum (of course, it is not like this could happen here ), i will just paste some stuff i later on wrote there...

Regarding Kafka, one advantage of not having any allusions to other works/history is that the actual connections in the story itself seem to function more evidently as their own sum. My favorite work of his is the one with the creature that has built a vast underground system of corridors and halls, and given that the being likely is not even human it would not really work to have any allusion to human history (of course it still uses language, but what else can you do).

I think that a story without allusions/ties to other stuff potentially is more powerful. Also it urges (or even forces) the reader to note the particular interconnections more (maybe i just aspire for that to happen; at any rate no one can know how the next person will reshape the story in his/her mind).

Allusions, of course, can easily allow one (given some knowledge and skill) to "show off" etc. That rarely is a good idea, even if it is done (as you noted with Eco, although i haven't read any full work of his...) as part of the character presentation. Balance surely is the main paragon here

On the other hand: allusions (any set external recognisable work, eg the platonic dialogues i sometimes use to a small degree) can help offset the shadowy realm of the actual new story, with some sense of connection to something a reader can identify as more set in time or place. Of course that too is a mental game to a significant degree, but useful

 

[Borachio]

Anyway, no, allusion, reworking is the very stuff of literature. Lesser artists borrow; great artists steal outright.

Virgil to Homer, Dante to Virgil, Milton to all three, Joyce to everyone.

I get that. And apparently Joyce told an aunt she should read the Odyssey before reading his Ulysses if she wanted to make any sense of it, iirc. Yet he doesn't make any express references to it. Well, not in the half of it that I managed to struggle through.

Doesn't Mr K (!) propose a novel with explicit Kafka references?

 

[BvBPL]

Interesting question. I think the answer rests, in part, on what sort of fiction is being provided.

If this is a piece of historical fiction, or one sent in a contemporary setting, then allusions to past works is permissible. These works are, after all, part of our mutual cultural heritage.

If the fiction is more fantastic then it becomes more difficult. Piers Anthony established a great logos from referencing real world works in his fantastic novels. There’s probably a dichotomy here where it is permissible, as with Anthony, where you throw a lot material in, and it would be legit to not provide any such real world reference, but the in between area gets ugly. A reader would scratch his head if Proust showed up but not Carroll (although some authors can do this).

 

[Flying Pig]

I get that. And apparently Joyce told an aunt she should read the Odyssey before reading his Ulysses if she wanted to make any sense of it, iirc. Yet he doesn't make any express references to it. Well, not in the half of it that I managed to struggle through.

Originally it divided into chapters named after episodes in the Odyssey, which would probably have made it make more sense. Of course, Joyce realised this and got rid of them.

 

[Kyriakos]

^I only managed to read something like 5 chapters of that work by Joyce (read nothing other by him either). The first couple of chapters seemed well-written (stylistically i mean, the ideas from what i recall where the thoughts of a clique of hipsters around Steven Daedalus). Later on things became more and more random. Soon afterwards the thing became a play with dialogue. I gave up by that time

 

[Borachio]

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is much more accessible.

As is The Dubliners.

Finnegans Wake is more impenetrable than Ulysses, though.

In the end, though, Joyce, although undoubtedly a highly intelligent man (maybe because of it), isn't my cup of tea at all.

I much preferred The Third Policeman as an example of Irish literary genius.

 

[JollyRoger]

Why do you all have to be Katje Borgesius to Ulysses' Brigadier General Pudding?

 

[cybrxkhan]

I guess it's a case by case basis. Having references sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

I'll take an unlikely example - anime. In recent years, there's been a trend among some anime (and their source material) to be rather self-referential to previous series and the fandom as a whole. It rarely works nowadays because it's simply overdone and doesn't offer anything of value other than "lol look I'm referencing some show rn't i so cute".

I think that similar to putting "deeper" meaning in stories, you have to have a good story to begin with. Can the story be enjoyed without the reference, and the reference merely enhances it? Then it can work.

Then again, I suppose in other situations the reference is the whole point.

I dunno. WHatever feels right. I always put in references to random things in my writing, but they're more like easter eggs in a video game, not really essential to the overall picture but they can help.


EDIT; To go back on the anime example, the self-referential aspect often comes off as self-indulgent and pretentious. Being self-indulgent and pretentious, in my opinion, is not much an issue, but when that is all there is, then it'll turn people off. You gotta offer something other than that, I think.

 

[JollyRoger]

I think that similar to putting "deeper" meaning in stories, you have to have a good story to begin with. Can the story be enjoyed without the reference, and the reference merely enhances it? Then it can work.

This. It is a tricky task to pull off, but there are writers capable of doing it.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

It didn't work very well in Dracula the Un-Dead, the "official" sequel to Dracula, in which the original book actually exists as a work of fiction within the narrative, as does Bram Stoker himself. But I think that's largely because it's just a really, really awful book

 

[Borachio]

Why do you all have to be Katje Borgesius to Ulysses' Brigadier General Pudding?

Yeah. Gravity's Rainbow.


No mention of it in Ulysses.

 

[JollyRoger]

Yeah. Gravity's Rainbow.


No mention of it in Ulysses.

Gravity's Rainbow doesn't mention me, but does give me a way of asking why people are crapping on Ulysses.