Fictional Characters as Fictional Characters in Other Books

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I'm thinking of Mr. Timothy by Louis Bayard, where the main character is a continuation of "Tiny Tim" from Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Or of Mr. March in Brooks' March, which is, of course, based on the classic story by Louisa May Alcott.

What other books am I overlooking, here? And is "stealing" a character and basing a story around that person an acceptable practice? Or is it not stealing and more of an artistic exploration?

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 05:32 (nineteen years ago)

Uh, Gilbert Sorrentino (esp. "Mulligan Stew") to thread.

Also -- what is it -- Jean Rhys's "Wide Sargasso Sea"?

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 05:56 (nineteen years ago)

All the Flashman books ... a continuation from Tom Brown's Schooldays. Starts with Flashy getting slung out of Rugby School. Tom Brown's best friend, Scud East, appears in several of the Flashman Books (F at the Charge and F and the Great Game, at least).

― andyjack (andyjack), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 07:09 (nineteen years ago)

There are some others lurking but Peter Carey's My Life as a Fake about Ern Malley (makebelieve Aussie poet) offers a twist on a twist.

― sandy mc (sandy mc), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 07:31 (nineteen years ago)

Several books by Jasper Fford should count, I guess.

― Paul in Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 07:56 (nineteen years ago)

I've had a copy of The Mistress of Lilliput for years and not gotten round to reading it. Gulliver's Travels told by his wife. Akshully I must read it soon.

― Half loaf, half pompadour (noodle vague), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 08:19 (nineteen years ago)

Unofficial sequels are virtually a genre to themselves aren't they? Scarlett and Jeff Noon's Automated Alice spring to mind. As does Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which seemingly attempts to refer at least in passing to characters or incidents from almost every work of mythical, weird or fantasy fiction.

― ledge (ledge), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 09:40 (nineteen years ago)

Aha, a list of unoffical sequels/homages:
http://sachem.suffolk.lib.ny.us/advisor/sequels.htm

Has anyone read Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West? It has piqued my curiosity.

― ledge (ledge), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 10:04 (nineteen years ago)

I think there's a musical based on Wicked, too.

― Half loaf, half pompadour (noodle vague), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 10:22 (nineteen years ago)

What about The Hours in which Michael Cunningham appropriates not only the fictional character of Mrs Dalloway but also of Virginia Woolf (fictionality questionable)? Double points!

― salexandra (salexander), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 10:24 (nineteen years ago)

Has anyone read Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West? It has piqued my curiosity.

I read it, and it's fun. He has written a few of them. I think I read a bit of one that was about the witch from Snow White.

I am about to read a book called Mrs. Ahab. See if you can guess who it's about?

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 10:57 (nineteen years ago)

Does it involve a rather large fish?
(ok i cheated and googled it)

According to one website, Mrs Ahab is only mentioned a couple of times in passing reference in the original, so it sounds like an interesting idea of expanding a very very minor character. (Is it a feminist recovering-the-silenced-voices exercise?).

― salexandra (salexander), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 11:16 (nineteen years ago)

I don't know yet. I shall report back to this thread when I've read it.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 15:58 (nineteen years ago)

Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 16:16 (nineteen years ago)

Jonathan Ames has a novel featuring, well, Jeeves -- or some kind of delusional guy who's created an imaginary Jeeves for himself -- but I think dealing with the Wodehouse estate meant that the guy had to be generic, rather than name-brand Jeeves.

Non-parody character-borrowing is not allowed, legally speaking -- though in most of these cases it's not an issue, because the kinds of old recognized-by-all basic characters we're talking about tend to come from books old enough to be in the public domain.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 16:26 (nineteen years ago)

Of course if you want a book that features Oz characters (or at least Dorothy), you want Geoff Ryman's "Was".

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 17:40 (nineteen years ago)

Somebody wrote the Diary of Miss Moneypenny (does that count).

and then there's that Tin Tin comic with characters from Mann's The Magic Mountain.

― Navek Rednam (Navek Rednam), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 20:28 (nineteen years ago)

that whaaaaaaaaat..?

― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 21:30 (nineteen years ago)

does Jay Cantor's use of (George Herriman's creations) Krazy Kat, Ignatz Mouse, etc count?

― archipelago (archipelago), Thursday, 22 June 2006 17:10 (nineteen years ago)

also, various characters in Kathy Acker's Great Expectations?

― archipelago (archipelago), Thursday, 22 June 2006 17:13 (nineteen years ago)

just ran across this one yesterday at work:
Mr. Darcy Takes A Wife by Linda Berdoll
it is subtitled 'Pride & Prejudice Continues'
She wrote another one, too, uh, Darcy & Elizabeth.

lower on the amazon page for that first book it lists a few more takes on Jane Austen's stuff from her contemporaries:
More Letters From Pemberley: 1814-1819: A Further Continuation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice by Jane Dawkins
&
Excessively Diverted: The Sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice by Juliette Shapiro
not sure these fit really, as I don't know really what the difference is between establishing a known character in new circumstances and just writing an unauthorized sequel.

― carson b. (carsonb), Sunday, 25 June 2006 19:20 (nineteen years ago)

didn't joan aiken do some austen variations also?

― tom west (thomp), Sunday, 25 June 2006 19:34 (nineteen years ago)

"Tintin in The New World," by Frederick Tuten, a book I've extolled elsewhere on this board, has both the Tintin cast of characters AND the main characters from "The Magic Mountain."

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Monday, 26 June 2006 00:38 (nineteen years ago)

Textermination by Christine Brooke-Rose -- hundreds of recognizable literary characters meet for some sort of conference. It must win the sheer density stakes though I haven't compiled a concordance ...

― Tamsin Leckie (Pug), Wednesday, 28 June 2006 18:50 (nineteen years ago)

I haven't read it but a New Zealander wrote a book called Tarzan Presley not long ago, so yeah... Tarzan!

Racking my brains to think of any more, besides Acker.
Did Burroughs use any? say in his Western trilogy or were they all based on real people like Kit Carson and Billy the kid?

― spectra (spectra), Tuesday, 11 July 2006 15:37 (nineteen years ago)

i thought i'd mentioned on this thread that i got a copy of mulligan stew the other day. maybe it was the writers writing about writers one. at any rate, i got a copy of mulligan stew. the other day.

― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 11 July 2006 22:21 (nineteen years ago)

Let us know what you think.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 11 July 2006 23:23 (nineteen years ago)

three weeks pass...

The story "Westward the Course of the Empire Makes Its Way" from Wallace's Girl With Curious Hair includes the characters from Barth's Lost in the Funhouse.

― mike leonard (quickbrownfox), Wednesday, 2 August 2006 00:33 (nineteen years ago)

under different names, i thought?

― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 2 August 2006 13:36 (nineteen years ago)

I love reading early DFW. I just tried to read Westward and am amazed at how bad it is. You can see hits of what was to come in IJ but for the most part it comes off as pointless. I dug Little Expressionless Animals, tho.

― Mr. Que (Mr.Que), Wednesday, 2 August 2006 14:13 (nineteen years ago)

yeah, westward is ... frustratingly awful. kinda destroys that collection.

actually, i'm surprised that oblivion was anywhere near as good as it was, now i think. (although the last story in that has uh similar issues.)

― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 2 August 2006 20:14 (nineteen years ago)

"the girl with curious hair" is really excellent though. that and little expressionless animals are still my favorite things by him.

― kyle (akmonday), Wednesday, 2 August 2006 22:28 (nineteen years ago)

Ha, I think the shit sculpting story is very similar to Westward, too.

Generally, he's a much better essayist and novelist than a short story guy.

― Mr. Que (Mr.Que), Thursday, 3 August 2006 10:23 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, I found Westward kind of wanky, too.

What about Barthelme's Snow White?

― mike leonard (quickbrownfox), Friday, 4 August 2006 23:03 (nineteen years ago)

lots of barthelme stories as well.

i am going to reread girl with... soon and try and come up with something more interesting to say about westward.

― tom west (thomp), Friday, 4 August 2006 23:42 (nineteen years ago)

I agree with Tom, about Westward! I'd like to hear what he decides.

Why are you surprised abt Oblivion? Do you like Brief Interviews?

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Saturday, 5 August 2006 00:24 (nineteen years ago)

i like brief interviews (or did when i read it at uh three quarters of my current age: 'octet' felt kind of viewpoint-defining for me then: i doubt it is anymore) but it kind of abandons itself to wallace's writing tics and schticks, whereas oblivion is a lot more like curious hair, long stories, stories that have stories, common themes-ish, closing novellas about the plight of the artist, etc.: so it's odd that something v much in the mold of his worst book is one of his two or three best.

― tom west (thomp), Saturday, 5 August 2006 01:01 (nineteen years ago)

Actually, now that I'm looking at the stories of Oblivion, the only one that I really dislike is the title story. Mister Squishy, Good Old Neon, and maybe The Soul is not a Smithy are my favorites.

For Brief Interviews, I think it really falls apart towards the end. Church Not Made of Hands? That Tri-Stan thing? On His Deathbed? Yuck.

However Forever Overhead, all of the Interviews, Adult World, Octet are all first rate. I just feel that the other stories I mentioned really drag my opinion of the whole thing down quite a bit.

Should we do a group read/thread of Westward? I can start over.

Loved Smow White and almost anything Donald B. does.

― Mr. Que (Mr.Que), Saturday, 5 August 2006 15:43 (nineteen years ago)

Stephen King wrote a short story about Dr Watson from Sherlock Holmes for his Nightmares and Dreamscapes compendium.

― Darramouss ftw! (Darramouss ftw), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 14:51 (nineteen years ago)

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