Books Within Books - Hiding one world within another

As if offering up one world on a plate wasn't enough to quench readers' thirst, some books can't resist offering up more than themselves. You open the front cover expecting one book, and instead: you get two. Or three. Or several. These books are the hussies of the literary world, shamelessly name-dropping titles and characters in the name of storytelling, absorbing other titles and plots and characters into themselves.

It's a tactic I love.

Especially when the author references a book you've read. It's a chance to feel like you've been wrapped up in the book - it's taken you in. (And it's a chance to feel just a little bit smug that you understand the references and in-jokes.) After reading this piece on the Guardian website by Julia Eccleshare, I've been tempted to find some of my favourites...

There's the obvious ones - Matilda and Inkheart. Reading Matilda was how I first heard of Moby Dick and Charles Dickens. And I loved how much she loved books. I have no idea how much I liked books before I read Matilda, but I know that once I started reading it, I fell in love, and it's a love that will never grow old. (It also taught me that liking books is OK. Actually, it taught me that liking books is pretty darned cool.)

I came to Inkheart much later, but I wish I'd read it as a kid. The quotes at the start of each chapter would have made me feel so included and smart, and Meggie and Mo, live for books.

I bet if I'd read it as a kid, I'd have dreamed of being Mo when I grew up. (I still do, but don't tell anyone.)

Using books within books does lots of things. If you've read the books, it makes you feel included. If you haven't, it makes you feel like the characters (and by association, you as the reader) are smart. Often, it's a trick used to amplify an aspect of the story. It might be a character's infatuation with Romeo and Juliet, for example, or Pride and Prejudice or Wuthering Heights. In fact, when it comes to teen fiction, it's usually one of these. I'm not sure why exactly - perhaps because they are books and plays that most teenagers would recognise and still think are intelligent.

Looking for Alaska, by John Green (I swear, one of these days I will write a blog and not mention John Green) (ALL LIES) provides a window into his own love for literature and writers. One of the main characters, Alaska, has an obsession with books, in particular The General In His Labyrinth, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and the main character himself is caught up on people's last words. Both characters' literary fixations play an important part of the story, reflecting on both the characters and the plot.

Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor & Park is a little different, using comic books, especially the X-Men, to connect the two main characters, b
oth of whom feel different and alien. I've never read a comic book, but darned if I didn't want to by the time I'd finished with this book. (Which I haven't reviewed here yet, but I'd recommend it with everything I have.)


And then there's one of my all-time faviourites: The Princess Bride, by William Goldman. It's a bit of a cheat, because it doesn't contain a real book. But it's so genius in its execution that I had to mention it here. It's a true book within a book. Goldman's aim was to abridge the original The Princess Bride, by S. Morgenstern, which contained too much description of scenery and history for Goldman's liking. So dotted throughout the book are Goldman's notes on what he's cut out and why.

But of course, S. Morgenstern doesn't exist, and neither does his original book. It was all about Goldman playing around with the value that we put in books and stories. It's incredibly fun and has fooled an incredible number of grown adults (which only makes it more fun).

Mainly, I suppose, writers are book fans, and some of that is bound to seep into their stories, and how can characters who love books ever be a bad thing? More, I say, MORE!

Concept, concept, concept - A marketing dream, a reader's minefield

Concept in fiction has always been the Thing To Do, and recent children's book offerings are no different.

Boy finds out he's a wizard.
Young girl finds out she can read characters out of books.
Girl meets vampire.
Girl then meets werewolf.
Girl battles against other vampires with help of her vampire and werewolves, enters into an abusive relationship and nearly sacrifices herself in the process.

You get the idea.

Apologies - I seem to have burned every copy of Twilight in my house... Weird.

But these are all fantasy books (apologies to anyone still waiting for their letter from Hogwarts), and so a high-concept idea is both expected and necessary, and part of enjoying a good fantasy is that you accept the concept for what it is and read on. These stories demand a concept.

What is somewhat disturbing is the recent proliferation of high-concept in realistic fiction. I recently read a book I had been looking forward to for ages, only to find that it had obviously been published and sold based on its concept alone - a combination of the writing and editing made the book unreadable. Great concept, terrible book. I won't name names here, but in my mind, countless recent books fall into this category. Sometimes the concept has failed by page ten, sometimes it's only when you get to the halfway point that it starts to flag.

Code Name Verity and Room - two examples of great concepts that create great books

Forcing a high concept idea onto a good story has got to be the easiest way to ruin it. Don't get me wrong - a good concept can take a story from alright to fantastic in zero to sixty. Take Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, for example. Concept: girl has agreed to write down everything she knows about the British Intelligence effort after being captured in Nazi-occupied France. The majority of the book is written from her perspective as she is handed piece of paper after piece of paper to write it down on. Difficult to pull off, perhaps, but in this case it's handled with incredible skill, and personally I didn't question it once. Recent successes in publishing for adults Room by Emma Donoghue (mother and son who live their lives within the confines of a locked room) and Before I Go To Sleep by S.J. Watson (woman whose memory resets every time she falls asleep) are other good examples.

The trouble comes when a high concept isn't necessary. If it isn't necessary, then all it does is force a story to behave. It locks everything within tramlines, cutting off any ability to wander, explore and, ultimately, amaze. You know where the book is going, because there is only one place it could ever go - the other end of the line. No disruptions, no surprises. Concepts are only good when they allow a story to be told that couldn't be otherwise. Code Name Verity wouldn't work if the reader was allowed to see everything - it only works if we are forced to look through the window provided to us by the concept. Same goes for Room and Before I Go To Sleep.

Melvin Burgess, Phil Earle, Keith Gray and Dave Cousins - no concept necessary!

So what's wrong with a straightforwardly-told story, if that's all the story needs? Why does everything need to have its concept? It might sell one book, but it won't have people coming back for books two, three and four. I'm not sure if the trend is one carried by writers or publishers, but the best books I've read in the last couple of years have been low-tech - no high concept, no story being forced to stay within the tramlines.

Stories should allow the reader to explore - how can they do that if they aren't exploring anything themselves?