"The best kind of book is a magic book."
Jan. 25th, 2013 09:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nevannaOne of my favorite literary tropes is what TVTropes call the "Portal Book" (although "I Wish It Were Real" and "In Defense of Storytelling" are also applicable). That is, people travel into books, or characters from books show up in the reader's world, or people and things that were thought to be "just" stories turn out to have been part of our reality all along. And so on. Basically, I love stories that explore the power of stories, and use fantastical elements to do so. I especially love when they show how storytelling can be both necessary and deeply dangerous.
Below, I've discussed some of my favorite books (four prose works, one graphic novel series) that make use of this trope.
The Top Five
1. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
Set in an alternate-history Britain in the 1980s, this book chronicles the adventures of Thursday Next, Literary Detective, as she attempts to defeat a criminal who has kidnapped Jane Eyre from Bronte's novel (which had a significantly different ending in this reality). In her later adventures, Thursday not only travels in and out of well-known books, but also into the Well of Lost Plots, where stories are crafted and characters are all too aware that they are fictional.
The ensuing series (which comprises seven books to date) is funny, inventive, exciting, mind-bendingly surreal, and full of commentary on genre and narrative. The later volumes become a bit self-indulgent and overly convoluted, and the latest, The Woman Who Died A Lot, isn't really about book-traveling at all, but there's plenty to enjoy throughout.
2. Libriomancer by Jim C. Hines
The latest joy of my heart, discussed in greater detail here.
3. Seven-Day Magic by Edward Eager
On a weekly visit to their local library, five children discover a mysterious book that allows them to travel through different stories (including The Wizard of Oz and a world reminiscent of the Little House books, as well as Eager's own Half Magic) and records their adventures as they go. The kids are sensible and adventurous and genre-savvy - they make a lot of their choices based on what would make the most narrative sense - and really fun to read about. Also, the penultimate chapter takes them (and us) through the Mary Sue fantasy of Barnaby, their leader, a journey which starts out hilarious and turns amazingly creepy.
4. The Unwritten by Mike Carey
In this graphic novel series, Tom Taylor, whose long-estranged father wrote a wildly popular series of books about a boy wizard who is Completely Not Harry Potter At All, is forced to go on the run when a ruthless secret society frames him for murder. His companions are a reporter/blogger named Richie, a damaged but resourceful woman called Lizzie who may or may not have been born in a Dickens novel, a flying cat, and occasionally Frankenstein's monster. Their enemies form a vast conspiracy that has attempted to control storytelling throughout history. The Unwritten, which pays homage to everything from Moby Dick to The Arabian Nights to A.A. Milne, is smart and ambitious and full of memorable characters, and the satire of fandom is occasionally incisive but rarely if ever mean-spirited. The story has a lot of regard for people who love stories, but any readers who remember the fervor surrounding the Harry Potter books when they were still being released will laugh their faces off.
(A few caveats: the mythologies involved are fairly Eurocentric; there's some amount of violence and gore; and the sixth and latest volume does that thing where it stops making any type of sense other than thematic sense. Still, the series as a whole is fascinating and well worth checking out.)
5. Yarrow by Charles de Lint
Cat Midhir is a successful fantasy author with a secret: she draws inspiration from the stories that she hears in a mythical Otherworld that she visits in her dreams. When she finds herself unable to cross over, she must seek help from both human and magical friends in order to defeat a charmingly malevolent thief of dreams and souls. Although not part of de Lint's equally excellent Newford Cycle, Yarrow shares some of the same themes, and is ultimately a beautiful, scary, and triumphant examination of how supposedly "imaginary" people and worlds can be crucial to us even into adulthood, and how the fantastical realities inside our heads can sustain, isolate, threaten, and ultimately liberate us.
Honorable mention:
Between the Lines by Jodi Picoult and Samantha van Leer. I didn't love this one nearly as much as I wanted to, but I think that a lot of my friends will appreciate the premise: a lonely high school girl falls in love with the handsome prince in her favorite book, and when he notices her in return, they begin to work out a plan to be together.
"Portal Book" stories that have been recommended to me but that I haven't read yet:
The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
The Neverending Story by Michael Ende (though I loved the movie)
What are your favorite stories in which the "magic of reading" becomes literally magical?
Below, I've discussed some of my favorite books (four prose works, one graphic novel series) that make use of this trope.
The Top Five
1. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
Set in an alternate-history Britain in the 1980s, this book chronicles the adventures of Thursday Next, Literary Detective, as she attempts to defeat a criminal who has kidnapped Jane Eyre from Bronte's novel (which had a significantly different ending in this reality). In her later adventures, Thursday not only travels in and out of well-known books, but also into the Well of Lost Plots, where stories are crafted and characters are all too aware that they are fictional.
The ensuing series (which comprises seven books to date) is funny, inventive, exciting, mind-bendingly surreal, and full of commentary on genre and narrative. The later volumes become a bit self-indulgent and overly convoluted, and the latest, The Woman Who Died A Lot, isn't really about book-traveling at all, but there's plenty to enjoy throughout.
2. Libriomancer by Jim C. Hines
The latest joy of my heart, discussed in greater detail here.
3. Seven-Day Magic by Edward Eager
On a weekly visit to their local library, five children discover a mysterious book that allows them to travel through different stories (including The Wizard of Oz and a world reminiscent of the Little House books, as well as Eager's own Half Magic) and records their adventures as they go. The kids are sensible and adventurous and genre-savvy - they make a lot of their choices based on what would make the most narrative sense - and really fun to read about. Also, the penultimate chapter takes them (and us) through the Mary Sue fantasy of Barnaby, their leader, a journey which starts out hilarious and turns amazingly creepy.
4. The Unwritten by Mike Carey
In this graphic novel series, Tom Taylor, whose long-estranged father wrote a wildly popular series of books about a boy wizard who is Completely Not Harry Potter At All, is forced to go on the run when a ruthless secret society frames him for murder. His companions are a reporter/blogger named Richie, a damaged but resourceful woman called Lizzie who may or may not have been born in a Dickens novel, a flying cat, and occasionally Frankenstein's monster. Their enemies form a vast conspiracy that has attempted to control storytelling throughout history. The Unwritten, which pays homage to everything from Moby Dick to The Arabian Nights to A.A. Milne, is smart and ambitious and full of memorable characters, and the satire of fandom is occasionally incisive but rarely if ever mean-spirited. The story has a lot of regard for people who love stories, but any readers who remember the fervor surrounding the Harry Potter books when they were still being released will laugh their faces off.
(A few caveats: the mythologies involved are fairly Eurocentric; there's some amount of violence and gore; and the sixth and latest volume does that thing where it stops making any type of sense other than thematic sense. Still, the series as a whole is fascinating and well worth checking out.)
5. Yarrow by Charles de Lint
Cat Midhir is a successful fantasy author with a secret: she draws inspiration from the stories that she hears in a mythical Otherworld that she visits in her dreams. When she finds herself unable to cross over, she must seek help from both human and magical friends in order to defeat a charmingly malevolent thief of dreams and souls. Although not part of de Lint's equally excellent Newford Cycle, Yarrow shares some of the same themes, and is ultimately a beautiful, scary, and triumphant examination of how supposedly "imaginary" people and worlds can be crucial to us even into adulthood, and how the fantastical realities inside our heads can sustain, isolate, threaten, and ultimately liberate us.
Honorable mention:
Between the Lines by Jodi Picoult and Samantha van Leer. I didn't love this one nearly as much as I wanted to, but I think that a lot of my friends will appreciate the premise: a lonely high school girl falls in love with the handsome prince in her favorite book, and when he notices her in return, they begin to work out a plan to be together.
"Portal Book" stories that have been recommended to me but that I haven't read yet:
The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
The Neverending Story by Michael Ende (though I loved the movie)
What are your favorite stories in which the "magic of reading" becomes literally magical?
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no subject
Date: 2013-01-26 04:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-27 01:15 am (UTC)I've run across some good things in TV and movies, too. There's an episode of The Twilight Zone where a writer can bring characters to life by describing them into a tape recorder. And Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends celebrates the importance of imaginary friends, and helped me come to terms with having headmates (and is really funny and charming in general).
no subject
Date: 2013-01-27 12:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-27 01:00 pm (UTC)My cartoon-watching group is looking for something to watch after we finish Daria, and I plan to lobby for Foster's Home, since I've been wanting to watch that anyway.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-28 02:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-28 03:43 am (UTC)