Books within books...

[Guest fireball]

Sadly now appallingly down graded to either to Childerns pantomime or worse Juvenile literature.!!!!! A travesty truly, of a most incredible human endurance ever written. I mean how would you be after for nearly three decades on an Island. And You thought "LOST" was brill, HAH.!

 

Plot Overview :

Robinson Crusoe is an Englishman from the town of York in the seventeenth century, the youngest son of a merchant of German origin. Encouraged by his father to study law, Crusoe expresses his wish to go to sea instead. His family is against Crusoe going out to sea, and his father explains that it is better to seek a modest, secure life for oneself. Initially, Robinson is committed to obeying his father, but he eventually succumbs to temptation and embarks on a ship bound for London with a friend. When a storm causes the near deaths of Crusoe and his friend, the friend is dissuaded from sea travel, but Crusoe still goes on to set himself up as merchant on a ship leaving London. This trip is financially successful, and Crusoe plans another, leaving his early profits in the care of a friendly widow. The second voyage does not prove as fortunate: the ship is seized by Moorish pirates, and Crusoe is enslaved to a potentate in the North African town of Sallee. While on a fishing expedition, he and a slave boy break free and sail down the African coast. A kindly Portuguese captain picks them up, buys the slave boy from Crusoe, and takes Crusoe to Brazil. In Brazil, Crusoe establishes himself as a plantation owner and soon becomes successful. Eager for slave labor and its economic advantages, he embarks on a slave-gathering expedition to West Africa but ends up shipwrecked off of the coast of Trinidad.

 

Crusoe soon learns he is the sole survivor of the expedition and seeks shelter and food for himself. He returns to the wreck’s remains twelve times to salvage guns, powder, food, and other items. Onshore, he finds goats he can graze for meat and builds himself a shelter. He erects a cross that he inscribes with the date of his arrival, September 1, 1659, and makes a notch every day in order never to lose track of time. He also keeps a journal of his household activities, noting his attempts to make candles, his lucky discovery of sprouting grain, and his construction of a cellar, among other events. In June 1660, he falls ill and hallucinates that an angel visits, warning him to repent. Drinking tobacco-steeped rum, Crusoe experiences a religious illumination and realizes that God has delivered him from his earlier sins. After recovering, Crusoe makes a survey of the area and discovers he is on an island. He finds a pleasant valley abounding in grapes, where he builds a shady retreat. Crusoe begins to feel more optimistic about being on the island, describing himself as its “king.” He trains a pet parrot, takes a goat as a pet, and develops skills in basket weaving, bread making, and pottery. He cuts down an enormous cedar tree and builds a huge canoe from its trunk, but he discovers that he cannot move it to the sea. After building a smaller boat, he rows around the island but nearly perishes when swept away by a powerful current. Reaching shore, he hears his parrot calling his name and is thankful for being saved once again. He spends several years in peace.

One day Crusoe is shocked to discover a man’s footprint on the beach. He first assumes the footprint is the devil’s, then decides it must belong to one of the cannibals said to live in the region. Terrified, he arms himself and remains on the lookout for cannibals. He also builds an underground cellar in which to herd his goats at night and devises a way to cook underground. One evening he hears gunshots, and the next day he is able to see a ship wrecked on his coast. It is empty when he arrives on the scene to investigate. Crusoe once again thanks Providence for having been saved. Soon afterward, Crusoe discovers that the shore has been strewn with human carnage, apparently the remains of a cannibal feast. He is alarmed and continues to be vigilant. Later Crusoe catches sight of thirty cannibals heading for shore with their victims. One of the victims is killed. Another one, waiting to be slaughtered, suddenly breaks free and runs toward Crusoe’s dwelling. Crusoe protects him, killing one of the pursuers and injuring the other, whom the victim finally kills. Well-armed, Crusoe defeats most of the cannibals onshore. The victim vows total submission to Crusoe in gratitude for his liberation. Crusoe names him Friday, to commemorate the day on which his life was saved, and takes him as his servant.

Finding Friday cheerful and intelligent, Crusoe teaches him some English words and some elementary Christian concepts. Friday, in turn, explains that the cannibals are divided into distinct nations and that they only eat their enemies. Friday also informs Crusoe that the cannibals saved the men from the shipwreck Crusoe witnessed earlier, and that those men, Spaniards, are living nearby. Friday expresses a longing to return to his people, and Crusoe is upset at the prospect of losing Friday. Crusoe then entertains the idea of making contact with the Spaniards, and Friday admits that he would rather die than lose Crusoe. The two build a boat to visit the cannibals’ land together. Before they have a chance to leave, they are surprised by the arrival of twenty-one cannibals in canoes. The cannibals are holding three victims, one of whom is in European dress. Friday and Crusoe kill most of the cannibals and release the European, a Spaniard. Friday is overjoyed to discover that another of the rescued victims is his father. The four men return to Crusoe’s dwelling for food and rest. Crusoe prepares to welcome them into his community permanently. He sends Friday’s father and the Spaniard out in a canoe to explore the nearby land.

Eight days later, the sight of an approaching English ship alarms Friday. Crusoe is suspicious. Friday and Crusoe watch as eleven men take three captives onshore in a boat. Nine of the men explore the land, leaving two to guard the captives. Friday and Crusoe overpower these men and release the captives, one of whom is the captain of the ship, which has been taken in a mutiny. Shouting to the remaining mutineers from different points, Friday and Crusoe confuse and tire the men by making them run from place to place. Eventually they confront the mutineers, telling them that all may escape with their lives except the ringleader. The men surrender. Crusoe and the captain pretend that the island is an imperial territory and that the governor has spared their lives in order to send them all to England to face justice. Keeping five men as hostages, Crusoe sends the other men out to seize the ship. When the ship is brought in, Crusoe nearly faints.

On December 19, 1686, Crusoe boards the ship to return to England. There, he finds his family is deceased except for two sisters. His widow friend has kept Crusoe’s money safe, and after traveling to Lisbon, Crusoe learns from the Portuguese captain that his plantations in Brazil have been highly profitable. He arranges to sell his Brazilian lands. Wary of sea travel, Crusoe attempts to return to England by land but is threatened by bad weather and wild animals in northern Spain. Finally arriving back in England, Crusoe receives word that the sale of his plantations has been completed and that he has made a considerable fortune. After donating a portion to the widow and his sisters, Crusoe is restless and considers returning to Brazil, but he is dissuaded by the thought that he would have to become Catholic. He marries, and his wife dies. Crusoe finally departs for the East Indies as a trader in 1694. He revisits his island, finding that the Spaniards are governing it well and that it has become a prosperous colony.

 

You see In all of the main story of "The Moonstone"

the great Sergeant Cuff somehow but ALWAYS makes equations with Crusoe's plight on THAT island! and you know, God help us, with the MARVEL of Wilkie Collins's writing....He's absolutely (Sergeant Cuff, that is) right.!

 

First read The former book then the latter, you'll see where the two incredibly coalesce, God! but Wilkie Collins used a stroke of genius.

 

Never has a book within a book been done better, literally. 'Lost' I hope has lost it's mystery & mystic, it's cr anyway.

 

Remember how the hairs (arose on the back of your neck) after all his time alone on the island....suddenly to find a foot print in the sand, and it wasn't his.! AWWWWWW.!!!!!! Still gives gives me goosebumps just thinking of it.!

 

Treat your self to two great classic reads...you won't be "lost" for long with REAL stunning reads.

[Kell]

Wow, Fireball - thanks for that! Both books are ones I planned to read anyway, but now I'm positively gagging to get to them! As soon as my book embargo is lifted slightly I'm getting hold of both of these and reading them asap!

[JudyB]

Hi Fireball - nice to see another Wilkie Collins fan on here - I've loved his writing since reading The Woman in White

[Guest fireball]

Kell, Judy, many thanks, Kell you'll have a ball and your spine will be tingled!; Judy the origin of sorts for The Woman in White, began for Wilkie Collins, when he was in a carriage think Victorian version of a bus or taxi,! when he saw a distraught woman outside, of all places, a graveyard!. It was the look on her face and just the way she was. And he just couldn't get her out of his mind, so began another tingling story, and of course, a classic. :lol:

 

You know, there's some cures for addiction, thank God there is none for ours.! Or life just wouldn't be worth living if there were one eh.!?

[JudyB]

Thanks Fireball - I didn't know that. Do you have a favourite of his?

[Guest fireball]

judy, sorry I don't. There's + & -'s in just about all the writers I follow male and female, rather like asking parents which child of theirs they love most, or worse, prefer.! I'm like that, I look at all my books going on forty-odd years now, as my children.

 

I get both B) and at times, at some of my books, I suppose like real life mum and dads with their children, but they, the books always come through in the end, like some children do.

 

Whether it's an intricate densely plotted, or wonderfully discriptive passages

or people /situations you can relate, or just rattling damn good read; I can honestly say in all my late forty years of reading, I can name only one book I came too close to doing something I've never done before even now, that is throwing away and out of my sight, but sadly not out of my head pity.

And that book is "Perfume:The Story of a Murderer ", the greatest load of horse poo I EVER read, truly really wretched piece that should never seen the light of day, it was so bad they made a film of it : http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/p/Perfume-The-story-Of-A-Murderer/index-2379113.html AND no pun intended, it died a death.

 

Hope that answes your question somehow. God, I've just re-read all the above, bloody hell talk about long winded.!

[Pilgrim]

Sherlock Holmes is always being referred to in mysteries - Poirot for instance. In the The Labors of Hercules he has to refer to classics. And Christie uses a lot of allusions to Shakespeare in the titles and the text.

[Maureen]

Thursday Next's stories are full of other books -and other characters within these books are featured too - ;-)

[Kell]

I'll be starting The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger very shortly and I was just flicking through the pages (I often do that before reading - i just rifle the pages a bit and the odd word or phrase jumps out at me). I noticed that right on the first page, Holden Caulfield mentions a book his brother wrote called The Secret Goldfish, which appears to be a book of short stories (one of which provides the name of the book containing them). He also mentions David Copperfield in the first paragraph. I'm already wondering how many other books will be mentioned...

[wrathofkublakhan]

I've never read Don Quixote but I know the musical, Man of La Mancha is a story within a story -- it takes place in a prison and the story within takes place outdoors and a-tilting at windmills and the lovely Dulcinea.

 

Also, I may be askew, but I think some of The Bard's plays are "story within a story", I seem to remember Taming of the Shrew opening with this drunk guy who falls asleep and dreams the entire play, then at the end wakes up and decides to go home and tame his wife, which we all know -- he's not got a chance!

 

AND .. while we are on the subject, consider the following....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_within_a_story

[Janet]

I've just finished Little Women and it contains numerous references to books.

 

Apart from The Pilgrim's Progress which is the main influence for the book, it also mentions...

 

The Heir of Redclyffe by Charlotte Yonge

The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith

Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

 

... to name but a few

 

There is a whole chapter devoted to Charles Dickens!

[Sedge]

Stephen King refers to his own book Insomnia in The Dark Tower series and at one point, one of the characters even meets the author and gives him the idea for writing The Dark Tower!

[angerball]

Stephen King refers to his own book Insomnia in The Dark Tower series and at one point, one of the characters even meets the author and gives him the idea for writing The Dark Tower!

 

Stephen King refers to alot of his books in each other, and I love it when he does that. I get so excited when I recognise a reference! I believe he mentions The Stand in the Dark Tower series too!

[frankie]

I ended up buying Mysteries of Udolpho as it was mentioned so many times in Northanger Abbey and it is also in my 1001 books book too

 

I ended up buying it too and because of the same reason I haven't read it yet though, the old Victorian language is a bit difficult for me right now.

 

The Monk by Matthew Lewis Gregory was also mentioned in Northanger Abbey and I bought it too at the same time I bought Udolpho.

[Tambo]

 

I've never read Don Quixote but I know the musical, Man of La Mancha is a story within a story -- it takes place in a prison and the story within takes place outdoors and a-tilting at windmills and the lovely Dulcinea.

 

 

There's a great scene in Don Quixote where a couple of Quixote's friends have decided to burn his library that houses the books on Knights Errant (the source of Quixote's madness.)

 

As they decide which volumes to keep, and which must be burned, the author Servantes uses it as an oppurtunity to slag off a lot of genuine books that were around at the time.

 

The books Servantes doesn't like get thrown out of the window into a pile to be burned.

The books he does liked are given a reprieve.

 

The book he really doesn't like get a reprieve and a generous amount of grand praise, in the translation I read there is a footnote explaining the authors sarcasm.

 

Being the 16th century or whenever, of course I didn't recognise any of the books. Nothing changes though, there are good and bad books around today and you could imagine this scene taking place.

Except that it would take a very brave author indeed to write such a scene when the books being burned or saved are written by his contempories.

[Tambo]

The City of Thieves by David Benioff mentions a fictional book, The Courtyard Hound.

 

 

The chap who keeps mentioning continually refers to it as a classic and quotes big chunks of it, explains the story, the characters and their philosophy.

Towards the end of the book we learn that it is not in fact a real classic, it is a novel written by the protaganist himself. He wants to guage people's reaction to it without giving away that he wrote it and opening himself up to ridicule etc.

 

[nursenblack]

I'm reading Twilight by Stephenie Meyer and I've seen several references to other novels. The character Bella reads Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights and also references a few of Jane Austen's novels and characters.

 

In Atonement by Ian McEwan the character Robbie often references books like D. H. Lawernce's Lady Chatterley's Lover and some from the 18th century. He even mentions Jane Austen.

[Bellatrix]

Farenheit 451 - set in the 24th century, the authorities consider books to be evil (because they inspire independant thought) so order all books to be burned. A few people fight against this and join a community of book lovers where each one of them has learned a book by heart & can recite it for others & to pass on to future generations. Sounds like my kind of hell - I'm sure it does say which books they have learnt but as I'm not at home can't check, exellent & scary book (did the nazis do something like this?). This could probably go in the Dystopian thread as well.

[KW]

Stephen King refers to alot of his books in each other, and I love it when he does that. I get so excited when I recognise a reference! I believe he mentions The Stand in the Dark Tower series too!

I was once told by a writing teacher that this practice of referring to or mentioning your own work in your book was considered narcisitic and frowned upon in the industry...lol. I think it makes sense, but what do I know? ( Or maybe, what did the teacher know, if SK is doing it!!)

[Michelle]

I think SK can pretty much do what he wants!