Branching books
June 20, 2011 12:55 PM Subscribe
More books like How I Escaped My Certain Fate?
I'm reading an autobiography (kind of) at the moment by British comedy fans' comedian Stewart Lee. The book is written as a collection of scripts for several of his stand-up shows, with footnotes to give more background information.
And what footnotes. I have never read a book before where a footnote can last several pages. The thing is, I find this style of writing strangely fascinating: it's like getting stuck in the web or Wikipedia, where you follow link after interesting link and then gradually get back again to where you started and continue on.
I'd like to read more books like this. It gives me a sense of distraction while still being engaged with the book. Any suggestions, both for book like this, or for books which are conventional in other ways?
I'm reading an autobiography (kind of) at the moment by British comedy fans' comedian Stewart Lee. The book is written as a collection of scripts for several of his stand-up shows, with footnotes to give more background information.
And what footnotes. I have never read a book before where a footnote can last several pages. The thing is, I find this style of writing strangely fascinating: it's like getting stuck in the web or Wikipedia, where you follow link after interesting link and then gradually get back again to where you started and continue on.
I'd like to read more books like this. It gives me a sense of distraction while still being engaged with the book. Any suggestions, both for book like this, or for books which are conventional in other ways?
Best answer: If you're looking for oddly digressive writing, pretty much anything by David Foster Wallace or Dave Eggers, each of whom employs footnotes to carry on parallel and alternative narratives. Or Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan graphic novel.
But also: Moby Dick, which is an extraordinary post-modern work, written as a novel, a play, an encyclopedia entry, a psychological case study, and a book of (un)familiar quotations. Seriously. The greatest American novel, and, arguably, the greatest novel in the English language.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 1:01 PM on June 20, 2011
But also: Moby Dick, which is an extraordinary post-modern work, written as a novel, a play, an encyclopedia entry, a psychological case study, and a book of (un)familiar quotations. Seriously. The greatest American novel, and, arguably, the greatest novel in the English language.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 1:01 PM on June 20, 2011
Best answer: William Cuppy does this type of humorous footnoting with science (now old science because he wrote until about 1950).
Susanna Clark does it with fantasy fiction in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (giving epic extra myths and stories).
posted by mutt.cyberspace at 1:01 PM on June 20, 2011
Susanna Clark does it with fantasy fiction in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (giving epic extra myths and stories).
posted by mutt.cyberspace at 1:01 PM on June 20, 2011
Best answer: Some are covered in a recent previously. There are also lots of posts about Infinite Jest, the motherlode of modern footnoting; then you can head back to Melville, or Gibbon, or Tristram Shandy, or wherever the tangents lead you.
posted by holgate at 1:04 PM on June 20, 2011
posted by holgate at 1:04 PM on June 20, 2011
Best answer: The Mezzanine by Nicholas Baker also has a bajillion footnotes.
posted by sarahnade at 1:06 PM on June 20, 2011
posted by sarahnade at 1:06 PM on June 20, 2011
Best answer: Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books make such extensive and creative use of footnotes (the Footnoterphone!) that they apparently caused serious difficulty when it came time to record the audiobook versions: how the hell do we represent this audibly?
posted by Lexica at 1:20 PM on June 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Lexica at 1:20 PM on June 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
Best answer: It has been a while, but as I recollect, Brian Fawcett's Cambodia: A Book For People Who Find Television Too Slow has a single footnote that runs the length of the book; that is, while the initial essay which has a footnote ends and a dozen more essays follow it, the single footnote runs the length of the book. It is a kind of weird formalist way of making the subtext visible, but I recall enjoying it, lo these many years ago.
And my favourite-author-in-chief, Jack Vance, uses wildly entertaining footnotes that reveal that his throwaway notes are more flavourful than some trilogies I have read.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:22 PM on June 20, 2011
And my favourite-author-in-chief, Jack Vance, uses wildly entertaining footnotes that reveal that his throwaway notes are more flavourful than some trilogies I have read.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:22 PM on June 20, 2011
Best answer: How about Nabokov's Pale Fire? It's not quite what you're asking about but you might find the metatextuality interesting. From the Wikipedia entry:
Starting with the table of contents, Pale Fire looks like the publication of a 999-line poem in four cantos ("Pale Fire") by the fictional John Shade with a Foreword, extensive Commentary, and Index by his self-appointed editor, Charles Kinbote. Kinbote's Commentary takes the form of notes to various numbered lines of the poem. Here and in the rest of his critical apparatus, Kinbote explicates the poem surprisingly little. Focusing instead on his own concerns, he divulges what proves to be the plot piece by piece, some of which can be connected by following the many cross-references. Espen Aarseth noted that Pale Fire "can be read either unicursally, straight through, or multicursally, jumping between the comments and the poem." Thus although the narration is non-linear and multidimensional, the reader can still choose to read the novel in a linear manner without risking misinterpretation.posted by bcwinters at 1:40 PM on June 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell has immense footnotes.
posted by flibbertigibbet at 2:27 PM on June 20, 2011
posted by flibbertigibbet at 2:27 PM on June 20, 2011
Best answer: Not quite the same but I really like the way some of Kurt Vonnegut's books are happy to meander off on some odd transgression - like concisely describing another, trashier, book that the author wants to write instead - then getting back on with it.
posted by pmcp at 2:34 PM on June 20, 2011
posted by pmcp at 2:34 PM on June 20, 2011
Best answer: The narrator of The Third Policeman uses long footnotes to discuss DeSelby's theories.
Life: A User's Manual consists of dozens of stories all connected to the tenants of an apartment building and the things they own. I don't remember footnotes, but the stories and the way they unfolded seemed footnote-like, like insets or enlargements, with some bearing on the larger narrative.
posted by Francolin at 9:14 PM on June 20, 2011
Life: A User's Manual consists of dozens of stories all connected to the tenants of an apartment building and the things they own. I don't remember footnotes, but the stories and the way they unfolded seemed footnote-like, like insets or enlargements, with some bearing on the larger narrative.
posted by Francolin at 9:14 PM on June 20, 2011
Response by poster: Lots of excellent answers, so I cheated and marked them all as best. Thanks!
posted by devnull at 11:08 PM on July 21, 2011
posted by devnull at 11:08 PM on July 21, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
The House of Leaves also uses footnotes in a similar fashion, if I remember correctly.
posted by backwards guitar at 1:01 PM on June 20, 2011