Comments on: The disappearing invisible library

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:40:10 +0000

Over at my blog, a different kind of imaginary book was mentioned, Keith Windschuttle's The Fabrication of Australian History, Volume 2.

By: lemuel pitkin

lemuel pitkin — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 03:25:31 +0000

They also left out Yankee in a Skullcap: My Day and Night in the East Bronx and The Moment of Pff: An Urban Boyhood, both by Shmul Klein, from Grace Paley’s “In Time Which Makes a Monkey of Us All.”

Does anybody read Paley anymore?

By: John Desmond

John Desmond — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 04:37:02 +0000

Salutations, gentlefolk,

I’m surprised that Jack McDevitt’s short story, The Fort Moxie Branch – http://www.webscription.net/chapters/1596061958/1596061958___4.htm – has yet gone unmentioned.

‘Tis worth reading.

Yours, John Desmond

By: Salient

Salient — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 01:06:42 +0000

“Wikipedia, of course, has this covered.”

This teaches me that James Branch Cabell is awesome. An abridged list of books that truly ought to really exist, invented by JBC:

The Terrible and Marvellous History of Manuel Pig-Tender That Afterwards Was Named Manuel the Redeemer

System of Worshipping a Girl

Le Cocu Rouge (The Red Cuckold; disputed attribution)

Tentative Restoration of the Lost Books of Elephantis

By: Dan

Dan — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 22:52:09 +0000

Wikipedia, of course, has this covered.

By: David

David — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 19:53:31 +0000

Or, for that matter, the whole series of “Chums of Chance” boys adventure books in Against the Day.

By: Shawn Crowley

Shawn Crowley — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 05:17:02 +0000

“The Courier’s Tragedy” by Richard Wharfinger in Pynchon’s the Crying of Lot 49.

By: Salient

Salient — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:13:09 +0000

@48 – in the single-minded pursuit of semiotic parsimony, why not go for unary rather than binary?

Where the only distinguishing characteristic is the length of the string of characters? Oh, man. If you think War and Peace is long now…

By: Tim Wilkinson

Tim Wilkinson — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:09:00 +0000

@48 – in the single-minded pursuit of semiotic parsimony, why not go for unary rather than binary? I suppose it would be like Roman numerals before V etc were introduced.

By: Peter Erwin

Peter Erwin — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:37:05 +0000

The Assassin’s Tragedy, a previously unknown play by Christopher Marlowe, plays an important role in John M. Ford’s The Scholars of Night.

By: ajay

ajay — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 07:50:19 +0000

On the subject of Robert Harris, I suppose “The Diaries of Adolf Hitler”? Would they count, or are they fake but existent, rather than imaginary?

verbosity, thy name is Ajay. Just tattoo a dot on your left wrist and a dash on your right, and by looking back and forward you can read the whole lot in Morse Code.

Very clever, Mr Davies, but not quite clever enough. First, you’d need to tattoo a space somewhere as well – an unbroken stream of dots and dashes isn’t readable Morse. (You could just tattoo a 0 and a 1 and read it all in binary, I suppose). And second, I can’t read Morse.

By: Phil

Phil — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 07:07:03 +0000

Perhaps not that remarkable – Sorrentino is published by the Dalkey Archive Press.

By: roac

roac — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:58:17 +0000

Just got around to reading the whole list (Maturin’s “Diseases of Seamen” is in there). I found this:

LAMONT, Antony: Rayon Violet, Baltimore Chop (“they both got crucified, but then slowly he started to get a reputation”), Synthetic Ink (pub. Crescent and Chattaway), Three Deuces
—from Gilbert Sorrentino’s Mulligan Stew and Odd Number

I haven’t read Sorrentino, but I understand that this is the very same Antony Lamont who appears, and writes books, in “At Swim-Two-Birds.” If so, isn’t that a remarkable achievement for an imaginary author, to write imaginary books in real books by two different people?

By: Martha Bridegam

Martha Bridegam — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:36:21 +0000

Gordon Comstock’s poetry book is called “Mice.” Ten years ago, when alt.books.george-orwell was a good conversation, resident classicist Tom Deveson identified it as a reference to a joke in Horace. See

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.books.george-orwell/msg/55a8f9d7df2b5909

and

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.books.george-orwell/browse_thread/thread/e26d397c041aed2b/c3b717848d00e175?hl=en#c3b717848d00e175

By: David

David — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:16:31 +0000

Ditto re comments on “Stand on Zanzibar” and “The Sheep Look Up.” To which should also be added “The Shockwave Rider.”