Stories Within Stories

[Benny Bunter]

Wuthering Heights has one I seem to remember.

Taming of the Shrew has one too at the beginning, but possibly through the play coming down to us in incomplete form it gets abandoned and isn't mentioned again, which is a bit of a shame cos that first section is pretty funny and it would have been good to wrap it up at the end with another scene.
Then there's Hamlet, obviously, and Midsummer Night's Dream (maybe other Shakespeares too? I dunno)

 

[IdleRich]

Oh yeah, good call forgot about these. The Shakey I mean, I really don't recall that one in Wuthering Heights, it's so long since I read it.

 

[IdleRich]

Pynchon does it in Mason & Dixon. The frame's this old Reverend telling the story of Mason & Dixon to various people on a wintry night by the fire and it jumps in and out and at one point veers off into another story one of the children's reading in some pulpy thing they have in another room.

This is interesting in that it introduces another category in a way. Cos what I had in mind is those ones where there is a story and one large story told within it which sort of becomes the main one and maybe the two become intertwined and relate to each other and so on... or alternatively a framing situation for loads of short stories in a Canterbury Tales kinda vibe... but another equally valid thing I hadn't thought of can be where there is a main story and at one point a short story is told within it - maybe to illustrate a point or introduce a character or just for fun - and then we just go back to the main story and that short story was just a digression.

I suppose an example of that kind could be the, is it, Black Ship (or something) in Watchmen, but there are loads I'm sure.

Keep em coming guys cos I find this interesting and there are nice suggestions being made.

 

[version]

. . . but another equally valid thing I hadn't thought of can be where there is a main story and at one point a short story is told within it - maybe to illustrate a point or introduce a character or just for fun - and then we just go back to the main story and that short story was just a digression.

He does that in GR too when tells the story of Byron the Bulb.

 

[version]

There's the bit in Mumbo Jumbo where Reed jumps back to Ancient Egypt and retells the story of Osiris and Set.

 

[Clinamenic]

He does that in GR too when tells the story of Byron the Bulb.

With GR its interesting because the auxiliary stories bleed back into the main narrative, like a big continuous casserole.

 

[Clinamenic]

Byron the Bulb, Plasticman is only mentioned as a fictional character though.

 

[IdleRich]

He does that in GR too when tells the story of Byron the Bulb.

I wondered when that was getting mentioned.

 

[version]

With GR its interesting because the auxiliary stories bleed back into the main narrative, like a big continuous casserole.

The one in Mason & Dixon does that too. A character or two from the main narrative appears in the pulpy serial and it sort of loops in.

Episode 53

An apparent captivity narrative begins, telling of how an unidentified colonial American woman is taken from her farmstead by nonviolent Indians across the Susquehanna River and north to a Jesuit college in Quebec. There, she begins training to become a Widow of Christ, encounters the intricacies of Jesuit telegraphy, and meets a Chinese Feng-shui master.

Episode 54

The captivity narrative continues, and is revealed as a detour of the story by the potentially amorous young cousins, Tenebrae and Ethelmer, who thus far have listened to Cherrycoke's tale, but are now in Ethelmer's room reading passages from The Ghastly Fop, a pulp series. Tenebrae falls asleep after the American Woman and the Chinese Feng-shui master escape the Widows of Christ, and this narrative merges with Cherrycoke's story of Mason & Dixon, where Mason sees an uncanny resemblance between the woman and his departed wife, Rebekah. A discussion of metempsychosis ensues. Mason then has strange dreams of Rebekah, and decides the American Woman is not so like her after all.

 

[IdleRich]

There's the bit in Mumbo Jumbo where Reed jumps back to Ancient Egypt and retells the story of Osiris and Set.

I do remember that. But this and the everlasting light bulb are different again in that - I think I'm right in saying - the narrator's mind just kinda wanders and tells the tale. Perfectly valid of course, but in my head i was thinking of ones where a character takes on the role of narrator and tells his or her own story.

 

[version]

I do remember that. But this and the everlasting light bulb are different again in that - I think I'm right in saying - the narrator's mind just kinda wanders and tells the tale. Perfectly valid of course, but in my head i was thinking of ones where a character takes on the role of narrator and tells his or her own story.

He does that in V. with 'The Confessions of Fausto Majistral'. The narrative shifts to Fausto's letters to his daughter or something as he tells the story of his life. Probably the worst bit in the book tbh.

 

[Clinamenic]

The one in Mason & Dixon does that too. A character or two from the main narrative appears in the pulpy serial and it sort of loops in.

Episode 53

An apparent captivity narrative begins, telling of how an unidentified colonial American woman is taken from her farmstead by nonviolent Indians across the Susquehanna River and north to a Jesuit college in Quebec. There, she begins training to become a Widow of Christ, encounters the intricacies of Jesuit telegraphy, and meets a Chinese Feng-shui master.

Episode 54

The captivity narrative continues, and is revealed as a detour of the story by the potentially amorous young cousins, Tenebrae and Ethelmer, who thus far have listened to Cherrycoke's tale, but are now in Ethelmer's room reading passages from The Ghastly Fop, a pulp series. Tenebrae falls asleep after the American Woman and the Chinese Feng-shui master escape the Widows of Christ, and this narrative merges with Cherrycoke's story of Mason & Dixon, where Mason sees an uncanny resemblance between the woman and his departed wife, Rebekah. A discussion of metempsychosis ensues. Mason then has strange dreams of Rebekah, and decides the American Woman is not so like her after all.

A man a a wife-like character discussing metempsychosis? Conspicuously like Ulysses.

 

[IdleRich]

He does that in V. with 'The Confessions of Fausto Majistral'. The narrative shifts to Fausto's letters to his daughter or something as he tells the story of his life. Probably the worst bit in the book tbh.

It's so long ago that I read V that I couldn't tell you anything at all about it, nothing. Well, is it the one with the character called Eigenvalue? If so then I could tell you it's got a character in it called Eigenvalue.

One of his books certainly has a character with that name and I always wonder what the hell he was trying to do with that name. Why Eigenvalue? It's a mathematical term, not a totally obscure one but not run of the mill either - but why does the character have the name? Does he somehow behave in a way similar to an eigenvalue? And what would it even mean for a person to behave like an eigenvalue? But I can't bring myself to accept that it's a totally random mathematical term... but I'm digressing here.

The one in Mason & Dixon does that too. A character or two from the main narrative appears in the pulpy serial and it sort of loops in.

The reminds me of Fassbinder's World On A Wire. WAOW does not feature stories within stories, but it does have a fake world that someone has built to use as a model for predicting the future. That model in turn contains a model that the inhabitants of the simulacrum have built to predict their own futures. So you have a construct made of nested levels of unreality - something which hardly requires a huge leap of the imagination to see as analogous to nested stories. In fact a story is a sort of different version of reality if you like so the similarities are obvious. And in WOAW the problems arise (or perhaps better to say that they become evident) when the main character starts seeing people appearing in the wrong level of reality - which sounds similar to what you say there about a "character or two from the main narrative appearing in the pulpy serial"

Episode 54

The captivity narrative continues, and is revealed as a detour of the story by the potentially amorous young cousins, Tenebrae and Ethelmer, who thus far have listened to Cherrycoke's tale, but are now in Ethelmer's room reading passages from The Ghastly Fop, a pulp series. Tenebrae falls asleep after the American Woman and the Chinese Feng-shui master escape the Widows of Christ, and this narrative merges with Cherrycoke's story of Mason & Dixon, where Mason sees an uncanny resemblance between the woman and his departed wife, Rebekah. A discussion of metempsychosis ensues. Mason then has strange dreams of Rebekah, and decides the American Woman is not so like her after all.

@Mr. Tea pointed out to me that the character in Infinite Jest called Madam Psychosis is likely a pun on metempsychosis - set a punner to catch a punner as the saying goes.

 

[version]

It's so long ago that I read V that I couldn't tell you anything at all about it, nothing. Well, is it the one with the character called Eigenvalue? If so then I could tell you it's got a character in it called Eigenvalue.

One of his books certainly has a character with that name and I always wonder what the hell he was trying to do with that name. Why Eigenvalue? It's a mathematical term, not a totally obscure one but not run of the mill either - but why does the character have the name? Does he somehow behave in a way similar to an eigenvalue? And what would it even mean for a person to behave like an eigenvalue? But I can't bring myself to accept that it's a totally random mathematical term... but I'm digressing here.

Yeah, that's the one. You bring this up every time the book's mentioned.

😂

 

[IdleRich]

I do you're right. Or at least I remember we had a long and completely unsatisfactory debate about it once. That name does really get under my skin somehow.

 

[william_kent]

The first series of Twin Peaks had a soap opera, Invitation To Love, which seemed to be the only TV show that people there seemed to watch - at one point the current storyline is summarised by Lucy, the receptionist at the police station:

“Thanks to Jade, Jarrod decides not to kill himself, and he's changed his will leaving the tower to Jade instead, but Emerald found out about it and seduces Chet to give her the new will so she can destroy it. Montana is trying to kill Jarrod at midnight so the Tower will belong to Emerald and Montana, but I think she's going to doublecross him, and he doesn't know it yet.... Poor Chet.”

There's a scene where Audrey Horne is working at the perfume counter at Horne's Department Store where there is an Invitation To Love promotion featuring a cardboard cutout of Emerald ( Jade's sister and daughter of Jarrod ):



The idea was Mark Frost's and was seemingly dropped by David Lynch as soon as possible, which makes me wonder about the validity of those four hour youtube videos explaining that Twin Peaks was a TV show about TV, although because Invitation To Love was a soap opera within a soap opera I can see why some people might get excited about using "meta" a lot in their analysis

 

[IdleRich]

The first series of Twin Peaks had a soap opera, Invitation To Love, which seemed to be the only TV show that people there seemed to watch - at one point the current storyline is summarised by Lucy, the receptionist at the police station:

“Thanks to Jade, Jarrod decides not to kill himself, and he's changed his will leaving the tower to Jade instead, but Emerald found out about it and seduces Chet to give her the new will so she can destroy it. Montana is trying to kill Jarrod at midnight so the Tower will belong to Emerald and Montana, but I think she's going to doublecross him, and he doesn't know it yet.... Poor Chet.”

There's a scene where Audrey Horne is working at the perfume counter at Horne's Department Store where there is an Invitation To Love promotion featuring a cardboard cutout of Emerald ( Jade's sister and daughter of Jarrod ):

View attachment 13384twitter.com

The idea was Mark Frost's and was seemingly dropped by David Lynch as soon as possible, which makes me wonder about the validity of those four hour youtube videos explaining that Twin Peaks was a TV show about TV, although because Invitation To Love was a soap opera within a soap opera I can see why some people might get excited about using "meta" a lot in their analysis

Sounds a lot like Sunset Beach - I guess there was a whole kinda genre of these ludicrous soaps, but that was the one my gf used to make me watch. It was pretty funny at times.

 

[you]

Christopher Priest! A few of his novels play with dream narratives, imagined worlds. Particularly The Affirmation. Insidious novel.

D.M Thomas's The White Hotel too.

These are not clearly mise en abyme or hypodiegetic a la 'and I met a man who said "when I was a boy I..."' The border, the difference is murkier, hazy, or only revealed later after immersion.

 

[catalog]

Don Quixote has a bit of this going on, though maybe not quite what you mean. But as i remember it, quixote goes off with sancho and they are having adventures for a while. Then they meet this couple who have heard of the adventuring and are compiling it all into a book. and they arrange further adventures for him. so a bit like synechdoche new york maybe (keep meaning to watch that again).

 

[catalog]

Bolano also has a lot of his characters telling stories to one another. the one i like is the one where you've got someone retelling the orestia late at night. also the nightwatchman and the old guy having their conversations. can't remember the names of the actual books sorry