The Top-10 Best Fictional Books In Movies & TV
If you hadn’t guessed with my Imaginary Languages article here on Geekscape, you might know that I am an avid reader. I finally finished reading Rousseau this week, and next I’m taking on the daunting task of James Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson. To take occasional breaks rest from the 18th century, 1000-page tome, I’ll be reading chapters of V.C. Andrews’ lurid incest thriller Flowers in the Attic; as I was never a teenage girl, I feel it’s a footnote of literature that I need to catch up on. Whenever I see people reading in public, I find myself ogling their book, trying to discern what they’re reading.
And when I see characters reading in movies and on TV, I’m also interested. It can say a lot about a character if he’s a horrible, shallow hedonist, but is later seen reading Albert Camus. Or if a blowhard intellectual bundles up with a copy of Ayn Rand. It can say a lot about someone if they choose to quote Friedrich Nietzsche (a practice I am guilty of). It’s especially interesting, though, if the character is reading an author or a book that has been invented for the sake of the story.
Here then is a list of 10 imaginary books that I wish I could look into.
10) Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie by: author unknown
From “Calvin and Hobbes”
To put it politely, Calvin, one of the title characters from Bill Watterson’s long-running comic strip “Calvin and Hobbes,” was a rambunctious kid. To put it more realistically, he was an unduly cynical hellion, who made his parents’ lives miserable, alienated his peers, hated his teachers, and who only had one friend, whom he would frequently fight with. He was obsessed with mayhem, dinosaurs, and summer vacation (as are all six-year-old boys), but was possessed of a mildly disquieting sense of anarchy that made for some unduly dark moments in the strip, but also lent it a maturity often unseen in the funny papers.
It should come as little surprise, then, that Calvin’s favorite book was something called Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie. The interior of the book was never shown in the strip, and only a few passages were read aloud, but with a title like that, you can tell that the book will be filled with absurd action, violent talking animals, and an explosion of unknown viscosity.
While I like to entertain fantasies of become a staid, Atticus Finch–like father someday, I know in my heart that I will likely be reading creepy and weird children’s books to my kid. A title like Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie would be way too good to pass up.
9) The First Encyclopedia of Tlön by: authors unknown
From Labyrinths
If it’s imaginary books you want (and you’re trying to steer clear of too many references to Nabakov), then you need look no further than the wondrous magical realism of Jorge Luis Borges. Borges, the award-winning Argentinian author, came up with such vast and complicated imaginary spaces, it should come as little surprise that he is responsible for such a large number of such intriguing imaginary fictions. This is the man who conceived of The Library of Babel, which contains not just every book ever written, but every book that could have possibly ever been written. This is a conceit that Neil Gaiman (as is his wont) ripped off wholesale for one of his own fantasy stories.
For the purposes of this article, I have selected Borges’ Encyclopedia of Tlön as the example of his work. In the short story “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius,” Borges details a vast conspiracy concocted by a shadowy cadre of intellectuals, attempting to construct a hazy epistemological hoax on the intelligentsia, by creating a fake, artificially aged book, detailing the history and society of an ancient civilization that never existed. The narrator of the short story has become obsessed with cataloguing the encyclopedia, even though he knows that it can’t possibly be true.
But, as the narrator investigates, he begins to find irrefutable proof that Tlön is a real place, and hard evidence begins to crop up. The narrator begins to go slightly mad, and Borges has made a mind-sticking point about the mutability of truth, and the ephemeral nature of all literary criticism. Anyone interested in fantasy literature should be familiar with Borges.
8) The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows by: Aristide Torchia
From “The Ninth Gate”
I don’t know why Roman Polanski’s 1999 thriller is so widely maligned in the nerd community. I find it to be tautly filmed, and loaded with interesting shop talk about the rare book trade (I’m a sucker for shop talk). It also has Johnny Depp convincingly playing a schlubby, unscrupulous rare book dealer who doesn’t believe in much, and will regularly rip people off for his own gain. The ending may seem non-committal, but the film is a great thriller from a master filmmaker. I encourage you to revisit it. It’s a cross between an adult Satan thriller from the 1970s and “Ghostbusters.”
The book at the center of the film is a volume, written in 1666 by the fictional author Aristide Torchia who may have, it is rumored, written The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows with a particularly unholy co-author. It is sought by the creepy book collector Boris Balkan (Frank Langella), and he hires Dean Corso (Depp) to find the three extant copies, and verify their authenticity.
It’s kind of a letdown that (without giving too much away) the secrets of the three books are not in the actual text, but in the creepy illustrations included throughout. But it’s quite a secret, and the visual comparison is fascinating to behold. I would love a copy of this book at my local library. I would feel simultaneously brainy for seeking out a rare book, and wickedly subversive for reading such an unholy tome. There’s also an awesome-looking pentagram on the cover.
7) The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism by: Emmanuel Goldstein
From 1984
I only want to read this book, because I have read 1984 and I know who Goldstein is, and what he represents. If you are not familiar with George Orwell’s seminal sci-fi classic, then do not read this particular entry, as I will give away vital plot details.
Winston Smith is not content with his life in his pseudo-communist-but-mostly-slavery middle-class existence, controlled minutely by the government, and monitored by the smiling face of Big Brother. He wishes secretly to live with The Proles across town, but hasn’t the gumption to defy society. He seems to find escape in a subversive book of political revolution by an unseen author named Emmauel Goldstein. Winston has heard of this Goldstein. He is the leader of a secret anti-government underground, and has managed to disseminate literature amongst the masses, including the dully-titled, but wickedly illegal book on oligarchical collectivism.
Winston reads the book, and his mind is inflamed with new ideas. It’s not until later (and much too late) that he realizes the true nature of the book. The book was written by the government itself to weed out any potential rebels, and is regularly planted near at-risk citizens as a test of their loyalty. If they turn it in, they are happy. If they read it, they are brainwashed. I would love to thumb through a book I know to be a lie. See how the truths in it are manipulated (if they are manipulated), and how the government uses the existence of the book as a tool, rather than its content.
Maybe it’s just the anarchist in me.
6) The Misery series by: Paul Sheldon
From Misery
Every author wants to be famous. Every famous author fears his fans. And no fan is scarier than Annie Wilkes from Stephen King’s horror story Misery, about a fan who manages to hide her favorite author in a cabin in the woods following a freak car wreck. Annie proceeds to heap praise upon Paul Sheldon for what he has written, and actually begins abusing, torturing and mutilating him when she doesn’t like the way the Misery books are going.
By all reports, the Misery books are kind of fluffy Victorian romances, not worth too much in terms of literary value, but exciting and moving in the populist sense (the same could be said of King’s work). If any work of literature, though, can move a single fan to extremes of madness, then I’m interested in reading it. Annie Wilkes read the books and became obsessed to the point of torture. Can the book have the same effect on me? On you? Wouldn’t you love to see?
It’s this kind of thinking that has drawn me to books like J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (which was famously in the libraries of several famous murderers, and is, actually a stirring and excellent piece of literature in itself), and Adolf Hitler’s infamous Mein KampfMisery books have the actual power to think like Annie Wilkes. (which is a dull and repetitive book of specious, sloganeering political theory). Let’s see if the
5) In the Mouth of Madness by: Sutter Cane
From “In the Mouth of Madness”
And speaking of books with the capability of altering your thought processes, why not a book that can alter your very body and, perhaps, bring about the end of humanity as we know it?
Sutter Cane is a horror author who is modeled after Stephen King, but writes more like H.P. Lovecraft. His stories are all about slimy things lurking in the dark, causing people to go mad, and, sometimes, turn into inhuman murderous creatures. There’s also a rumor that Cane’s work has had an… effect… on some of his less stable readers. People have been clamoring for his latest book, In the Mouth of Madness, which is said to be his best.
John Carpenter’s 1995 film is my favorite of his, and one of my favorite horror movies of all time. It’s a creepy film about the effect that art can have on the mind, and how it can drive people mad. The film deals with how a populist horror book may have the potential to bring about the end of the world with its ideas. It’s not necessarily a magical book of spells (you’ll see one of those below), but a book so well-written, and from such an unholy source, that it can change you just by spearing in front of you.
Sure, I may be a monster at the end of my reading, and I may enter a new age of Stygian, inhuman evil, but, man what an excellent read.
4) The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by: Agnes Nutter
From Good Omens
Agnes Nutter was a witch who lived in England in the 17th century. Even by witch standards, she was something of a weirdo, preferring polite conversation over hexes and bats’ wings. She wrote, as so many witches do, a book prophecying the End Times. The book was a horrible financial flop, due to its unspectacular predictions of the future, and its peculiar writing style. The Book was lost to history for centuries until a bookish angel tracked it down by chance in a surprisingly holistic bookshop in England. It turns out that Agnes Nutter is the only prognosticator to have been 100% accurate.
I am very fond of the high-falutin’ absurdity of Terry Pratchett, and he is in fine form in his cult comedy satire of “The Omen” called Good Omens, co-authored by Neil Gaiman. It’s a book that takes all the exciting supernatural elements of The Rapture, and gleefully sets them on ear. The antichrist is perhaps a perfectly normal boy. The Hellhound is a cute li’l puppy. The four horsemen of the apocalypse are followed around by a quartet of wannabe metalheads, and the agents of both God and the Devil have decided that the end of the world is not necessarily a good thing. It’s a funny book marked by Pratchett’s love of fantastic satire, and Gaiman’s popular penchant for blending disparate literary references.
3) The Works of Kilgore Trout
From Breakfast of Champions
A prescient and hard-working sci-fi author, Kilgore Trout is the archetypal unappreciated genius. His stories are creative and touching, and use science fiction to satirize the hubristic foibles of mankind, and send up the very contractual rules of civilization. His stories have also rarely been published in book form, instead cropping up in the margins of various pornographic novels, sold under the counter at the seedier porn shops. Here is a gregarious and kooky sci-fi author whose brilliant works cannot be found except by passionate fans and career masturbators.
Kurt Vonnegut was, himself, an author who wryly used strangely-conceived sci-fi ideas to point out the melancholy and humorous self-destructive tendencies of mankind. Our memories jump about, so he created a character who physically jumps about through time in Slaughterhouse Five. He felt that mankind would destroy itself, so he envisioned a misplaced Armageddon in Cat’s Cradle. He saw that the bonds of family make us somewhat freaky sometimes, so be thought up a sibling mutant pair in Slapstick. And, most notably, he conceived a somewhat wonky alter ego in Kilgore Trout, and author who wrote similarly to Vonnegut, but who was bold enough to follow through on some truly daring sci-fi conceits.
Finding a work of Trout’s in a dirty magazine, forgotten by time, would be like unearthing a lost portion of the Rosetta Stone. It would be a small key into the wisdom of the universe, that used genre fun and wacky humor to tear back the layers of reality around you. That it was found in such an inappropriate place would only add to its appeal. Let’s see if we can track down the Trout work in the world.
2) The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by: Various authors
From The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book, and has supplanted the Encyclopedia Galactica as the most popular source of information in the galaxy. It not only will educate you in the ways of the cosmos, revealing the meaning (or lack thereof) of traversing the stars, but will also recommend good bars and restaurants, fine dining, supernatural entertainment, and the best places to stow away on a Vogon ship. This is information you require.
Douglas Adams’ seminal sci-fi comedy book is well-known and well-loved by geeks the world over. But the book within the book is a genuinely brilliant conceit. This is no mere magic book of infinite knowledge, this is a practical field guide for the worlds-weary traveler. Only the traveling you get to do is in spaceships, and the hot nightlife is with space aliens on distant planets. Again: this is information you require.
What better fantasy book is there for the embittered Earth-bound human seeking escape? I want a copy of this book so bad. And then I would stock up on foods, my Babelfish, my comfortable shoes, and, naturally, my towel, and I would gather up some close friends, and hot the first available space scow off of this rock. This is a book that offers up secrets leading to nothing but low-rent interstellar adventure.
1) The Necronomicon by: Abdul Alhazred
From the works of H.P. Lovecraft
The grand grimoire of all fictional literature (at least for geeks), the Necronomicon is the spell book to end all spell books… quite literally. It is a book of forbidden knowledge, foolishly penned by a mad Arab, and passed from hand to hand in dark circles of crazed, apocalypse-obsessed mystics and cultists. If all the instructions are followed correctly, one may open a rift in the actual fabric of space, and unleash the indifferently destructive Elder Ones who once dwelled on Earth, and only await to return to their rightful home. Humanity will perish. Those who are not killed, will go mad.
And all just by reading.
H.P. Lovecraft is well known in the geek community (and in growing circles of literary repute) as the master of fantastic fiction. His tales paint a bleak and horrifying portrait of the universe as a cold, godless place, populated by aliens who would only destroy people, and mongoloid humans who would be stupid enough to summon them. They’re all peppered with some of the pearliest prose you’re likely to find in a horror story. Reading Lovecraft makes you want to recite his words aloud, tasting them in your mouth.
The Necronomicon has cropped up in pop culture here and there, and has gained a kind of mythic status in the world. Indeed, there are real copies of the book floating around out there, so you can read the tales, try the invocations, and, at the very least, pretend to be a mad cultist with the unwashed secrets of the universe, slowly boring holes through your sanity. This is a book that roundhouse kicks your mind with a green, slimy tentacle into a trash can of horrified misunderstanding. And you love every second of it.
Let’s get reading!
Witney Seibold is a writer living in the United States with his wife and his laidback attitude. He has spent several years catching up on his classics, and may be described as officially “well-read,” although that is a status constantly up for debate. When he’s not writing about obscure pop culture artifacts, he maintains a somewhat well-written ‘blog, Three Cheers for Darkened Years, where you can read his film reviews from the past several years. He has also recently become the co-host of The B-Movies Podcast over at Crave Online. Seek out his work. It will turn your mind backwards.
