Friday, 22 February 2019

The Br'ers And Odysseus

Recently, we quoted references to the Br'ers in works by Poul Anderson.

Now Br'er Fox is mentioned in SM Stirling's Theater Of Spies.

And, in Clifford Simak's Out Of Their Minds, fantasy characters, including the Br'ers, somehow come to life. See here.

Yet again, fiction converses with fiction (see here) and I find it difficult to avoid the impression that all of literature is one long series. I have read the suggestion that the Time Traveler's journey in 802,701 AD parallels the Odyssey but I am not going to look for it at this time of night. (For relevant literary references to Odysseus, see Wandering Odysseus, Odysseus and The Ship Of Odysseus.)

3 comments:

S.M. Stirling said...

One thing I've never liked is books in which people haven't read the books they would have in reality. People do get tropes and references out of literature and use them all the time -- fictional characters should do the same, when appropriate.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!

And the example I thought of was how Dante used the story of the wanderings of Odysseus in the DIVINE COMEDY. In fact Dante has Odysseus seeing Mount Purgatory before he was lost at sea. Yes, there were no Latin or Italian translations of the ODYSSEY in Dante's time, he had to go by what other poets, such as Virgil, said about Odysseus.

I agree with what you said about fictional and how they would likely use tropes and references from the books they've read. One caveat I have being that so many people don't read many books at all and read them only once. So, how many of the tropes they use come directly from books? I suspect many today obtain these tropes mostly from movies and what they saw on TV.

Sean

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
Some characters take refuge in Neil Gaiman's Inn of the Worlds' End during a "reality storm" and one character says that a "reality storm" sounds like something out of Star Trek.
Paul.