Hard-to-Google Lit. Crit. Queries...

[steepholm]

Is there a general term for novels (or other fictions) that contain/mention themselves? I mean, the novel is called The Book of Glum, and it's about someone who turns out to be writing or reading a book called The Book of Glum, or we're at least given to know that this is a world where The Book of Glum already exists?

Also, is there decent existing discussion (in journals or elsewhere) of this phenomenon?

Comments

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

I can't answer the query, but am busy trying to think of other examples of the same phenomenon. The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy leapt to mind immediately, and M.R. James' short story 'The Tractate Middoth' also presented itself after some thought. But then I got stuck. I'm sure there must be plenty more along the lines of the latter in particular, though, in which the titular book serves as an object of quest and / or a portal into another world. If no established term exists for the phenomenon, could we simply call them autoreferential?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

The Neverending Story is another, off the top of my head. I feel certain there are quite a few besides.

Yes, "autoreferential" is certainly a possibility, if no more specific established term turns up.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Failing to find the list that I published in Mythprint some 30 years ago, I did come across my review of another good example: The Land of Laughs by Jonathan Carroll.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I can hardly remember anything about The Neverending Story, but isn't the bulk of the text the actual story that the character in the other part is reading? Or isn't it? If it is, it falls in the first, rather than the second, of my categories.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Yes, most of it is him reading The Neverending Story, and (I think) being sucked into its events somehow.