Chess, you say? Well, two can play at that game

[steepholm]

When blogging in Another Place recently I mentioned the blurb writers’ habit of characterizing books in terms of other books. It quickly became apparent that this could be turned into a parlour game.

For example, which book might be described as “Charlotte’s Web meets The Lord of the Flies”?

Animal Farm


Or “Death of a Salesman meets Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”?

The Chocolate War


I think we can all agree that this is the funnest thing since Tetris, but it’s not the kind of game one can play on one’s own. So, partly in honour of the return of I’m Sorry I haven’t a Clue, partly for the sheer anarchic hell of it, but mostly as yet another displacement activity, who wants to play Guess the Literary Progeny?

All contributions welcome.

Comments

[beccadelarosa.livejournal.com]

Can I be first to play? I got much, much too excited about this. And you'll just have to guess, because I don't know how to do that fancy cut thing you did. (PS: in honour of you, Charlie, they're all classic kids' lit.)

1. Kafka's The Trial meets Lady Windermere's Fan.

2. Goldilocks and the Three Bears meets Thus Spake Zarathustra. (Well, some of it...)

3. The Histories of Herodotus meets Where the Wild Things Are.

For what it's worth, I got Animal Farm, but completely missed The Chocolate War. Never having read it doesn't help.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

Are we talking about actual blurbs that appeared on actual books?

My all-time favorite of these is:

"In the tradition of The Lord of the Rings, Siddhartha, and Watership Down."

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

My brain doesn't work that way, but these are funny!

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

From a professional review of a relatively recent book:

[I]t's like Jane Austen playing Dungeons & Dragons with Eragon's Christopher Paolini.

[ex-writingh.livejournal.com]

So, I thought of the question "What book could be described as 'Watership Down' meets 'Lord of the Rings'?", but I suddenly felt sure I didn't make up that comparison myself. So I googled [mystery title] along with "watership down meets" in quotation marks, and got:

[Mystery title] is Watership Down meets Ivanhoe!
[Mystery title] is Watership Down meets Rambo!
[Mystery title] is Watership Down meets Harry Potter!
[Mystery title] is Watership Down meets Conan the Barbarian!
[Mystery title] is Watership Down meets The Hobbit!
[Mystery title] is Watership Down meets Samwise Gamgee!
[Mystery title] is Watership Down meets Mighty Mouse!
[Mystery title] is Watership Down meets Chronicles of Narnia!
[Mystery title] is Watership Down meets The Voyage of the Dawn Treader!
[Mystery title] is Watership Down meets Tolkien!
[Mystery title] is Watership Down meets Tailchaser's Song!
[Mystery title] is Watership Down meets Godzilla!

I'm quite, quite sure you'll have no trouble guessing the "mystery title" after all that.