The Days of Meta-Meta: Fictional Characters and What They Might like to Read
Sometimes, there’s nothing quite like sitting down with your favourite fictional character and imagining what happens after their stories are over—after the last page of that book is turned, after the credits roll, after that series finale has answered some of your questions and left you with a hundred more. What would happen, say, if the story continued—if the heroes and heroines of our favourite books and movies were able to retreat back to a quiet space in their lives and just…keep going?
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Sometimes, there’s nothing quite like sitting down with your favourite fictional character and imagining what happens after their stories are over—after the last page of that book is turned, after the credits roll, after that series finale has answered some of your questions and left you with a hundred more. What would happen, say, if the story continued—if the heroes and heroines of our favourite books and movies were able to retreat back to a quiet space in their lives and just…keep going? Would they do yoga? Would they watch daytime TV? What do you suppose they would be reading?Here are a few guesses, All Lit Up-style.
Life as an independent woman is complicated, especially if it’s 1642. What do you do when your husband has sent you ahead of him into the New World (thanks for that, Roger) and left you alone to fend for yourself? If you’re Hester Prynne, perhaps you’d be reading Infidelity in tandem with your Dimmesdale Dalliances. Stacey May Fowles’ latest novel is rich in empathy and also gentle in its portrayal of an engaged hairdresser, Ronnie, who finds herself in an affair with Charlie, a novelist. There are no scarlet letters in Fowles’ narrative but there is compassion aplenty—something that seems to have been scarce in Puritanical times. No doubt Hester would have found it refreshing.
With the publication of Go Set a Watchman set for this summer, Harper Lee’s beloved heroine is going to be on many a reader’s mind. Since Watchman is written from the perspective of the adult Scout, looking back on both her childhood and her father, we think that Scout herself might enjoy reading Mark Lavorato’s tale of a man who is literally travelling back into the younger versions of himself. Armed with the knowledge of his future, Cedric is trying to right wrongs and prevent tragedy by sprinkling hard-won wisdom throughout his past. His problem? No one believes him, of course.
Okay, so Charlie Kaufman isn’t, technically, a fictional person. But it’s safe to say that he has nonetheless been fictionialized, thanks to his meta-meta self-treatment in Adaptation. Imagine this: Charlie, now a decade and a bit on from his torturous stint at adapting The Orchid Thief, sitting down to read a book. What book? Why, Chris Eaton: A Biography, of course! You don’t get much more meta than a narrator Googling himself and imagining separate lives for all of the other Chris Eatons he encounters. This sounds like just the kind of rabbit hole that would engage our not-so-fictional reader’s own Alice in Wonderland of a mind.
Sometimes the only thing worse than waking from a coma to find the world overrun with zombies is waking from death to discover that you yourself are the zombie in question. What’s a guy to do? If you’re Rick Grimes, you might search for life and meaning, and perhaps even a way to understand your enemy. And there’s no better way to do that than by following the adventures of Sheldon Funk in Corey Redekop’s Husk—the story of an everyman still trying to keep his life together after everything about it has completely, er, decomposed.
It goes without saying here that we’re assuming Katniss would be sitting down to read after she’s (spoiler alert) overthrown the Capitol and worked to establish some kind of new order in Panem. But once that happens, and Katniss settles down to a life sans Hunger Games, she might just be up for reading Lauren Carter’s Swarm. Carter’s novel about the post-apocalyptic Sandy, her partner Marvin, and the child that may or may not be stealing food from their garden holds all of the suspense of The Hunger Games in deliciously quiet prose, and reiterates all over again how important it is to hold tight to those things that you’ve gathered around you, and fight for them when the time comes.
by Gabrielle Wittkop, Translated by Don Bapst (ECW Press)
Speaking of the dead—while our beloved Dexter Morgan’s tastes never went quite this way, chances are that he might sit down with Gabrielle Wittkop’s The Necrophiliac in his cabin in the woods. Wittkop’s book, after all—a classic of French literature and only recently translated into English—is about belonging and the need to feel connection as much as it is about the forbidden, something that would resonate with everyone’s favourite mass murderer in his self-imposed exile. There’s also a thread of sly humour running through the book that Dexter, eternally nonplussed witness to black comedy, would doubtless appreciate.
Let’s face it – we all know Christian Grey would get boring after a while. When his charming “I am incapable of leaving you alone” ways reveal themselves as plain old garden-variety stalking behaviour, Ana would need to turn somewhere else for titillation and excitement. Have no fear, Ana—Carnal CanLit has you covered. It’s not too big a step from the whips of the Red Room to the explorations and (again, spoiler alert) flutes of Tamara Faith Berger’s Maidenhead. And once those boundaries are crossed, why not venture a little further and Enter the Raccoon? Beatriz Hausner’s poetic tale of bestiality with a human-sized, mechanical-handed raccoon makes Christian Grey seem positively commonplace. From there, with the animal door already open, there’s really no other place to go than to Marion Engel’s Bear. Strange—yes. It’s also funny, and sad, and a great deal deeper than anything Christian Grey might have to say. You’ve fed your body, Ana—now it’s time to feed your sexy soul.
There’s no getting away from darkness when you’re Tony Stark—philanthropist, brilliant scientist, idealist, and most other ists you can think of. Iron Man doesn’t do ordinary. Stands to reason, then, that when he’s wooing (or making it up to) Pepper Potts, he’d be reading her something other than your standard Shakespearean sonnets.DOOM is a perfect match for Iron Man’s own edgy, sexy energy—whether discussing the mechanics of a super suit or ruminating on the Joker’s soul—this body made mouth—this is a book of poetry that will feed as much as arouse.
You’re a writer. You live in New York City. For inspiration, you solve crimes with Detective Kate Beckett, and for fun, you rub shoulders with James Patterson and company. You’re Richard Castle—bestselling author, wise guy, slight egomaniac. When you aren’t wisecracking in the 12th Precinct or chasing after Beckett’s clicking, couldn’t-care-less high heels, you’re escaping into the murder mystery world of Robin Spano’s Claire Vengel, who might go for jeans over stilettos but still plays a mean game of poker. A deadly game of poker, you might even say.
edited by Stacey May Fowles and Megan Griffith-Greene (Tightrope Books)
There are some things we all know to be true—among them, the fact that Hermione Granger really is the true star of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter novels. Harry Potter is wonderful, as is Ron Weasley, but Hermione Granger is SPECTACULAR. She knows the answers to all the questions, she grabs the heart of sexy brooding Viktor Krum, and her brains nearly always save the day. When you combine this with the fact that Hermione’s real-life counterpart, Emma Watson, spends her time kicking ass in all kinds of awesomely feminist ways, it’s a pretty fair bet that something like She’s Shameless: Women write about growing up, rocking out and fighting back would be on Hermione’s reading table. (When she isn’t, that is, reading excellent revisionist history.) As a witch born of non-wizard parents, and therefore someone just shy of the mainstream herself, Hermione would have no trouble identifying with these funny, engaging tales of teenage years and riot grrl rebellion.
From poetry to murder to zombies to superheroes and all other things in between, one thing is pretty clear—there’s something in the world of independent CanLit for everybody. The books listed here are only a few examples of the richness and variety awaiting the reader, fictional or otherwise. Do you have your own ideas as to what books might catch the eye of your favourite character? Feel free to share your suggestions in the comments below!***Amanda Leduc‘s novel, The Miracles of Ordinary Men, was published in 2013 by Toronto’s ECW Press. Her essays and stories have appeared in publications across Canada, the US, the UK, and Australia. She currently lives in Hamilton, where she is working on her next novel. She may or may not watch too much TV and is presently dealing with a severe Castle addiction.
