Name that book?

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

i am copying this from an old thread i made a long time ago. at the time it raised a quite interesting discussion, but no-one was able to identify my book. since there are a lot of new members, you never know, perhaps someone has a new idea.

ZE FORGOTTEN BOOK :
a long time ago i got a book at the library which was really brilliant, and i would love to read it again but i have since forgotten the title and the author (i should make a list of everything i read...). i tried looking for it at the library again (at the time i think i would have recognized it if i had seen it) but it wasn't there. maybe checked out, maybe weeded out of the collection...

the theme was solipsism ; the main characters were a family, if i recall correctly, and during the course of the story their home (the scene of the action) began to physically crack and fall apart as the dreamer (the father ?) either realized that they were all products of his own mind or woke up (or possibly neither, and it was the odd events which made the other family members suspect...), and the other family members berated him for causing such havoc. the details are very vague in my memory. i mainly remember really liking it.

i *think* it was an italian author, but it was not Pirandello (i'm 99% sure). I'm pretty sure it was a novel, but it may have been a play, definitely in the absurdist theater style. it was not by ionesco either (but it could have been ; it would make a brilliant companion piece to "Rhinoceros"). it might have been written around the 1950's or 1960's (this is a guess).

in french, i think the title might have been something like "la fêlure" (but not exactly that, or i would have found it already... maybe a synonym), so it might be called something like "the fracture" or "the split" in english.

if anyone has any ideas i would really love to find this book again... i've asked around but it seems to be a bit obscure, no-one i've talked to has any ideas. maybe i dreamed the whole thing...

i'm hoping i'll get lucky and it will be the most favorite book ever of someone who comes on this forum every day... if i ever find it again i'll make another post recommending it, and you can all read it too.

I don't think I've read that book, but I do think I've either read a review of it, or the back cover of it. Or possibly a brief bit in the back of another book. None of which is much help, but if I remember anything helpful, I'll post it!

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

And now, a forgotten book from childhood.

It was a school story set in England (Yorkshire I think - I vaguely recall one of the characters running away over the moors). It wasn't an Enid Blyton. The main character was a girl called Robin (or maybe Robyn) who always seemed to be in trouble. I suspect it dates from the 50s - the copy I read was almost certainly my aunt's (and no, I can't ask her...)

I don't know why this one out of the countless books I read as a child has stuck, but it has.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Yes, that is very vague. You don't remember any of the character names? If you did you could try google book search.

BOb

no, sorry, that's sort of the trouble... but i read this book over 10 years ago and i've been searching for it for several years already.

Originally Posted by ShortNCuddlyAm

I don't think I've read that book, but I do think I've either read a review of it, or the back cover of it. Or possibly a brief bit in the back of another book. None of which is much help, but if I remember anything helpful, I'll post it!

hee ! you're almost as bad as i am. but if you do remember where you read the back cover, or the review, or a vague allusion to another book which mentioned it in passing, i'll be very happy to know.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

no, sorry, that's sort of the trouble... but i read this book over 10 years ago and i've been searching for it for several years already.

Ok... here's what you do. Write a book that has the same story line... all you can remember... then submit it to a fan fiction type site. I bet within a few days people will complain that you copied so and so book.

BOb

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Ok... here's what you do. Write a book that has the same story line... all you can remember... then submit it to a fan fiction type site. I bet within a few days people will complain that you copied so and so book.

BOb

pffff !

[Slite]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Ok... here's what you do. Write a book that has the same story line... all you can remember... then submit it to a fan fiction type site. I bet within a few days people will complain that you copied so and so book.

BOb

[igorsk]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

ZE FORGOTTEN BOOK :
a long time ago i got a book at the library which was really brilliant, and i would love to read it again but i have since forgotten the title and the author (i should make a list of everything i read...). i tried looking for it at the library again (at the time i think i would have recognized it if i had seen it) but it wasn't there. maybe checked out, maybe weeded out of the collection...

the theme was solipsism ; the main characters were a family, if i recall correctly, and during the course of the story their home (the scene of the action) began to physically crack and fall apart as the dreamer (the father ?) either realized that they were all products of his own mind or woke up (or possibly neither, and it was the odd events which made the other family members suspect...), and the other family members berated him for causing such havoc. the details are very vague in my memory. i mainly remember really liking it.

I wonder if it could be Gianni Rodari. I don't actually remember reading a story like this, but it sort of sounds like his style.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by igorsk

I wonder if it could be Gianni Rodari. I don't actually remember reading a story like this, but it sort of sounds like his style.

hm. are you maybe confusing his name with another author ? i looked up Rodari but it looks like he wrote children's books, unless i've missed something. the book i'm thinking of definitely was not a children's book. thanks for the suggestion though !

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

i tried looking for it at the library again (at the time i think i would have recognized it if i had seen it) but it wasn't there.

Did you look for it in a particular place in the library?
If you could picture where it was it may help narrow it down (e.g. author's surname initial - if that's how your library is arranged).

[Patricia]

There's a Booksleuth section at Abebooks (a large second-hand pbook store), which serves the same purpose as this thread (though I believe that you have to sign up before you post):
http://forums.abebooks.com/abesleuthcom

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

Did you look for it in a particular place in the library?
If you could picture where it was it may help narrow it down (e.g. author's surname initial - if that's how your library is arranged).

heh. at the time i looked, i remembered exactly what position it was in the bookshelf, but not the author's name. so i went to the shelf i *thought* it should be in, and looked there first. when i didn't find it, i checked the next bookshelves to each side, and then the next ones over again. even at the time i am not sure i remembered the first letter of the name, and already that was years ago. if only i had that much to go on.

Originally Posted by Patricia

There's a Booksleuth section at Abebooks (a large second-hand pbook store), which serves the same purpose as this thread (though I believe that you have to sign up before you post):
http://forums.abebooks.com/abesleuthcom

bookmarking that ! thank you patricia. i will see if anyone there can help me.

[Madam Broshkina]

Originally Posted by ErwinOtten

Second:
The book I am looking for is a fantasy-book. I seem to remember that it involved a little girl called Arry, or Weasel, or Nymeria, or Nan, or Cat (of the Canals), or even sometimes Arya. Anyone know which book that could possibly be?



Sorry Slite but I just couldn't imagine your question was serious. To pick THE number one fantasy-series (see www.bestfantasybooks.com if you don't believe me), be so specific and not able to remember where to look?....

Perhaps it could be A Feast for Crows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Feast_for_Crows

[ErwinOtten]

Originally Posted by Madam Broshkina

Perhaps it could be A Feast for Crows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Feast_for_Crows

Mwah, I'm not sure if Arya is referred to as Arry in A Feast for Crows..

But ofcourse my question wasn't serious, as I thought Slite's wasn't eighter

[mjh215]

I knew someone had to have started a site just for this;

http://www.whatsthatbook.com/

I looked through, seems like a fair amount of traffic. Many titles appear to have been answered but the original 'asker' didn't mark it as "Answered" yet.

Even if you don't have a book you want to find, maybe you could go over and browse through to see if you can't help someone else out?

-MJ

[Patricia]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

the theme was solipsism ; the main characters were a family, if i recall correctly, and during the course of the story their home (the scene of the action) began to physically crack and fall apart as the dreamer (the father ?) either realized that they were all products of his own mind or woke up (or possibly neither, and it was the odd events which made the other family members suspect...), and the other family members berated him for causing such havoc. the details are very vague in my memory. i mainly remember really liking it.

I've been wondering whether this might be a play: Strindberg's "The Ghost Sonata".

As the play opens a young student explains how he has seen a large crack on a houe, just before it falls down. He rescues a child, who vanishes.
Then he is drawn into dream-like events at a mysterious house populated by a solipsistic family.