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Daily catch-up: ‘It Was A Dark And Stormy Night’ – more fictional fictions

A lot of made-up stuff about things that were never written or filmed

John Rentoul
Thursday 20 August 2015 15:26 BST
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Trying not to write about the possible end of the Labour Party, I shall seek the comfort of fiction. Or, in this case, fictional fiction, which was the subject of my Top 10 in the Independent on Sunday magazine recently.

The list started with Rochelle, Rochelle, the fictional film in Seinfeld. I am grateful to Andrew Dilley for providing a sample of the lyrics of the fictional title theme as sung by Bette Midler in the later episode:

“Well, you made a long journey from Milan to Minsk, Rochelle, Rochelle. You never stopped hoping; now you’re in the Pinsk, Rochelle, Rochelle. When the naysayers ‘nay’ you picked up your pace. You said nothing’s going to stop me so get out of my face. I’m having adventures all over the place, Rochelle, Rochelle!”

I had a lot of good entries for this one, so here are some more.

It Was A Dark And Stormy Night by Snoopy in Peanuts. Nominated by Martin Beckford.

“Bouncing Back” by Alan Partridge in “I’m Alan Partridge”. And the adaptation in Adaptation which becomes Adaptation. Both nominated by Max Benwell.

If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino in If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino similarly disappears up its own pretension. From Sam Freedman, who also nominated The Greatest Story Ever Hulaed and all other Troy Maclure films.

The Grasshopper Lies Heavy from Philip K Dick’s The Man In The High Castle. An alternative history novel postulating Allied victory in the Second World War, featuring in an alternative history novel in which the Axis won the Second World War. Mark Wallace, Lee Ravitz and Ewan.

The Enchanted Hunter from Lolita. Black Letter Day.

Where to start with AS Byatt, asks Della Mirandola? “If I have to pick one, Babbletower from Babel Tower is a truly disturbing creation.” John Brown nominated everything by Rudolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte in Possession.

The fictional film Singin’ in the Rain, at the end of the film Singin’ in the Rain. Mr Memory.

Lady Don’t Fall Backwards by Darcy Sarto, the pulp thriller (with missing final page) in Hancock’s Half Hour. Matt Brannigan and the Church Mouse.

Lee Ravitz nominated the version of Don Quixote attributed to Borges’ Pierre Menard, as it’s an exact rewrite of the original

“Santa’s Super Sleigh”, the song written by Will Freeman’s father, which funds Will’s lifestyle, from Nick Hornby’s About a Boy. Marion Barron.

Fields of Amaranth, a novel by the ageing (and imaginary) author St John Clarke, as featured in Anthony Powell’s The Acceptance World (1955: part of his A Dance to the Music of Time”sequence). Chris Sladen.

Nabokov’s Pale Fire starts will a full length poem of the same name that (fictional) poet John Shade completed before his death, which is then subjected to an erratic commentary by a scholarly colleague. Greg Kane.

The Never-Ending Sacrifice, the epic generation-spanning Cardassian novel from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The title was later used for an actual Star Trek novel. Stuart Hammal.

Someone nominated‏ The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy – but that’s fictional non-fiction, as Paul Frame pointed out. As is Emmanuel Goldstein’s The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism from Nineteen Eighty-Four, as Lee Ravitz pointed out. The same might be said, he said, for those great classics, Chaldean Roots in the Ancient Cornish Language, The Dynamics of an Asteroid and Heavy Game in the Western Himalayas by Mr S Holmes, Prof J Moriarty and Col S Moran respectively.

Someone else nominated Days of Our Lives, the soap opera in which Joey had a part in Friends. I hadn’t realised until I looked it up that it is a real series.

Antibes Steve asks ‏what was the name of the book the guy in The Shining was supposedly writing? That would be fictional fictional fiction...

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