What do you do?
What happens when you are reading a novel and see a character name a novel they are reading within that story? What do you do?
One of the classic examples of this is when Jane Austin in Northanger Abbey mentions how the heroine, Catherine Morland, is reading The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe. Similar to the male character Grigg in the movie adaptation of The Jane Austen Book Club, I immediately ordered a copy of Udolpho (I haven’t finished it yet but intend to do so at some point since I rarely DNF a book).
The times I recall off the top of my head seeing this in modern novels is a few times in books by Preston & Child (where they are usually referring obliquely to one of their own novels, albeit one from a different series) and I’m pretty sure that Sue Grafton’s protagonist Kinsey Millhone does it as well on occasion (I think she mentions reading a Len Deighton novel in one). Of course, now that it’s in the forefront of my mind, I’ll probably come across it more often.
Recently, when I was re-reading for the fourth or fifth time one of my favorite novels (read it the first time back in the 1970s, I think) — The Gabriel Hounds by Mary Stewart — I caught that the heroine started reading a book by Margery Allingham called The Tiger in the Smoke, which led me to get a copy of it to add to my reading pile!
Where have you come across this rabbit hole? Where a novel suggests another novel within the story? And do you feel compelled to also read it?
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