The Book of Calliope
It is a laborious madness, and an impoverishing one, the madness of composing vast books—setting out in five hundred pages an idea that can be perfectly related orally in five minutes. The better way to go about it is to pretend those books already exist, and offer a summary, a commentary on them. I have chosen to write notes on imaginary books.
— Jorge Luis Borges
It is not rare for a story, novel or film to reference a book that doesn’t exist. Borges, of course, is the exemplar with titles such as The God of the Labyrinth, History of the Land Called Uqbar, and The Book of Sand. Lovecraft is also well known in this regard with the infamous Necronomicon and the Book of Azathoth. Stanisław Lem wrote several books, including A Perfect Vacuum and Imaginary Magnitude, that were nothing but reviews and introductions to imaginary books. Indeed, it seems that including an imaginary book in your novel is a sure-fire way to arouse the modern reader. Much of Danielewski's novel House of Leaves is the actual text of an imaginary work called The Navidson Record.
However, one of my favorites is The Book of Calliope found in Calvino’s Invisible Cities. In the story, Marco Polo tells Kublai Kahn of an exiled scholar who, in her loneliness, wrote of an imaginary city with exacting and encyclopedic detail. Part gazetteer, part atlas, the book devotes a chapter to each of the city’s neighborhoods. From the flowered extravagance of the royal palace to the dismal labyrinth of the sewers, the book painstakingly describes the city brick by brick.
On the day she finishes the book, Calliope sets it aside with satisfaction and walks to the market for fresh bread, dates, and honey. She enjoys the afternoon sun slanting between the buildings and the click of her steps on the cobblestones. Then, at a strangely familiar fountain, she stops, puzzled. She has no recollection of previously seeing this fountain, or, for that matter, of ever passing through the city gates. Like a sleeper emerging from a dream, she realizes the horrible truth. Her book has created this city.
Over the next several years she discovers that she must read from her book daily. Otherwise the city begins to fade and retreat into nothingness. On her deathbed she passes the book to the city magistrate and presses upon him its vital importance. And so it’s been from generation to generation. Each new magistrate devotes their life to reading from the book lest their beloved city—its people, traditions, art, and history—vanish from the world.
