

Conceptually Summarizing the Classics - danielrm26
http://danielmiessler.com/blog/a-proposed-project-to-summarize-the-concepts-taught-by-the-classics

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dmlorenzetti
Such a project might have value, but I think not for the motivation stated.

A lot of novels reference others, not to reference their "core concepts", but
to allude to relationships between characters. There's also a fair amount of
quoting and shadowing just for fun-- say, the novelistic equivalent of a
Hollywood director intentionally "paying homage" to a scene in an earlier
movie.

This reminds me, actually, of a cross-reference in Lermontov's "A Hero of Our
Time." Nabokov did the translation, and obviously enjoyed himself while noting
its debts to other works. One of his end-notes (to a quotation in French) read
something like "The allusion is to La Femme de Trente Ans, a vulgar novelette,
ending in ridiculous melodrama, by the overrated French writer Balzac."

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danielrm26
I wasn't actually thinking of novels referencing novels, but rather non-
fiction referencing novels. Like, Christopher Hitchens referencing Orwell, for
example.

