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The House of Rumour


"Whenever he's got a new book out I drop everything." - David Bowie
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What effect did the mix of fictional and real characters have on your reading experience?

Created: 04/19/13

Replies: 9

Posted Apr. 19, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert

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What effect did the mix of fictional and real characters have on your reading experience?

Ian Fleming (creator of James Bond), Philip K. Dick (science fiction author), and Rudolf Hess (Hitler’s deputy) all appear in the novel, alongside such purely fictional creations as Larry Zagorski, who narrates many parts of the book. What effect did this mix of fictional and real characters have on your reading experience?


Posted Apr. 22, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
sarahc

Join Date: 02/02/12

Posts: 6

RE: What effect did the mix of fictional and real characters have on your reading experience?

It is the connecting factor in the book. Without it it is meaningless, trivial drivel. The real characters/events and the fictional and their stories do make a plausible (if that is the word) story line.
It is a work of fiction, not real.


Posted Apr. 22, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
lisag

Join Date: 01/12/12

Posts: 298

RE: What effect did the mix of fictional and real characters have on your reading experience?

I enjoyed the use of real historical figures. I don't always, as it can rankle me to see real people thrown together in a work of fiction, but for whatever reason I felt it worked in this book.


Posted Apr. 22, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
Susan S.

Join Date: 04/22/13

Posts: 4

RE: What effect did the mix of fictional and real characters have on your reading experience?

I kept going to the internet to see how closely the book tracked to actual facts about the real individuals and also to find out whether some of the characters were real or fictional. A few that I already knew something about - Ian Fleming, L. Ron Hubbard, plus the whole story of Jonestown - seemed right on the money. There were others that I had not know about, such as Jack Parsons, or the obscure novelist who wrote the obscure book Swastika Nights, who also turned out to be real, as well as a number of others. I loved the way the book was partially about them, and partially about the fictional characters.


Posted Apr. 23, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
jeffs

Join Date: 06/18/12

Posts: 49

RE: What effect did the mix of fictional and real characters have on your reading experience?

I like the mix of fictional and real characters. i think this can sometimes give a novel more of a feel of time and place. Historical fiction is a category i love to read if it is done well. I also agree with Susan S. and I kept going to Google to check out some of the characters and events related in the story.


Posted Apr. 23, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
eileenp

Join Date: 10/20/10

Posts: 33

RE: What effect did the mix of fictional and real characters have on your reading experience?

I think one of the wonderful things about this book is that it didn't matter which characters were real and which were fictional. Recognizing a character as a historical figure was an added plus, but I didn't worry too much about which 'real' ones I was missing. (Mind you, it didn't even occur to me to use Google to see which ones were real.)


Posted Apr. 25, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
lesleyf

Join Date: 05/14/11

Posts: 119

RE: What effect did the mix of fictional and real characters have on your reading experience?

It enhanced the story immeasurably. It was great fun to recognize historical figures and see more about them. Knowing some of the information about those that were real, only made the facts I did not know all the more fascinating. The origin of the Double-O numbers for spies in MI6 for example made me laugh out loud. True or not it was a great piece of trivia!


Posted Apr. 25, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
Lea Ann

Join Date: 04/20/11

Posts: 99

RE: What effect did the mix of fictional and real characters have on your reading experience?

There was much about this book that I found confusing, but each chapter as a stand-alone was well written and interesting. I liked the mixture of fact and fiction re the "real" characters as it was interesting to speculate if the actual persons would have acted as they did in the book; what was fact and what was fiction. The parts that I found confusing were, to me, the apparent dis-connect between chapters.


Posted Apr. 25, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
christineb

Join Date: 10/13/11

Posts: 120

RE: What effect did the mix of fictional and real characters have on your reading experience?

I actually enjoyed the real characters and their stories much more than the fictional who I thought were just sort of thrown in with no real connections to their counterparts.


Posted May. 07, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
jww

Join Date: 05/31/11

Posts: 166

RE: What effect did the mix of fictional and real characters have on your reading experience?

It didn't help. The characters could have been interesting in themselves but in context of this 'story', they lost validity. A mix of real and fictional characters can be advantageous to both, but not in this book. Sorry, just didn't care for the whole experience of 'House of Rumours'.


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