Hello all
In non-fiction works, is common — indeed, it’s practically expected — to find passages of prose interspersed with quotations. Short quotes are simply placed in quotation marks, while longer ones are set in their own paragraph, often in italics and with narrower margins.
I’m curious to know if there are any works of fiction that use a similar device, incorporating quotations (whether real or invented) into the body of the text in this manner. Plenty of novels use quotations as epigraphs, and some may even utilise techniques such as footnotes, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen this done in this style, and I wondered whether anyone here has come across anything of this nature?
Thanks in advance.
by RakeTheAnomander
2 Comments
*House of Leaves* might fit the bill. It’s a pretty controversial book, on this sub. People tend to either love it or despise it.
I thought it was fantastic. The book is almost like a documentary in novel form. Sorta. Kinda.
> I’m curious to know if there are any works of fiction that use a similar device, incorporating quotations (whether real or invented) into the body of the text in this manner. Plenty of novels use quotations as epigraphs, and some may even utilise techniques such as footnotes, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen this done in this style
I read *Pale Fire* recently – it’s structured as a poem, with the ‘real story’ told in commentary footnotes.