what a tangled web

[inmyriadbits]

Katie and I were talking about "Patient Zero"-type author influences earlier re: Georgette Heyer and every Regency romance written after. Influences in general are something I always enjoy speculating on whenever a connection occurs to me.

You know the game: you read Dorothy L. Sayers and go "This Bunter character...she was totally a fan of P.G. Wodehouse, wasn't she?" Or you read Lois McMaster Bujold; in the early books, you think "Yep, she's a Star Trek fan," and in the later ones (particularly of A Civil Campaign), it's "Wow, she is a fan of Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer, AND Dorothy Sayers, isn't she? And The Man From U.N.C.L.E., for good measure." Or maybe it's Naomi Novik, being a fan of the Master & Commander series. Or Stephanie Meyer and The Book of Mormon. :D Or, going off books and into film, Quentin Tarantino fanboying Sam Fuller, or a million and one people loving Hitchcock.

I don't really have anything insightful to say, I suppose. I just enjoy finding connections between things, especially in reverse – like being massively in love with Casablanca for years before I saw La Grande Illusion and realized hey, Jean Renoir did the whole La Marsellaise scene concept years before Michael Curtiz.

Anyway. Surely I'm not the only person to do this. Y'all have any favorite connections of your own?

Comments

[janet-carter.livejournal.com]

I love that game! Dorothy Dunnett read her Sayers, too - there's definitely some Wimsey in Lymond.

[inmyriadbits.livejournal.com]

I've not read Dorothy Dunnett! But if she likes Sayers, perhaps I shall have to... :)

[janet-carter.livejournal.com]

I recommend her Lymond series if you're in the mood for long, detailed, awesome historical adventures. It took me a while to get into it, and a while for it to start to pay off (my boss at the time kept lending me the books and insisting that I read them), but it was definitely worth it.