Famous books by geography - what I have learned

[nwhyte]

Why did I do this?

Back in January, Mental Floss listed the "most famous book set in each US state" (and DC, but not Puerto Rico etc). My patriotic European soul was stirred; there are only slightly more European countries than US states, and it must surely be possible, I thought, to find a moderately well-known book set in each

Comments

[secritcrush]

I'm sorry to hear you are done - I was hoping you were going to do the whole world. It's been interesting.

[nwhyte]

Thanks! I came across another blog by someone who did try reading a book by a writer from every country in the world. But for San Marino, she had to resort to a tourist guide; and she had a book from São Tomé and Principe specially translated, which is more dedicated than I can be!

[del_c]

Had you stopped arbitrarily at some point, are there countries you would have felt wrong not including? I think you could have got away with stopping after Luxembourg (or Malta or Iceland) and so restricted the list to just 44-46 according to Wikipedia. The ratio would still have been 250:1, but due to the large size of the largest countries, not the small size of the smallest. Luxembourg has in absolute terms a similar population to Wyoming.

I think the larger effect is the one you mention, that European countries are often both non-Anglophone and physically distant from the centres of LT and GR activity.

[nwhyte]

The Vatican is so culturally significant that it would have felt wrong to leave it out; also I knew that I woud enjoy writing the posts on Liechtenstein and San Marino. (Less so Andorra and Monaco.)

Also, I had a specific request not to neglect the Isle of Man, having started with England, Scotland, Wales and Norn Iron; and if you do the IoM, you have to do the Channel Islands; and in the European context that then also means Gibraltar and the Nordic islands.

I drew the line at generally unrecognised separatist territories. I found a mystery novel set in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a Bildungsroman set in Transnistria, and a post-apocalypse vampire novel set in Abkhazia; but (with all due respect to my Turkish Cypriot and Abkhaz friends) I classified those with Cyprus, Moldova and Georgia respectively, and did not search for works set in South Ossetia or Nagorno-Karabakh

[del_c]

I raised my eyebrows at you breaking out the UK, but like you I confess a selfish interest in the result.

[strange_complex]

Perhaps I could have considered looking at the best-known book originally written in each European language instead.

That's your next project, surely? ;-)

[nwhyte]

No, no, it's your turn, I insist!!!!

[surliminal]

I found this utterly fascinating. Your summary doesn't show as much dominance by takes of WW2 atrocities as seemed prevalent at one pint - I found that more depressing than the airport novels. You could get a very well selling book out of this conceit I suspect..

[nwhyte]

Thanks. The WW2 stuff is pretty dominant for a lot of large and medium-sized countries, of course, and until I tallied up the numbers I would have shared your impression of my findings!

I am pondering the book option. Knocking these posts together and then ebooking them with Scrivener should not take very long. (But where to find the time...)

[bopeepsheep]

An Anglophone task in keeping with the USA-by-state idea might be British novels by county, although I suspect that the compiler would need to do a lot more active research. LT/GR probably doesn't easily provide a list of "novels set in Dorset", and they would have to pick which definition of county should be used!

(I am now intrigued, living in a city/county with far more than its fair share of novels... But I don't think I have the energy for the project!)

[nwhyte]

It would require quite a lot of grinding, as LT and GR are not well set up for this research (LT perhaps a little easier); but at the same time, once you get into the swing of it, it's oddly rewarding!

We discussed your home city before; for Dorset, as it happens, there is a very clear winner on LibraryThing, which is Tess of the d'Urbervilles. You have to allow "South Wessex" as Dorset in disguise, but I think most people would go along with that. Wintoncester is obviously Winchester, but everywhere else is in Dorset, notably Sandbourne = Bournemouth.