# Please ID this book/story? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 17, 2014, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-this-book-story/683946 "2014-03-17T20:29:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-this-book-story/683946/1 "2014-03-17T20:29:58Z")
I thought it was written by Nabokov, and I thought it was called “The Spider” but I seem to be wrong on both counts, because I can’t seem to find it anywhere. It was about a mentally ill man, who rented a room. He began to descend into schizophrenia, or at least into hallucinations. He built, or hallucinated building a web that filled his entire bedroom. I also think that it was made into a movie in the not-too-distant past. That’s about all my aging mind can muster. Help me Dopers! 😉 😉 😉 ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-this-book-story/683946/2 "2014-03-17T21:22:44Z")
Could it have been this movie? It sounds like an original work, not based on a book, but the preview on IMDB does show him building a web of sorts from string in his room. > **[Spider (2002 film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_(2002_film))** > > Spider is a 2002 psychological thriller film produced and directed by David Cronenberg and based on the 1990 novel of the same name by Patrick McGrath, who also wrote the screenplay. > The film premiered at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and enjoyed some media buzz; however, it was released in only a few cinemas at the year's end by distributor Sony Pictures Classics. Nonetheless, the film enjoyed much acclaim by critics and especially by Cronenberg enthusiasts. The film garnered a Best Director... > **[Spider (2002) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0278731/)** > > Spider: Directed by David Cronenberg. With Ralph Fiennes, Miranda Richardson, Gabriel Byrne, Lynn Redgrave. A mentally disturbed man takes residence in a halfway house. His mind gradually slips back into the realm created by his illness, where he... ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-this-book-story/683946/3 "2014-03-17T21:26:24Z")
Oops, looks like it was a book: Spider by Patrick McGrath. I haven’t read it, but I’m guessing this is it. > **[Spider (novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_(novel))** > > Spider is a novel by the British novelist Patrick McGrath, originally published in the United States in 1990. In the novel, a psychological thriller with an unreliable narrator, the protagonist wrestles with mental illness and trauma from his past. > Spider, birth name Dennis Cleg, is a recent arrival from a psychiatric hospital to a halfway house in the East End of London—just a few streets away from the very house where he grew up, which was the scene of some barely visible but tremendous trau... ---
**Author:** ![chiroptera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chiroptera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chiroptera)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-this-book-story/683946/4 "2014-03-17T21:26:28Z")
Doesn’t exactly mesh with your remembered details but could it be the short story [The Metamorphis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis)by Kafka? Most recent film adaptation was in 2012, according to that wiki link. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-this-book-story/683946/5 "2014-03-17T21:35:40Z")
> [@chiroptera](#): > > Doesn’t exactly mesh with your remembered details but could it be the short story [The Metamorphis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis)by Kafka? > > Most recent film adaptation was in 2012, according to that wiki link. I doubt it; too familiar. FWIW, I’m not a Nabokov reader, but I did index a run of a journal dedicated to him, and this story doesn’t ring a bell. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2014, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-id-this-book-story/683946/6 "2014-03-18T05:31:49Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > Could it have been this movie? It sounds like an original work, not based on a book, but the preview on IMDB does show him building a web of sorts from string in his room. > > [Spider (2002 film) - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_(2002_film)) > [Spider (2002) - IMDb](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0278731/) I think it must have been this. And perhaps I conflated it with Metamorphosis. :smack: Memories is weird. Thanks y’all!