Readers: 2 related questions about books

[wonky]

@Kaio

So, if you came across an author you were unfamiliar with, would it influence your enjoyment of the story to read that the main character had the same first name as the author?

A part of me has always been amused that the most beautiful of the Bennett sisters in Pride and Prejudice was named “Jane,” but otherwise, I probably don’t even notice.

[FeAudrey]

@Der_Trihs

… (Mercedes Lackey) also had a little story on her website where she’s confronted by her characters who complain about the hell she puts them through …

Maksim Gorky’s serio-comic short story “Christmas Phantoms” may be the original of this trope – characters from his conventional heart-rending Christmas stories accuse him of exploiting their misery for personal gain.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@chinchalinchin

Valis. Although, Horselover Fat wasn’t actually the author’s persona. The main character referred to himself as Philip. Horselover was the main character’s split personality where he stored all the crazy nonsense about the robotic satelitte god (Vast Active Living Intelligent Satelitte, hence VALIS) who transmitted directly into his brain via a pink laser beam the revelation that time stopped somewhere around 400 AD and the American Empire was a virtual overlay of the Roman Empire. Or something. It really only made sense if you dosed yourself into a coma with LSD.

Even better: In Radio Free Albemuth, the novel he wrote prior to writing VALIS (which was almost a straight re-write of RFA), one of the main characters is a science fiction author named Philip K. Dick who has visions given to him, he thinks, by an otherworldly entity that he names VALIS, etc.