# Unreliable narrator...but what about unreliable REALITY in fiction? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 30, 2007, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unreliable-narrator-but-what-about-unreliable-reality-in-fiction/406128 "2007-05-30T23:01:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/51bf81/32.png) [@TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unreliable-narrator-but-what-about-unreliable-reality-in-fiction/406128/1 "2007-05-30T23:01:19Z")
We’ve all read the classic “unreliable narrator” stories - _Pale Fire_, and so on, and they’re great. But what are some books or stories where the entire reality or universe is usurped by the end and revealed to be a construction or to be other than that you thought it was all along? I mean something along the lines of M. Night Shyamalan’s _the Village_, in which it turns out that the whole thing has been happening in the present day rather than in the 1800’s as the viewer has been led to believe all along. Or maybe something like Dark City, where it turns out that this strange Art Deco noir city is actually floating in the middle of outer space. What else pulls whole “setting” reveals like this? Novels, short stories, or films. What’s a medieval novel that reveals that the whole thing is happening in a forest outside present day London? What’s a traditional fantasy quest where it turns out that the whole fantasy kingdom is actually in a bubble on the moon? Etc. etc. etc. ---
**Author:** ![TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/51bf81/32.png) [@TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unreliable-narrator-but-what-about-unreliable-reality-in-fiction/406128/2 "2007-05-30T23:04:32Z")
Now that I think of it, if it’s a REALLY awesome reveal, feel free to put it in spoiler tags. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unreliable-narrator-but-what-about-unreliable-reality-in-fiction/406128/3 "2007-05-30T23:04:57Z")
The classic TV examples: The last scene in “Newhart” when it’s revealed the entire series is a dream and the quirky New Hampshirites exist only in the Japanese food-addled unconscious of a Chicago psychologist; and “St Elsewhere” in which we learn that vast tracts of the television landscape are part of the imaginings of an [autistic child](http://home.vicnet.net.au/~kwgow/crossovers.html). ---
**Author:** ![BluePitbull](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@BluePitbull](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BluePitbull)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unreliable-narrator-but-what-about-unreliable-reality-in-fiction/406128/4 "2007-05-30T23:10:29Z")
[QUOTE=Otto] The classic TV examples: The last scene in “Newhart” when it’s revealed the entire series is a dream and the quirky New Hampshirites exist only in the Japanese food-addled unconscious of a Chicago psychologist; and “St Elsewhere” in which we learn that vast tracts of the television landscape are part of the imaginings of an [autistic child](http://home.vicnet.net.au/~kwgow/crossovers.html). [/QUOTE] Sounds like bad lazy writing. So instead of wraping up all storylines, it turns out that the whole story never happened to the characters? ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unreliable-narrator-but-what-about-unreliable-reality-in-fiction/406128/5 "2007-05-30T23:17:54Z")
It’s obviously a spoiler to tell you this, but I [wrote a story](http://www.fictionpress.com/s/1560027/1/) of this nature 😉 ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unreliable-narrator-but-what-about-unreliable-reality-in-fiction/406128/6 "2007-05-30T23:23:00Z")
Somehow I don’t think this is what you were thinking of, but \*\*One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest \*\* (the novel not the movie) is possibly the ultimate example of unreliable reality. It is told from the first person perspective of a schitzophrenic who is never sure if what he sees is real or his sickness. Cool stuff. ---
**Author:** ![oft\_wears\_hats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7993a0/32.png) [@oft\_wears\_hats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oft_wears_hats)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unreliable-narrator-but-what-about-unreliable-reality-in-fiction/406128/7 "2007-05-30T23:23:22Z")
**Existenz** , which had the equivalent of a matrix in a matrix in a matrix. It was also quite stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unreliable-narrator-but-what-about-unreliable-reality-in-fiction/406128/8 "2007-05-30T23:25:00Z")
We can start with many, perhaps most., of the works of Philip K. Dick to start with. ---
**Author:** ![JSexton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@JSexton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JSexton)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unreliable-narrator-but-what-about-unreliable-reality-in-fiction/406128/9 "2007-05-30T23:25:51Z")
_Planet of the Apes_. Not a different planet after all. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unreliable-narrator-but-what-about-unreliable-reality-in-fiction/406128/10 "2007-05-30T23:27:31Z")
Science fiction has quite a few of those. I recall a David Brin short story that talked about how the people of the future had mostly retreated into self deluding virtual worlds, **including the reader** , and that the story is an intrusion inserted from the real world outside. In _The Reality Matrix_, the entire world, people included, is revealed to be a simulation taking place in a device in a smallish room. There’s _The Matrix_. There was the STNG episode where it turned out a fair amount of it was a holodeck fake designed by Professor Moriarty. In _Captive Universe_ by Harry Harrison it turns out the primitive valley society of the protagonist is actually artificially created and on an interstellar generation ship. I’ve never played it, but as I understand it the _World of Darkness_ game setting the world as we understand it is a facade imposed by humanity’s collective beliefs over a larger, more chaotic and arbitrary reality. Also, what was that Jim Carrey movie where he was living in a fake world ? ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unreliable-narrator-but-what-about-unreliable-reality-in-fiction/406128/11 "2007-05-30T23:29:52Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] Also, what was that Jim Carrey movie where he was living in a fake world ? [/QUOTE] _The Truman Show_. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unreliable-narrator-but-what-about-unreliable-reality-in-fiction/406128/12 "2007-05-30T23:32:32Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] Also, what was that Jim Carrey movie where he was living in a fake world ? [/QUOTE] **The Truman Show.** However, everyone else in the movie (along with the audience) was aware from the beginning it was a fake world. ---
**Author:** ![TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/51bf81/32.png) [@TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2007, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unreliable-narrator-but-what-about-unreliable-reality-in-fiction/406128/13 "2007-05-30T23:42:19Z")
[QUOTE=oft wears hats] **Existenz** , which had the equivalent of a matrix in a matrix in a matrix. It was also quite stupid. [/QUOTE] I just got it from Netflix having never seen it but being a big fan of both Cronenberg and that sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unreliable-narrator-but-what-about-unreliable-reality-in-fiction/406128/14 "2007-05-31T00:00:08Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] We can start with many, perhaps most., of the works of Philip K. Dick to start with. [/QUOTE] I actually thought of my favorite Dick story (ahem) after reading the OP, [Man in the High Castle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_In_the_High_Castle). I won’t give spoilers (the wiki does), but it’s about an alternate history in which the Nazis won WW2, and the main character discovers a banned novel {_Grasshopper Lies Heavy_} that’s an alternate history in which FDR was never assassinated and Germany lost the war (i.e. our own timeline). A truly great book by a truly brilliant (and schizoaffective) writer whose own problems with real and perceived reality influenced all of his writings. (On an interview program one of Dick’s children was asked about the “tragedy” of her father’s death before he became really huge post Bladerunner and she responded to the effect of “Thank God he died before he was famous- he’d have been more miserable and paranoid than ever before”, and she didn’t mean it bitterly or maliciously.) ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unreliable-narrator-but-what-about-unreliable-reality-in-fiction/406128/15 "2007-05-31T00:03:31Z")
It’s been at least 10 years since I read it, but in Pet Semetary, isn’t there a whole chapter that turns out to be a dream at the end? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unreliable-narrator-but-what-about-unreliable-reality-in-fiction/406128/16 "2007-05-31T00:05:07Z")
Andrew Weiner’s “The News from D Street.” (1986) The news is not good. The news is not good at all. Even further back, there’s Alfred Bester’s classic story “Adam and No Eve.” (1941) Possibly the only science fiction story John Updike has ever admitted reading. The reader gets the impression it is set in the future (rocket ships in 1941), but the twist at the end is that it’s set in the very distant past There’s also “[Men Without Bones](http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/classics/classics_archive/kersh/kersh1.html)” by Gerald Kersh, which does things in a unique way. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unreliable-narrator-but-what-about-unreliable-reality-in-fiction/406128/17 "2007-05-31T00:08:10Z")
Not sure if this is the same thing, but George Romero leaves it unresolved whether [_Martin_](http://onfilm.chicagoreader.com/movies/capsules/5980_MARTIN) is actually a vampire, or just a crazy person who believes he’s a vampire. ---
**Author:** ![oft\_wears\_hats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7993a0/32.png) [@oft\_wears\_hats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oft_wears_hats)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unreliable-narrator-but-what-about-unreliable-reality-in-fiction/406128/18 "2007-05-31T00:34:01Z")
[QUOTE=VCO3] I just got it from Netflix having never seen it but being a big fan of both Cronenberg and that sort of thing. [/QUOTE] Well, if you like that sort of thing, you may like it. I felt jerked around as a viewer, and a lot of very strange things happen, and it just didn’t do it for me. Let me know what you think (I’m assuming you haven’t watched it yet). ---
**Author:** ![tanstaafl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@tanstaafl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tanstaafl)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unreliable-narrator-but-what-about-unreliable-reality-in-fiction/406128/19 "2007-05-31T00:48:12Z")
[QUOTE=oft wears hats] **Existenz** , which had the equivalent of a matrix in a matrix in a matrix. It was also quite stupid. [/QUOTE] And the very similar [_The Thirteenth Floor_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139809/) which came out almost at the same time. I’d also suggest [_The Game_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119174/) and (in a very different way) [_Jacob’s Ladder_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099871/). ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2007, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unreliable-narrator-but-what-about-unreliable-reality-in-fiction/406128/20 "2007-05-31T00:50:12Z")
[QUOTE=Sampiro] I actually thought of my favorite Dick story (ahem) after reading the OP, [Man in the High Castle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_In_the_High_Castle). I won’t give spoilers (the wiki does), but it’s about an alternate history in which the Nazis won WW2, and the main character discovers a banned novel {_Grasshopper Lies Heavy_} that’s an alternate history in which FDR was never assassinated and Germany lost the war (i.e. our own timeline). A truly great book by a truly brilliant (and schizoaffective) writer whose own problems with real and perceived reality influenced all of his writings. (On an interview program one of Dick’s children was asked about the “tragedy” of her father’s death before he became really huge post Bladerunner and she responded to the effect of “Thank God he died before he was famous- he’d have been more miserable and paranoid than ever before”, and she didn’t mean it bitterly or maliciously.) [/QUOTE] Nitpick: _The Grasshopper lies heavy_ isn’t set in our timeline, it’s a completely different third timeline, where the Axis loses and England and the U.S. become rival superpowers. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unreliable-narrator-but-what-about-unreliable-reality-in-fiction/406128.md?page=2)