The City of Dreaming Books
Encyclopedia
The City of Dreaming Books (original title: Die Stadt der Träumenden Bücher) is the fourth novel in the Zamonia series written and illustrated by German author Walter Moers
, but the third to be translated into English by John Brownjohn. The German
version was released in Autumn 2004, and the English
version followed in Autumn 2007.
's possessions, including a perfect story written by an unknown author. An aspiring author himself, he travels to Bookholm, the city of dreaming books, in search of the unknown writer. Upon arrival, Yarnspinner falls in love with the city because of its literary appreciation. But beneath Bookholm stretch vast labyrinthine catacombs
in which many valuable books lie hidden – but also dangers of unimaginable sorts: Various kinds of monstrous insects and other inconceivable horrors, the deadly Toxicotomes – books which can injure and kill anyone who touches them, blood-thirsty book hunters, and worst of all, the Shadow King.
Yarnspinner is hoping this city of literature can fulfill his hunger for inspiration and help him solve the riddle of the mystery writer and his amazing story. Unfortunately the first real spark of hope gets a shower of questions when he is inexplicably warned for lurking danger and given the advice to flee while he still can. Follow his adventure in the city and his quest for answers in this book.
The City of Dreaming Books also contains a wealth of made-up words, which can be found in most of Moers' work. Some are omnomatopoeic, others are amalgamations of existing words or Indo-European root words; still others may have origins no more descript than the raw product of Walter Moers' imagination. Many such words can be found in Chapter 60, where Yarnspinner learns forgotten Zamonian words whose meanings are extremely subtle and specific. A sampling of these are listed below:
Walter Moers
Walter Moers is one of the best-known and commercially most successful German comic creators and authors.-Life and work:...
, but the third to be translated into English by John Brownjohn. The German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
version was released in Autumn 2004, and the English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
version followed in Autumn 2007.
Plot
Optimus Yarnspinner, or Hildegunst von Mythenmetz in the German version, is a Lindworm (dinosaur) who inherits his authorial godfatherGodparent
A godparent, in many denominations of Christianity, is someone who sponsors a child's baptism. A male godparent is a godfather, and a female godparent is a godmother...
's possessions, including a perfect story written by an unknown author. An aspiring author himself, he travels to Bookholm, the city of dreaming books, in search of the unknown writer. Upon arrival, Yarnspinner falls in love with the city because of its literary appreciation. But beneath Bookholm stretch vast labyrinthine catacombs
Catacombs
Catacombs, human-made subterranean passageways for religious practice. Any chamber used as a burial place can be described as a catacomb, although the word is most commonly associated with the Roman empire...
in which many valuable books lie hidden – but also dangers of unimaginable sorts: Various kinds of monstrous insects and other inconceivable horrors, the deadly Toxicotomes – books which can injure and kill anyone who touches them, blood-thirsty book hunters, and worst of all, the Shadow King.
Yarnspinner is hoping this city of literature can fulfill his hunger for inspiration and help him solve the riddle of the mystery writer and his amazing story. Unfortunately the first real spark of hope gets a shower of questions when he is inexplicably warned for lurking danger and given the advice to flee while he still can. Follow his adventure in the city and his quest for answers in this book.
Word Play
The names of many of the authors listed in The City of Dreaming Books are anagrams of famous authors (below are a few listed in alphabetical order by the last name of the famous author).- Ergor Banco = Roger BaconRoger BaconRoger Bacon, O.F.M. , also known as Doctor Mirabilis , was an English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empirical methods...
- Lugo Blah (a Zamonian Gagaist) = Hugo BallHugo BallHugo Ball was a German author, poet and one of the leading Dada artists.Hugo Ball was born in Pirmasens, Germany and was raised in a middle-class Catholic family. He studied sociology and philosophy at the universities of Munich and Heidelberg...
(a German Dadaist) - Hornac de Bloaze = Honoré de BalzacHonoré de BalzacHonoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....
- Rashid el Clarebeau = Charles BaudelaireCharles BaudelaireCharles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
- Bethelzia B. Binngrow = Elizabeth B. Browning
- Trebor Snurb = Robert BurnsRobert BurnsRobert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...
- Selwi Rollcar = Lewis CarrollLewis CarrollCharles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
- Auselm T. Edgecroil = Samuel T. Coleridge
- Asdrel Chickens = Charles DickensCharles DickensCharles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
- Evsko Dosti = (Fyodor) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Doylan Cone (Author of Sir Ginel) = Conan DoyleArthur Conan DoyleSir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
(Sir Arthur Conan Doyle author of, among other works, Sir Nigel) - Samoth Yarg = Thomas GrayThomas GrayThomas Gray was a poet, letter-writer, classical scholar and professor at Cambridge University.-Early life and education:...
- Dolreich Hirnfiedler = Friedrich HölderlinFriedrich HölderlinJohann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin was a major German lyric poet, commonly associated with the artistic movement known as Romanticism. Hölderlin was also an important thinker in the development of German Idealism, particularly his early association with and philosophical influence on his...
- Ugor Vochti = Victor HugoVictor HugoVictor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
- Honj Steak = John KeatsJohn KeatsJohn Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...
- Melvin Hermalle = Herman MelvilleHerman MelvilleHerman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
- Gramerta Climelth (Author of Gone with the Tornado) = Margaret MitchellMargaret MitchellMargaret Munnerlyn Mitchell was an American author and journalist. Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1937 for her epic American Civil War era novel, Gone with the Wind, which was the only novel by Mitchell published during her lifetime.-Family:Margaret Mitchell was born in Atlanta,...
- Perla la Gadeon = Edgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
- Inka Almira Rierre = Rainer Maria RilkeRainer Maria RilkeRené Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke , better known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was a Bohemian–Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most significant poets in the German language...
- T. T. Kreischwurst = Kurt SchwittersKurt SchwittersKurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters was a German painter who was born in Hanover, Germany. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including Dada, Constructivism, Surrealism, poetry, sound, painting, sculpture, graphic design, typography and what came to be known as...
- Aliesha Wimperslake = William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
- Elo Slooty = Leo TolstoyLeo TolstoyLev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
- Rasco Elwid = Oscar WildeOscar WildeOscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
- Wamilli Swordthrow = William WordsworthWilliam WordsworthWilliam Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
The City of Dreaming Books also contains a wealth of made-up words, which can be found in most of Moers' work. Some are omnomatopoeic, others are amalgamations of existing words or Indo-European root words; still others may have origins no more descript than the raw product of Walter Moers' imagination. Many such words can be found in Chapter 60, where Yarnspinner learns forgotten Zamonian words whose meanings are extremely subtle and specific. A sampling of these are listed below:
- "fructodism:" the sensation experienced when squeezing an orange until it becomes soft.
- "rumbumblion:" the sound produced by a volcanic eruption.
- "indigabluntic:" one of a number of derogatory epithets.
- "nasodiscrepant:" a person whose nostrils are notably different in size.