''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 Walter Moers (; born 24 May 1957 in Mönchengladbach) is a German comic creator and author. Life and work Moers held odd jobs after leaving school before starting a commercial apprenticeship. He taught himself how to draw, and has been publis ...

, but the third to be translated into English by

John Brownjohn John Maxwell Brownjohn (11 April 1929 – 6 January 2020) was a British literary translator. Career John Brownjohn translated more than 160 books, and won the Schlegel-Tieck Prize for German translation three times and the Helen and Kurt Wolf ...

. The

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

version was released in Autumn 2004, and the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

version followed in Autumn 2007. It is followed by two sequels, ''The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books'' (2011) and ''The Castle of Dreaming Books'' (TBA).

Plot

Protagonist A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a st ...

Optimus Yarnspinner (''Hildegunst von Mythenmetz'' in the German text) is a

Lindworm The lindworm (''worm'' meaning snake), also spelled lindwyrm or lindwurm, is a mythical creature in Northern and Central European folklore living deep in the forest that traditionally has the shape of a giant serpent monster. It can be seen as a ...

(a race of bibliophile

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

s) who inherits a perfectly written manuscript from his mentor. Its author went to Bookholm, the center of the Zamonian book trade, and was not heard of again. Seeking adventure as well as inspiration for his own writing, Optimus travels to Bookholm in search of the mysterious author. A publisher directs him to Pfistomefel Smyke, who controls the book trade by means of musical

hypnosis Hypnosis is a human condition involving focused attention (the selective attention/selective inattention hypothesis, SASI), reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.In 2015, the American Psychologica ...

. Smyke pretends to help, but then reveals that he hates art and that a truly gifted author would raise the bar and hurt the market for mass-produced fiction. Smyke drugs Optimus and transfers him to the catacombs of Bookholm. The catacombs are a labyrinth of old, disused shops and storerooms beneath the city. They are inhabited by all kinds of monsters as well as bookhunters, brutish mercenaries who only care for the high prices that rare old books can fetch on the surface. As Optimus tries to navigate the labyrinth, he falls victim to a bookhunter’s trap and almost gets eaten by a

spider Spiders ( order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species ...

-like sphinxxx. A bookhunter saves him, only to try and to sell Optimus’ body parts as trophies to fans of lindworm literature. The hunter is killed by an unseen force. By means of hypnosis, Optimus is guided to the cave of the booklings, a race of one-eyed creatures who live by reading and memorizing books. There he finds some respite, but when the cave is attacked by bookhunters, Optimus has to flee again. Optimus comes to Shadowhall Castle, home of the Shadow King, a giant who is the mortal enemy of bookhunters. The Shadow King takes a liking to Optimus and tutors him in the art of writing. Eventually he reveals himself to be the mysterious author of the manuscript. Many years ago, he showed his manuscript to Smyke and was transformed into a

golem A golem ( ; he, , gōlem) is an animated, anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore, which is entirely created from inanimate matter (usually clay or mud). The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late 16th-century ...

made of an alchemistic paper that is nearly indestructible but will catch fire if exposed to natural light. He was banished to the catacombs and Smyke put a price on his head, leading to the Shadow King’s feud with the bookhunters. The Shadow King takes Optimus close to the surface where they are ambushed by the bookhunters. The booklings save them by hypnotizing the bookhunters so that they kill themselves. The Shadow King confronts Smyke and kills him, then commits suicide by stepping out into the sun. The resulting fire destroys Bookholm. Optimus flees with a copy of the antique and fearsome Bloody Book and embarks on his own literary career.Overlook Press
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Wordplay

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 real-world author: *Ojahnn Golgo van Fontheweg =

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as trea ...

*Ergor Banco =

Roger Bacon Roger Bacon (; la, Rogerus or ', also '' Rogerus''; ), also known by the scholastic accolade ''Doctor Mirabilis'', was a medieval English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empiri ...

*Lugo Blah (a Zamonian Gagaist) =

Hugo Ball Hugo Ball (; 22 February 1886 – 14 September 1927) was a German author, poet, and essentially the founder of the Dada movement in European art in Zürich in 1916. Among other accomplishments, he was a pioneer in the development of sound poetry. ...

(a German Dadaist) *Hornac de Bloaze =

Honoré de Balzac Honoré de Balzac ( , more commonly , ; born Honoré Balzac;Jean-Louis Dega, La vie prodigieuse de Bernard-François Balssa, père d'Honoré de Balzac : Aux sources historiques de La Comédie humaine, Rodez, Subervie, 1998, 665 p. 20 May 179 ...

*Rashid el Clarebeau =

Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poetry, French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticis ...

*Bethelzia B. Binngrow = Elizabeth B. Browning *Trebor Snurb =

Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who hav ...

*Selwi Rollcar =

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequel ...

*Auselm T. Edgecroil =

Samuel T. Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poetry, English poet, literary criticism, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romanticism, Romantic ...

*Asdrel Chickens =

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

*Evsko Dosti = (Fyodor)

Fyodor Dostoyevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (, ; rus, Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский, Fyódor Mikháylovich Dostoyévskiy, p=ˈfʲɵdər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ dəstɐˈjefskʲɪj, a=ru-Dostoevsky.ogg, links=yes; 11 November 18219 ...

*Doylan Cone (Author of Sir Ginel) =

Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Hol ...

(author, among other works, of ''Sir Nigel'') *Samoth Yarg =

Thomas Gray Thomas Gray (26 December 1716 – 30 July 1771) was an English poet, letter-writer, classics, classical scholar, and professor at Pembroke College, Cambridge, Pembroke College, Cambridge. He is widely known for his ''Elegy Written in a Country ...

*Dolreich Hirnfiedler =

Friedrich Hölderlin Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (, ; ; 20 March 1770 – 7 June 1843) was a German poet and philosopher. Described by Norbert von Hellingrath as "the most German of Germans", Hölderlin was a key figure of German Romanticism. Part ...

*Ugor Vochti =

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...

*Honj Steak =

John Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculo ...

*Melvin Hermalle =

Herman Melville Herman Melville (Name change, born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American people, American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance (literature), American Renaissance period. Among his bes ...

*Gramerta Climelth (Author of ''Gone with the Tornado'') =

Margaret Mitchell Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949) was an American novelist and journalist. Mitchell wrote only one novel, published during her lifetime, the American Civil War-era novel '' Gone with the Wind'', for which she wo ...

*Perla la Gadeon =

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...

*Inka Almira Rierre =

Rainer Maria Rilke René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), shortened to Rainer Maria Rilke (), was an Austrian poet and novelist. He has been acclaimed as an idiosyncratic and expressive poet, and is widely recogni ...

*T. T. Kreischwurst =

Kurt Schwitters Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters (20 June 1887 – 8 January 1948) was a German artist who was born in Hanover, Germany. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including dadaism, constructivism, surrealism, poetry, sound, pain ...

*Aliesha Wimperslake =

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

*Elo Slooty =

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...

*Rasco Elwid =

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...

*Wamilli Swordthrow =

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ' ...

*Rimidalv Vokoban (author of "Love and the Generation Gap") =

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bo ...

(author of ''

Lolita ''Lolita'' is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is notable for its controversial subject: the protagonist and unreliable narrator, a middle-aged literature professor under the pseudonym Humbert Humber ...

'', about the paedophilic passion of a middle-aged European professor for the eponymous heroine) *Gofid Letterkerl =

Gottfried Keller Gottfried Keller (19 July 1819 – 15 July 1890) was a Swiss poet and writer of German literature. Best known for his novel '' Green Henry'' (German: ''Der grüne Heinrich'') and his cycle of novellas called ''The People from Seldwyla'' (''Die Leu ...

*Ertrob Slimu =

Robert Musil Robert Musil (; 6 November 1880 – 15 April 1942) was an Austrian philosophical writer. His unfinished novel, ''The Man Without Qualities'' (german: link=no, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften), is generally considered to be one of the most important ...

''The City of Dreaming Books'' also contains fictional words, found in most of Moers' work. Some are onomatopoeic; others are amalgamations of existing words or Indo-European roots; still others are created by the author. Many such words can be found in Chapter 60. A sample 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. *"glunk:" a sound some animals — including lindworms — can make with their teeth, indicating pleasure or satisfaction, particularly with a certain food

Sequels

''The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books''

A sequel, ''The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books'', has been released, wherein Yarnspinner, now a best-selling author, receives a letter apparently from himself, and visits a rebuilt Bookholm in search of its origin. There, he becomes engrossed in 'Puppetism', the variety of puppet-theatres now ubiquitous in the city, and intrigued by the emulation, among Bookhunters, of Colophonius Regenschein. This second book ends in a

cliffhanger A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode or a film of serialized fiction. A cliffhang ...

, featuring Yarnspinner alone in the still-enormous

catacomb Catacombs are man-made subterranean passageways for religious practice. Any chamber used as a burial place is a catacomb, although the word is most commonly associated with the Roman Empire. Etymology and history The first place to be referred ...

s, with implication that the 'Shadow King' is alive.

Wordplay

The list of fictional authors, anagramming the names of historical authors, continues or repeats in the sequel, expanded therein to include musicians and artists. These include (but are not limited to): *Orphetu Harnschauer =

Arthur Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work ''The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the prod ...

*Nartinian Schneidhasser =

Hans Christian Andersen Hans Christian Andersen ( , ; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales. Andersen's fairy tales, consisti ...

*Plaidy Kurding =

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. ...

*Trebor Sulio Vessenton =

Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll a ...

*Rubert Jashem =

James Thurber James Grover Thurber (December 8, 1894 – November 2, 1961) was an American cartoonist, writer, humorist, journalist and playwright. He was best known for his cartoons and short stories, published mainly in ''The New Yorker'' and collected in ...

*Joghan Rimsh =

John Grisham John Ray Grisham Jr. (; born February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas) is an American novelist, lawyer and former member of the 7th district of the Mississippi House of Representatives, known for his popular legal thrillers. According to the Am ...

*Volkodir Vanabim =

*Wilma Kleballi =

William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...

*Eiderich Fischnertz =

Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...

*Odion la Vivanti =

Antonio Vivaldi Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741) was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist and impresario of Baroque music. Regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, Vivaldi's influence during his lifetime was widespread a ...

*Perla la Gadeon =

*Evubeth van Goldwine =

Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...

*Freechy Jarfer =

Jeffrey Archer Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare (born 15 April 1940) is an English novelist, life peer, convicted criminal, and former politician. Before becoming an author, Archer was a Member of Parliament (1969–1974), but did not ...

*Arlis Worcell =

*Edd van Murch =

Edvard Munch Edvard Munch ( , ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter. His best known work, ''The Scream'' (1893), has become one of Western art's most iconic images. His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the dr ...

*Crederif Pincho =

Frédéric Chopin Frédéric François Chopin (born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin; 1 March 181017 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period, who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leadin ...

Many are identified with their models by reference to the subject of their works.

''The Castle of Dreaming Books''

A second sequel, ''The Castle of Dreaming Books'', is being written, but as of August 2015, its release date has been indefinitely postponed. It is believed to continue directly from the end of the previous book.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:City of Dreaming Books 2004 German novels Novels by Walter Moers German fantasy novels