MemeMachineGo!

In Crowley’s Aegypt tetralogy to be (the last volume hasn’t been finished yet), he’s up to various postmodern games, and it’s a book within the book as well as a book within a book within the book in an entirely different way. The protagonist says at one point something much like “I’m writing a book too complicated to be understood in a single reading, and too long to ever be reread.”

In Quicksilver, too, I think I can detect the author speaking:

“He is very likely named after Gottfried Wilhelm Liebniz.”

“A friend of yours and Sir Isaac’s?”

“Of mine, yes. Of Sir Isaac’s, no — and therein lies a tale too long to tell now.”

“Would it fill a book?”

“In truth, ‘twould fill several — and it is not even finished yet.”

“When shall it be finished?”

“At times, I fear never.”

He has some more fun later:

“…Then I nipped up to Oxford, meaning only to pay a call on John Wilkins and pick up some copies of _Cryptonomicon_.”

“What is that?” Ben wants to know.

“A very queer old book, dreadfully thick, and full of nonsense,” says Godfrey. “Papa uses it to keep the door from blowing shut.”

I’m enjoying it immensely.