Metafiction
Since I do a little writing, I enjoy metafiction, stories and novels in which the creative process itself is part of the theme. A great one from a couple of decades back was The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles. In this tale a shadowy figure representing the author makes an appearance. In the excellent film adaptation, the movie makers become the story in the last act. Another fine novel was Italo Calvino’s If On a Winter’s Night A Traveler. It is interesting to speculate on how the expectations of readers, not to mention the way minds process information, help to shape the story, and Calvino’s novel begins with the reader browsing in a bookstore. At every stage in If On a Winter’s Night, the reader steps in to have a say. Narratives are driven by the desires of the primary characters, but also, Calvino shows, by the desires of readers.
Readers had an interesting role to play in Hopscotch, by Julio Cortaza. This narrative was built in such a way that the chapters could be read in various orders, each assemblage having its own coherence. Since Hopscotch, published in paper in the Seventies, many online stories and computer games have adopted this format, allowing the reader’s choices to direct the flow of things.
A storyteller is at the center of Atonement by Ian McEwan, where Briny’s writing ambitions play off against a story she tells to the police that she believes (or does she?) to be factual. While much of the novel is about lives changed by her story, it is also about her own life as a teller of tales. The new novel by Charles Baxter, The Soul Thief, is in this tradition. Without giving too much away, I can say that readers will be intrigued by how his novel gradually raises the question of whose story this is and of how such stories come into being. By the way, this novel is short enough to be certified for readers over fifty–see the previous blog.
Metafiction isn’t a new fad. Metafictional elements romp across the pages of Tristam Shandy, and Poe’s “The Raven” is a poem about its own writing. Is there other metafictional literature you might recommend?
May 12th, 2008 at 1:45 am
First, you’ll need to cause a serious household distraction.
Second, tell your wife, Viki, that she’s the only one competent enough to remedy the situation.
And, then, thirdly, while she’s doing what she does best, steal her copy of “Shadow of the Wind” by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.
…I just know she won’t relinquish it any other way.
‘Shadow’ is such a fabulous romp through the concurrent processes of both the writer and the reader, novel and life, creator and destructor.
May 12th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Thanks for the tip, Skipster. I’ll read it toot sweet.