1 What is metafiction and why are they saying such awful things about it? ‘What is metafiction? “The thing ith ‘That ofall the several ways of beginning a book which are ‘now in practice throughout the known world lam confident zny own way of doing it ie the best ~ I'm sure it isthe most, religious ~ for [begin with writing the fist sentence ~ and trusting to Almighty God forthe second (Laurence Sterne, Tritt Shandy, p. 498) Fuckall this ying look what I'm eally trying to writeaboutis welding not all this tu. (B.S. Johnson, Albert Angele, p. 163) Since I've started thinking about this story, ve gotten boils, piles, eve strain, stomach spasins, anxiety attacks. Finally | fm consumed by the thought that ata certain point we all become nothing more chan djing animals (Ronalé Sukenick, Te Death ofthe Novel and Other Stris, p49) remember once we were out on the ranch shooting pecea dillos (result ofa meeting, on the plains ofthe Wes, ofthe callared peccary nd the nine-banded ermadil) "Donald Barthelme, iy Lie, p. 4)2 Metafiction Fiction is woven into all ... 1 find this new reality (or ‘unreaity] more valid (John Fowles, "Phe French Lienan's Woman, pp. 86-7) asked to point out the similarities amongst this disconcerting selection of quotations, most readers would immediatly list tio oF three of the following: a celebration of the power of the ‘Creative imagination together with an uncertainty about the Validity of its representations; an extreme self-consioasness bout language, literary form and the at of writing fictions; Pervasiveinsecurity about the relationship of fiction reality; parodi, playful, excessive or deceptively naive style of writing. In compiling such 2 list, the reader would, in fect, be “offering a rie description ofthe basic concerns and character~ {Stes ofthe fiction which will be explored inthis book. Metaftion isa term given to fictional weiting which self-consciously and syotematically draws attention to Sts status as an artefact in Drder to pose questions about the relationship between feion Sind realty. In providing a extque of their own methods of Construction, such writings not only examine the fundamental Structures of narrative Betion, they also explore the possible Fetionality ofthe world ouside the literary Setonal text ‘Most of the quotations are faisly contemporary. This is Aeliberate. Over the las wenty years, novelists have tended 0 bbecome much mote aware ofthe theoretical issues involved in Constructing fictions, ln consequence, ther novels have tended to embody dimensions of sell-rfleivity and formal uncer tainty, What connects not only these quotations but also all of the very diferent writers whom one could reler to a5 broadly "imetafietional’ ie tha they all explora thoy of ftion through the practi of writing ion. “the term ‘metafction’ tel? seems to have originated in an essay by the American ciicand self-conscious novelist William HE Gaze (in Gast 1970). However, terms like ‘metapolites, ‘imetarhetorc’ and ‘metatheatre’ are a reminder of what has been, since the 196s, a more general cultural intrest in the problem of how husman beings reflect, construct and mediate their experience of the world. Metaicton pursues such ques tions through t formal selFexploration, drawing on the tadi- What is metafiction? 3 tional metaphor of the word as book, bu often recasting iin the terms of contemporary philosophical linguistic or hterary theory I, a8 indvieal ve ow oeeupy eles rater than ‘selves’, then the sty of characters in novels may provide sscfal model or understanding the construction of sbjetvity inthe world outside novels If our Knowledge ofthis word now seen tobe mediated through language then trary etion (works constructed entirely of language) becomes » useful ‘model for learning abou he construction of realty ise. “The presen increased awareness of met’ levels of discourse and experience is pany a consequence of an increased socal ‘nd cial eeoncosness, Beyond thy Hower a ects a greater awarenes within comtemporary clue ofthe fencing incoming an mango seme everyday ‘ality The simple notion that language passively feflects a coherent, meaningfl and objective” werd is no Tonger tenable. Language is an independent, self-contained system which generates its own "meanings Its raconship 0 the phenomenal world is highly complex, problematic snd regulated by convention. "Met tema theelore, are required in order to explore the relationship between this abttrary Tings eystem and the world to which i apparcily fers in feton they are requted in order ta explore the relationship between the world the tion andthe word et the ction Tuasense, meaficion restson version ofthe Hesenbergian uncertainty principle’ an awarensa that for he salet bude ing blocks of mater, every process of observation cases a major disturbance’ (Heisenberg 1972p. 126), and that tisimposble to describe an objective world because the observe always ‘change the observed. However, the cancerns of metaficon ate ‘sven tore complex than ths, For while Hevenberg beeved fone could atleast describe, if not pear of atore, ten 8 Ps of one's lan tomate met hows the {ling even of this process, How it posible to ‘descibe anything? ‘The metafconist is highly conscious of a basic Gilemms: if he or she sets out twepresent the wordy he for she realizes fainly soon that the wordy st auch, cannot be ‘represented’ In Iterary Seton i fat, posible omy fo “Tepreeat the dicewsr ofthat worl, Yet fone attempts to4 Metafiction analysca setoflinguistirelatonships using hosesamerelation- ships asthe instruments of analyse, language soon becomes 8 ‘prisonhouse’ fiom which the possibilty of escape is remote. Metafication sets out to explore this dilemma ‘ThelinguistL. Hjeimslev developed the term metalanguage’ (Hjelmslev 1961). He defined icas a language which, instead of zeferring to non-linguistie events, situations or objects in the ‘world refers to amie language ti a language which takes nother language as its object. Saussure’ distinction between the signifier and the signified x elevant here. Thesigniieris dhe 2 sound-image of the word or its shape on the page; the signified is the concept evoked by the word. A metalanguage isa language Jest tinction a sie amr eg ond ti eer ee llanguage ths becomes sige Th novelistc practice, this results in writing which consis- cmily displays its conventionality, which explcity and overdy lays bare its condition of arte, abd which thereby explores the problematic relationship between fe and fiction both the face {ha all the word not ofcourse a stage’ and the crucial ways in which it isn't (Goffman 1974, p58). The ‘other’ language ‘may be ether the registers of everyday discourse or, more ust- ally the language” ofthe iterary system isl including the con ‘ventions of thenovel asa whole or particular forms ofthat genre ‘Metafction may concern tel, then, with particular conven tions of the novel, co display the process of thei construction (for example, John Fowles's use of the “omniscient author convention in The French Fialenon’ Woman (ra) may, often in the form of parody, comment on a speife work o fctonal rode (Far example, John Gardner's’ Grendd (1971), which retells, and thus comments on, the Beaeulf sory frm the point ‘of view of the monster; or John Hawkes’ The Lime Tig (2951), which constitutes both an example and a critique ofthe poplat ‘hier. Less centrally metafictional, but stil displaying "meta Aeatures, are fetion like Richard Brautigan’s Pou Fuhieg ix “Ameria (1967). Such novels atempt to create altemative ing tite structures or fictions which merely ipl the old forms by. ‘encouraging the reader to draw on his of her knowledge of traditional literary conventions when struggling 0 constrict a ‘meaning for the new tex. ‘What is metaficti Metafiction and the novel tradition 1 would argue that metafctonal practice has become particu larly prominent in the fiction ofthe last wentyyeaes, However, to draw exclusively on contemporary fiction would be mislead: ing, fr, lthough therm ‘metafcton’ might he news, the pacice is'ts old (it not older) than the novel ise What I hope to ‘’stablsh during the course ofthis book is that metaiction is tendency or function inherent ira novel. Tis form offctionis ‘worth studying not only because ofits contemporary emergence ‘but also because ofthe insights it offers into both the represenca ature of all ction and the trary history of che novelas ‘gente. By studying metafiction, one i,m effec, studying that ‘which gives the novel its identi Certainly mote scholarly ink has been spilt over attempts 10 define the novel than perhaps for any other literary genre: The ‘hovel notoriously defies definition. Tt instabiity inthis respect is part ofits ‘definition’ the language of tion appears to spill, ‘over into, and merge with, the nstablisiesof the eal world, na ‘way that fve-at waged) ora fourteen-line sonnet cleaely docs hot. Metaiction flaunts and exaggerate and thus exposes the foundations ofthis instability: the fact that novels ate con structed through a continous assimilation af everyday histor al forms of communication. There is no one privileged “an {guage offition’- There are the languages of memoirs, journals, ‘hares, histories, conversational registers, legal record, jou nalism, documentary. These languages compete for privilege ‘They question and eelativize eachother to such an exten that the “language of fiction’ is always, if often covertly, self ‘Mikhail Bakbein has refered to this proces of relativization asthe ‘dialog’ potential of the novel, Metaficton simply ‘makes this potential explicit and in so doing foregrounds the sential mode of all etonal language. Bakhtin defines a5 ‘overtly ‘dialog’ those novels that introduce a semantic direc tion into the word which ie diametrically opposed tits original direction... the word becomes the arena of conflict between ‘veo voices” (Bakhtin 1975, p. 106). Tn fact, given is close elation teveryday forms of discourse the language of fetion is