| Metafiction is a kind of fiction which self-consciously addresses the
devices of fiction. It usually involves irony and is self-reflective. It can be compared to presentational theatre
in a sense; presentational theatre does not let the audience forget they are viewing a play, and metafiction does not let the
readers forget they are reading a work of fiction. Metafiction is primarily associated with postmodern literature but can be found at least as far back as Cervantes' Don Quixote and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. It came to prominence in the early 60's through such authors as John Barth, Robert Coover, and
William H. Gass. The classic examples from the time include: Barth's
"Lost in the Funhouse", Coover's "The Babysitter" and "The Magic Poker", and Gass' Willie Master's Lonesome Wife.
Some common metafictive devices include:
- A novel about a person writing a novel.
- A novel about a person reading a novel.
- A story that addresses the specific conventions of story, such as title, paragraphing or plots.
- A non-linear novel, which can be read in some order other than beginning to
end.
- Narrative footnotes, which continue the story while commenting on it.
- A novel in which the author is a character.
- A story that anticipates the reader's reaction to the story.
- Characters who do things because those actions are what they would expect from characters in a story.
- Characters who express awareness that they are in a work of fiction.
Metafiction may figure for only a moment in a story, as when "Roger" makes a brief appearance in Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber, or it may be central to the work, as in Tristram Shandy.
Examples of metafiction
- Richard Adams, The Plague Dogs
- Rabih Alameddine,
I, the Divine
- Felipe Alfau, Locos: A Comedy of Gestures
- Martin Amis, Money, Time's Arrow
- Nicholson Baker, The Mezzanine
- John Barnes, One for the Morning
Glory
- Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
- John Barth, Lost in the Funhouse
- Samuel Beckett, Watt
- Thomas Bernhardt,
Wittgensteins Neffe
- Jorge Luis Borges, "The Garden of Forking Paths"
- Jorge Luis Borges, "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"
- Berke Breathed, Bloom County
- Michel Butor, La Modification
- Richard Brautigan, Sombrero Fallout
- Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Tres tristes
tigres
- Italo Calvino, If On a Winter's Night a Traveler
- Peter Carey, Illywhacker
- Julio Cortazar, Hopscotch
- John Crowley, Little, Big
- Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves
- Samuel R. Delany, The Einstein Intersection, the
Nevéryon series
- Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
- Raymond Federman,
Twofold Vibration
- Raymond Federman,
Smiles on Washington Square
- Raymond Federman,
Take It Or Leave It
- Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair
- William H. Gass, The Tunnel
- William Goldman, The Princess Bride
- Alasdair Gray, Lanark
- Larry Heinemann,
Paco's Story
- Douglas Hofstadter, dialogues in Gödel, Escher, Bach
- Nick Hornby, Fever
Pitch
- John Irving, The World According to Garp
- Charlie Kaufman, screenplay for Adaptation
- Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook
- Baz Luhrmann and Craig Pearce, screenplay for Moulin Rouge!
- Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire
- Flann O'Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds
- Michael Ondaatje, Running in the
Family
- Paul JJ Payack, Children of the Mind: An Extended
Metafiction
- Alain Robbe-Grillet, La Jalousie
- Alain Robbe-Grillet, La maison de rendez-vous
- José Saramago, Ensaio sobre a Cegueira, A Caverna,
O Homem Duplicado
- Gilbert Sorrentino, Mulligan Stew
- Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy
- Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions
- David Foster Wallace, Brief Interviews with Hideous
Men
- Jeanette Winterson, Sexing the Cherry
- Gene Wolfe, The Fifth Head of
Cerberus
- Virginia Woolf, Orlando: A Biography
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