Narcissistic Narrative: The Metafictional Paradox

by Linda Hutcheon

Overview

Linda Hutcheon, in this original study, examines the modes, forms and techniques of narcissistic fiction, that is, fiction which includes within itself some sort of commentary on its own narrative and/or linguistic nature. Her analysis is further extended to discuss the implications of such a development for both the theory of the novel and reading theory.

Having placed this phenomenon in its historical context Linda Hutcheon uses the insights of various reader-response theories to explore the “paradox” created by metafiction: the reader is, at the same time, co-creator of the self-reflexive text and distanced from it because of its very self-reflexiveness. She illustrates her analysis through the works of novelists such as Fowles, Barth, Nabokov, Calvino, Borges, Carpentier, and Aquin. For the paperback edition of this important book a preface has been added which examines developments since first publication. Narcissistic Narrative was selected by Choice as one of the outstanding academic books for 1981–1982.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781554585021
Publisher:	Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Publication date:	02/01/2013
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Linda Hutcheon is Associate Professor of English at McMaster University.

Table of Contents

Preface to the 2013 Reissue of Narcissitic Narrative ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Modes and Forms of Narrative Narcissism: Introduction of a Typology 17

Chapter 2 Process and Product: The Implications of Metafiction for the Theory of the Novel as a Mimetic Genre 36

Chapter 3 Thematizing Narrative Artifice: Parody, Allegory, and the Mise En Abyme 48

Chapter 4 Freedom Through Artifice: The French Lieutenant's Woman 57

Chapter 5 Actualizing Narrative Structures: Detective Plot, Fantasy, Games, and the Erotic 71

Chapter 6 The Language of Fiction: Creating the Heterocosm of Fictive Referents 87

Chapter 7 The Theme of Linguistic Identity: La Maccina Modiale 104

Chapter 8 Generative Word Play: The Outer Limits of the Novel Genre 118

Chapter 9 Composite Identity: The Reader, the Writer, the Critic 138

Conclusion and Speculations 153

Index of Subjects and Names 163

Editorial Reviews

"In this volume Hutcheon accomplishes two important goals at once. She provides sensitive, insightful readings of a wide range of contemporary novels which are genuinely difficult to read, even to adepts. And at the same time she places these readings within the contexts of critical theory which seem to be required in order to do these works justice. Either of these tasks by itself would be formidable; here critical precept and textual analysis are woven together throughout the work.... There is no mistaking the high degree of critical intelligence which is evident throughout this book. Present everywhere is esthetic sensibility joined to theoretical awareness. For anyone working on this body of literature, or on other works in a similar vein, this book provides an essential point of reference."

, Recherches semiotiques/Semiotic Inquiry, Vol. 2 no. 4 - Irwin Gopnik

Hutcheon's study, which is thoroughly well-informed...succeeds in showing the broad range of the metafictional phenomenon in our time by discussing numerous writers and numerous texts.... [T]he strengths of Hutcheon's book are many...and I highly recommend this study for its intelligence, its informativeness, and its insights.

French Forum - Gerald Prince