ok so a totally novel? metafictional device

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a book whose last chapter is titled "Series finale" (and whose first is "pilot")

has this been done?

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 03:09 (twenty years ago)

I haven't read such a book, but probably.

One of my ongoing interests which I never get around to doing anything with is the sitcom as form/structure and using that form/structure in other genres (rock albums in particular). Calvino's Marcovaldo reads very much like a season of sitcoms, and it might be where I started toying with the idea.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 03:24 (twenty years ago)

Is that really a metafictional device or just a gimmick?

― Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 03:53 (twenty years ago)

depends how well it's used, right?

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 03:56 (twenty years ago)

(Metafiction = fiction which is "aware" that it is fiction.)

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 04:20 (twenty years ago)

By that logic, having "chapters" is also a metafictional device.

― Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 04:26 (twenty years ago)

What? Not unless the text calls attention to the existence of chapters. I guess you could make an argument, but there are things that we don't really consider "part of the text" -- the existence of the physical object, the chapter headings, the "about the author" note, etc. Sometimes those do become part of the text (see: House of Leaves, the Jimmy Corrigan novel, etc.) and they do become "metatextual", but I think most chapters aren't read that way.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 07:21 (twenty years ago)

If the chapter title is Series Finale, that's not metafiction, its just a gimmicky title.
If the characters say "Well, I guess all this will be resolved in the Series Finale, but now let's pause for an ad (paragraph) break", that is metafiction.

― Ray (Ray), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 07:26 (twenty years ago)

too strict a def. i think. lots of classic metafiction involved authorial intrusion in unusual ways into the story w/o characters necc. being involved in same. including, e.g., a good deal of barth's stories collected in "lost in the funhouse."

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 12:25 (twenty years ago)

Sure, but chapter titles are at some distance from the text. They are, to an extent, invisible, in the same way that the chapter breaks are. There's no real difference betwen calling a chapter 'Chapter 1', 'Opening Scene', 'Pilot', or 'A Birthday Party'.

On the other hand, if the novel ended with the character saying "You know, I think the events of the last few weeks would make a really good sitcom - I think I'll write one", the 'Pilot' chapter title would become metafictional, because it would imply that the text is part of the text we'd been reading.

― Ray (Ray), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 13:50 (twenty years ago)

Sterling: Not "characters" being aware of its status as a fiction, "text". Tristram Shandy is the classic example -- none of the characters are aware that it's a text (except the author, but he's not aware as a fetus/child, unless there's a throwaway joke I'm not remembering), but the text is constantly calling attention to its status as text. I haven't read "Lost in the Funhouse", so I don't know what's going on there. Donald Barthelme's stories, though, with all their drawings and interruptions, are not always metafictional.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 15:25 (twenty years ago)

exactly, chris, that's what i mean. metafiction is just when the text highlights its "textliness"

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 16:23 (twenty years ago)

Chapter titles are paratexts, not metafictional devices.

― Ms Bookish, Tuesday, 17 May 2005 16:59 (twenty years ago)

there's a book called: "a book and a movie". the first half
is the book as a book, and the second half is the book as the
movie of the book. it wasn't very good.

― bookanddrink, Tuesday, 17 May 2005 17:08 (twenty years ago)

"pilot" should come at the end! like, the DVDs finally came out. crucial context finally revealed, pages of stuff given the slant at the end, that kind of thing.

― g e o f f (gcannon), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 19:45 (twenty years ago)

outtakes!

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 20:19 (twenty years ago)

Sorry to go off topic, but this made me wonder about one thing. Has anyone tried yet to include a DVD of bonus material with a book? The easiest example would be a package of a book plus a movie based on it. Though I suspect people would rather see that as the movie with the book thrown in as a bonus. How about, say, interviews with the author, maybe a filmed reading session with a poet. Ulysses coming with a video tour of the locations? The music business seems to be doing this sort of thing to thwart the dread pirates of the six V's, but I've seen none of it in the literature world.

Of course, it IS a pretty bad idea, so that might have something to do with it. I've only seen it the other way around, i.e. something coming with a book thrown in as a bonus. Old adventure games coming with a novelization of the game in the box, for instance.
Perhaps we should have a thread about marketing gimmicks for books: listing particularly odd packaging, other things being boundled with the book and so forth.

― Øystein (Øystein), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 20:36 (twenty years ago)

Ha: someone I know recently worked at a strangely iffy major-publisher imprint whose head's futuristic idea seemed to be to find documentaries, ask the filmmakers to write books, and then sell both together as a book/DVD package. I can think of at least eight major problems with this idea.

― nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 20:52 (twenty years ago)

That description somehow makes the idea sound better than it actually is!

― nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 20:53 (twenty years ago)

Oystein: McSweeney's, issue 11 or 12, came with a "behind the scenes" DVD with readings and outtakes and documentary and other stuff. I only watched a smidge, it was cute. (I only read a smidge as well. I let my subscription lapse.)

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 17 May 2005 22:20 (twenty years ago)

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