When a Story Is Just a Story.

I’ve decided that I dislike the concept of metafiction and wish to offer a brief reason by way of justification. But first I’ll copy and paste the Wiki definition of the term for the benefit of those who are ignorant of its meaning (as I was until recently. Who was it who said: ‘an ignoramus is a person who doesn’t know something you didn’t know until ten minutes ago’? Or words to that effect.)

Metafiction is a form of fiction which emphasises its own constructedness in a way that continually reminds the audience to be aware they are reading or viewing a fictional work. Metafiction is self-conscious about language, literary form, and story-telling, and works of metafiction directly or indirectly draw attention to their status as artifacts.^[1] Metafiction is frequently used as a form of parody or a tool to undermine literary conventions and explore the relationship between literature and reality, life, and art.

So why do I dislike it? Well, it goes something like this:

It seems to me that metafiction is a step along the road of that process whereby academics refuse to accept that a cigar can ever be just a cigar, and so exercise their minds and mouths in gainful employment constructing fanciful notions of what it must represent. All manner of things are subject to this process, none more so than literature because literature is one of those pursuits which are lauded as pillars of what we like to term ‘civilisation’ (and, ironically or fortuitously or inevitably according to your own judgement, academics themselves are also products of the same societal perception.) If that’s how you like to view the matter of literature, then the concept of metafiction is fine. But I don’t.

To me, the cover of a book containing a fictional story is the gateway to an alternate reality, and when I engage with the contents I’m pitched into it. It might well be identical in every respect to my experience of everyday reality, but it isn’t the same one that my body is occupying back in the armchair. It’s why I so like fiction which constructs a strong sense of place because the more it does that, the more the alternate reality becomes believably real and the concomitant experiences all the stronger. And so for me, good fiction amounts to an escape into a world which mirrors aspects of everyday reality and helps me to make sense of things which I might otherwise miss. If I’m to be constantly reminded that this is just a story, an artificial construction, then the value of the story is debased.

So that’s my objection for what it’s worth. And I still wish I could find something funny to say, but I can’t because nothing funny happened today and I still don’t feel entirely well. (But it might be worth mentioning that I saw my angel in the shoe shop again this morning and she still recognises me. She has a relaxed and taciturn manner and appears wholly secure in the fact. I like that.)