What are the earliest instances of metafiction, or fiction about fiction? I don’t know much about early Chinese literature, but the story I told of the invention of writing in Hunters, the First Readers to Write a Story could be called metafictional, since it is a story about the invention of writing itself.
Grab Your Ledgers: Writing is Accounting
(This post is best read with a beer and a piece of toast.)
Accountants were the first writers. Well, maybe it’s more accurate to say that merchants in ancient Sumeria developed the cuneiform script around 2500 B.C. for accounting purposes. We want to be factual. Let me remind you that this is non-fiction. (Nevermind that the date is appoximate.) But to tell you the history of writing, I need to talk about grass and how we learned to eat it, the technology that has most drastically transformed the face of the planet.
Stories Come From God and God Comes From Death
In my last post, Hunters, the First Readers to Write a Story, I suggested that the first narrative went something like this: “A young deer passed this way.” Now I offer a story of the development of stories, the story of religion. (This will be a controversial one for some of you, so feel free to include your version in the comments below.)
Don Quijote: The Impossible Truth
Don Quijote de la Mancha is the impossible truth: the book is a fiction, a lie, and yet it is true. Truer than a non-fiction biography of Cervantes. We would only read such a bio because we love our mad knight-errant and his earthy squire, Sancho Panza. The novel tells us much more about the real Cervantes than any bio could every do: valet, soldier, ransomed by pirates, soldier, tax collector, convict (jailed for discrepancies in the accounts while tax collector), poet, playwright, and the first modern novelist.
Meta Bleak House
Bleak House by Charles Dickens is a printed text and the book frequently reminds readers of that fact, so that readers can not accept the text literally, but are goaded into carefully and skeptically examining the two narratives and the various documents central to the story.
The Truthiness of Apples in a Basket
Absolute truth: My dad wrote in response to my blog, “There are countless absolute truths. Example: Two apples added to a basket containing two apples will make a total of four apples in the basket.” I agree absolutely. I believe in baskets and apples. I believe in reality. (What a ridiculous statement!)
Subjective truth: Let me take out the “I believe–” and say, “Reality exists.” (Was I able to remove the “I believe–“? I wrote the statement “Reality exists,” so it must be what I believe. Strangely enough the existence of reality has been in question for quite some time, maybe even some of you readers doubt reality.)
A Realistic Story of a Little Girl with Dimples
Is this a realistic narrative? A little girl with dimples and pink ribbons gets the puppy she wanted for her birthday, even though her mother has said they couldn’t afford it. The girl wraps her pudgy arms around her mom’s neck and whispers, “Thanks, Mommy-cakes. I love you so much.”
Not very realistic? Why not? Such things don’t happen? Or does the tale sound like the type of story that makes people smile and feel good. It may be “heart-warming,” but it isn’t what we call “realistic.”
Take a moment and imagine a more “realistic” version of this story. Feel free to change it in any way you like, as long as it retains the little girl with dimples, her mom, and the puppy.
What Does “Meta” Mean?
Meta, meta, meta! This little prefix is getting more and more popular.
After fairly steady usage, in the 1940’s, it started becoming more common. However, since the 70’s, it has really taken off. (Check out Google Books Ngram Viewer, which tracks its usage over time.) Now it seems you can attach the prefix to just about any word: metafiction, meta-painting, metacomic, Metamucil, and so on.) But what the hell does it mean?
A Not Not-True Tale About a Very Short, Simple Morning
(A shortened version of this post appears in my book Narrative Madness, available at narrativemadness.com or on Amazon.)
I have just decided to write the non-fiction story of my short and simple morning so far. Since “fiction” is a story that is not true, “non-fiction” means it is not not-true. Cancel the negatives, and I am happy to say that the account I am about to give is true. The tale is easy to tell because it has only been half an hour since I woke up.
Well, more like forty four minutes. I said “half an hour” to emphasize the simplicity of my task, but I want to be accurate (I should add that at the time of this revision, fifty five minutes have passed [at this point of the third revision, two hours and twelve minutes during the third revision {and more than two years for this revision for my book Narrative Madness!}]). These facts are provable since I am using Google Docs and WordPress, which record the time of each revision. I haven’t even started telling the story of my morning, yet it is difficult to be accurate. I will do my best.