In my irregular themed look at old posts (previous posts here), this time I’ve picked novels where the author becomes part of the story – true metafiction – and I got AI to do me an illustration of a typewriter churning out a New York cityscape, which leads me to my first pick below…
The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
Auster’s first fiction published under his own name was three novellas, initially published separately in 1985-6, then collected as The New York Trilogy (NYT). I discovered the NYT when it first came out in paperback in the UK. I was attracted to the Faber cover; the blurb promised detective stories – that was enough for me. When I started reading, it was obvious from the start that these three novellas were not merely detective stories, although each is narrated by someone fulfilling that function. I instantly loved how Auster put himself into the first story, City of Glass – firstly as a mistaken identity, then later as himself briefly, and I learned a new word ‘metafiction’ to describe this. If you imagine Edward Hopper paintings as novels, you’ll get one sense of the NYT. I love Hopper, and I loved this book.
How to Survive in a Science Fiction Universe by Charles Yu
Yu’s Debut, published in 2010, has a winning cover full of ray-guns, and if you look carefully enough, a dog. Both are important, as is the distinction between Science Fiction and Science Fictional in the book’s title. The book is proper full-blown SF in its literary genre, but its milieu is not SF in the eyes of our narrator Charles – it is SF-al though. We are in an alternate universe that is essentially our own, but one in which time-travel is possible. All this makes life like SF, ie SF-al sometimes for those who indulge. A single paragraph prologue starts at the end, or is it?, of the novel, in which a man from the future steps out of a time machine, introduces himself as Charles Yu, hands him a book, and our Charles shoots his future self. Yes, we’ve gone meta as well as SF-al, timey-wimey. This is SF that makes you think and chuckle at the same time.
The Dark Tower Volume 6: The Song of Susannah by Stephen King
In which Roland and Eddie will go to Maine 1977 to persuade Calvin Tower to sell them the vacant lot back in NYC which is pivotal to their quest, but also to seek out the author of a novel called Salem’s Lot. Yes, it all goes metafictional – with King introducing himself as a character in his own novel. Tellingly, he doesn’t glamorise himself at all – in fact, almost the opposite. King is having fun playing out his own fantasies of being a gritty gunslinging hero in this series., shame this is the weakest volume in the series.
HHhH by Laurence Binet (transl. Sam Taylor)
As much as I was fascinated by HHhH, it was also rather irritating. The cover proclaims “All the characters are real. All the events depicted are true.” But it’s a novel! However you start reading it, and it’s all about an author – the actual author? – who is researching Op Anthopoid, the plot to assassinate Heydrich in WWII. We have a story within a story, the author’s framing narrative, and his version of Heydrich’s life and the plot to end it. All this added up to HHhH being hard going for me.
An English Guide to Birdwatching by Nicholas Royle
The Nicholas Royle who wrote this, has tremendous fun sending himself up, … and – the other Nicholas Royle. There are two authors of the same name, both English professors, who thankfully know each other, although one is based in Sussex, the other in Manchester. This novel is by the one who was a Professor at Sussex University (now retired). In the novel one of the protagonists attends an event where the two are in conversation! The whole book is profoundly experimental in structure, yet totally readable and very playful.
