<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>This article considers two metafictional academic novels from the reader’s point of view. It argues that this critical vantage point is suggested (if not imposed) by the fictional texts themselves. The theoretical texts informing this reading pertain either to reader response or to theories of metafiction, in an attempt to uncover conceptual commonalities between the two. Apart from a thematic focus on academic conferences as pilgrimages and the advocacy of reading as an ethically valuable activity, the two novels also share a propensity for intertextuality, a blurring of the boundaries between fictional and critical discourse, as well as a questioning of the borderline between fiction and reality. The reading of fiction is paralleled to the reading of (one’s own) life and self-reflexivity emerges as crucial to both types of literacy.</p></abstract>

This article considers two metafictional academic novels from the reader’s point of view. It argues that this critical vantage point is suggested (if not imposed) by the fictional texts themselves. The theoretical texts informing this reading pertain either to reader response or to theories of metafiction, in an attempt to uncover conceptual commonalities between the two. Apart from a thematic focus on academic conferences as pilgrimages and the advocacy of reading as an ethically valuable activity, the two novels also share a propensity for intertextuality, a blurring of the boundaries between fictional and critical discourse, as well as a questioning of the borderline between fiction and reality. The reading of fiction is paralleled to the reading of (one’s own) life and self-reflexivity emerges as crucial to both types of literacy.

“C’est la vie, c’est la narration”: The Reader in Christine Brooke-Rose’s <italic>Textermination</italic> and David Lodge’s <italic>Small World</italic>

American, British and Canadian Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

“C’est la vie, c’est la narration”: The Reader in Christine Brooke-Rose’s  and David Lodge’s 

This article considers two metafictional academic novels from the reader’s point of view. It argues that this critical vantage point is suggested (if not...

“C’est la vie, c’est la narration”: The Reader in Christine Brooke-Rose’s Textermination and David Lodge’s Small World

Published Online: Jun 11, 2016

Page range: 52 - 71

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/abcsj-2016-0004

Keywords
academic fiction, metafiction, self-reflexivity, reader response theory, Stanley Fish, Wolfgang Iser, Linda Hutcheon, Patricia Waugh

© 2016 ABC Studies, Journal of the Academic Anglophone Society of Romania

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

“C’est la vie, c’est la narration”: The Reader in Christine Brooke-Rose’s Textermination and David Lodge’s Small World

Published Online: Jun 11, 2016

Page range: 52 - 71

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/abcsj-2016-0004

Keywordsacademic fiction, metafiction, self-reflexivity, reader response theory, Stanley Fish, Wolfgang Iser, Linda Hutcheon, Patricia Waugh

© 2016 ABC Studies, Journal of the Academic Anglophone Society of Romania

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
academic fiction, metafiction, self-reflexivity, reader response theory, Stanley Fish, Wolfgang Iser, Linda Hutcheon, Patricia Waugh