more real people

[Brian D. McCary]

> Date: Fri, 16 Feb 1996 10:17:07 -0500 (EST)
> From: TERRY CAESAR <CAESAR at vaxa.clarion.edu>
> 
>         A final thought: I'm still not sure I understand why one one writer
> (Gaddis or anybody else) is moved to include a self-representation within a
> narrative. I mean, why in the first place, and no matter than it can be done,
> done well, and done to subtle effect (as is certainly the case with Gaddis). 
> Worse, now I'm not even sure whether this question is related to the one of
> why real people get included in narratives, or whether it's a separate ques-
> tion. 
> 

Real people get included in narratives for the same reasons that real
places, real movies, real colors, real events, real products, ect. get
included in narratives.  A writer might be moved toward self referance 
because self referance is a very powerful technique: it can make a
stable system unstable, an unstable system stable, Godel used it  to
prove the incompleteness theorem, and some writers like the power they
can get out of it.  Some use it well, some don't.  It can be argued
that most writing is self-referential, and that fictional writers all
use self-referance to some degree, but that most are covert rather than
overt.

Brian McCary