V.V.(1) Carnival and the picaresque - some remarks and questions

[Thomas Eckhardt]

> It is an important feature of contemporary literature,
> but there is simply no reason at all to distinguish so
> called post modernist fiction from a whole bunch of other
> periods, including the Modern, by stressing this attribute
> (the awareness of fictionality and the self-consciousness of
> narrative). This self-consciousness, the awareness of the
> writing process and so forth is as old as literature itself.

Hmmm, this sounds very true. I'll try to play the devil's advocate from a different
angle: I know that you don't agree with McHale on some, perhaps many, points. But
wouldn't you say that there is a difference between even a novel like Tristram Shandy,
which seems to be based upon "the self-consciousness and awareness of the writing
process" (and because of this certainly is one of the most important predecessors of
some contemporary literature) and the actual collapse of ontological boundaries -  for
example the scene in "The French Lieutenant's Woman" where the author himself suddenly
personally intrudes into the narrative, reflects upon and finally makes some important
decisions about the fates of the characters of his book? I have not yet read Beckett's
novels, but as far as I know he plays some similar tricks there. Another case in point
would be the "Captive's Tale" in M&D, of course.

The question would perhaps be whether there is a significant difference between a
self-conscious narrative, in which nevertheless the illusion, the world the narrative
creates, is ontologically "whole" - as it remains in TS I would argue - and a
"meta-fiction" in which, one could say, the illusion is indeed torn apart or
constantly put into question before our eyes by means of certain formal strategies? I
don't know. Perhaps it is really, again, more a matter of degrees than a substantial
difference?

Thomas