involuted & unreliable & self-conscious

[Terrance]

What is known as the 'self-conscious narrator' is one who employs
techniques related to the theories of forgrounding and
defamiliairization. By dint of 'baring the device' (or devices) the
writer reveals to and reminds the reader that the narration is a work of
fiction while at the same time pointing up or exposing the discrepancies
between the fiction and the reality which it purports of seems to
represent. Tristram in Stearne's TS (1760-67) is a notable instance.
Others are Marcel Proust's A Le recherche du temps perdu (1913-27) and
the narrator in Byron's Don Jaun (1819-24). 

The method of using the self-conscious narrator lends itself to
sophisticated and complex refinements in what is known as the 'reflexive
novel novel'  or the 'involuted novel.' 
[...]

Gide ... 


VN's PF (1962) is another and different instance of the involuted
narrative method.