Fictional Fictions

In this course we will engage with novels whose primary focus is the novel itself—how the genre is imagined, structured, written, sold, read, celebrated, and denounced. Our chosen meta-fictions will variously focus on the psychology of artistic production, on the philosophical issues surrounding the telling of “true lies,” on the social function of novels in our culture, and on what is at stake in the supposedly private act of reading. Our texts will include works such as Calvino’s If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler, Martin Amis’ The Information, Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Blue Flower, and Michael Chabon’s Wonder Boys.