Narcissistic Narrative

Linda Hutcheon is Associate Professor of English at McMaster University.

"In this volume Hutcheon accomplishes two important goals at once. She provides sensitive, insightful readings of a wide range of contemporary novels which are genuinely difficult to read, even to adepts. And at the same time she places these readings within the contexts of critical theory which seem to be required in order to do these works justice. Either of these tasks by itself would be formidable; here critical precept and textual analysis are woven together throughout the work.... There is no mistaking the high degree of critical intelligence which is evident throughout this book. Present everywhere is esthetic sensibility joined to theoretical awareness. For anyone working on this body of literature, or on other works in a similar vein, this book provides an essential point of reference." -- Irwin Gopnik, McGill University -- , Recherches sémiotiques/Semiotic Inquiry, Vol. 2 no. 4

• Narcissistic Narrative: The Metafictional Paradox, by Linda HutcheonPrefaceAcknowledgementsIntroduction1 Modes and Forms of Narrative Narcissism: Introduction of a Typology2 Process and Product: The Implications of Metafiction for the Theory of the Novel as a Mimetic Genre3 Thematizing Narrative Artifice: Parody, Allegory, and the Mise En Abyme4 Freedom Through Artifice: The French Lieutenant's Woman5 Actualizing Narrative Structures: Detective Plot, Fantasy, Games, and the Erotic6 The Language of Fiction: Creating the Heterocosm of Fictive Referents7 The Theme of Linguistic identity: La Maccina Modiale8 Generative Word Play: The Outer Limits of the Novel Genre9 Composite Identity: The Reader, the Writer, the CriticConclusion and SpeculationsIndex of Subjects and Names