"If I were a dictator of fiction..." says Braithwaite for Barnes in Flaubert's Parrot; "Now what could I do with you?" Fowles as author rhetorically asks a character in The French Lieutenant's Woman. Such language indicates the typical style of metafiction, in which the novelist's art is deliberately paraded before the reader as part of the subject matter. Compare suitable aspects of these two novels with any other appropriate text from the course which is not metafiction, and decide some advantages and/or disadvantages.

"For some, Life is rich and creamy ... while Art is a pallid commercial confection ... For others, Art is the truer thing, full, bustling and emotionally satisfying, while Life is worse than the poorest novel: devoid of narrative, peopled by bores and rogues, short on wit ... and leading to a painfully predictable denouement."1

Thus Barnes compares Life and Art in Flaubert's Parrot; but these words could just as easily refer to the different perspectives of realist and metafictional writers.

Bearing these perspectives in mind, this essay will examine the metafictional traits found in Flaubert's Parrot and in John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman, before comparing these with the elements of realism in Isaac Singer's The Family Moskat. By considering the advantages and disadvantages of these novelistic schools of thought, it shall then be demonstrated that the reader's own views on Life and Art may determine the value one assigns to these alternative styles.

When Braithwaite muses, "If I were a dictator of fiction,"2 the process of creating fiction itself becomes the subject matter of the narrative. Barnes himself is clearly a dictator in the sense that he has control over the content of his own novel, but in this instance, Braithwaite is referring to all fiction. This reference to the production of fiction is a common quality of metafiction, and it recurs frequently in Flaubert's Parrot. The theme is picked up later when Braithwaite says, "Many critics would like to be dictators of literature, to regulate the past, and to set out with quiet authority the future direction of the art."3 Although Braithwaite is speaking, the views expressed coincide with those of Barnes. Flaubert's Parrot itself is an innovative and highly experimental work that defies established critical expectations of what is suitable for inclusion in a novel. In drawing attention to critics' desire to dictate literary acceptabilities, Barnes is reminding the reader just how prepared he is to cross those boundaries and flaunt his authorial freedom.

The theme of freedom is taken up by Fowles, when he writes, "There is only one good definition of God: the freedom that allows other freedoms to exist."4 Fowles openly discusses the creation of fiction, and observes that he is writing in, "A convention universally accepted [during the nineteenth-century] that the novelist stands next to God."5 Barnes too, speaks of, "The assumed divinity of the nineteenth-century novelist."6 As a figure of quasi-divinity then, Fowles must conform to the above definition of freedom. Fowles would have the reader share his sense that he does not fully control the characters in his novel, even though they are products of his own imagination.

Fowles sustains this sense of freedom for his characters throughout the novel, asking, "Now what could I do with you?"7 (of Charles) as he stares at him on a train. Fowles claims that he does not know what his characters will do, and that the ideas that spring into his head come from the characters themselves. Ironically, despite the fact that Fowles strives to create the impression that he has limited control over what his characters will do and incomplete knowledge of their inner thoughts, Charles is very much a prisoner in three senses. One is that he is a member of the dwindling Victorian upper class, erecting his aristocratic sensibilities around him like a hedgehog's needles, but powerless to prevent his own demise. Secondly, as the story progresses, it becomes clear that he has very little free will with regard to his relationship with Sarah. He finds that he is increasingly subject to her machinations and to his own feelings for her. The final sense in which Charles is a captive, is that he is an imaginary character - a figment of Fowles' imagination - in every sense of the word. The authorial voice claims that he does not want to "fix the fight" and select one possible ending over another, but would rather tell both and let chance decide which ending is placed last.

"That only leaves me with one problem: I cannot give both versions at once, yet whichever is the second will seem, so strong is the tyranny of the last chapter, the final, the 'real' version."8

One must ask how much freedom Charles really has, if the toss of a coin is to determine which ending shall be selected first? Similarly, how real is this notion of tossing a coin? Is it actually part of the creation process that Fowles undertook to write the novel, or does it serve as an elaborate and pre-planned subterfuge designed to deceive the reader? It should not be forgotten that Fowles himself admits, "This story I am telling is all imagination."9 Ultimately, the true freedom and power resides with him.

This deliberate parading of authorial freedom is a key aspect of metafiction. The author constantly draws attention to the fact that he or she is in control. The reader may feel uneasy as a result of this blatant manipulation. Merely providing multiple endings does nothing to place control or choice back into the reader's hands. As Fowles states, the last ending will seem the final and real version by virtue of its placement. Barnes goes further, saying, "Such a 'choice' is never real, because the reader is obliged to consume both endings ... The novel with two endings doesn't reproduce this reality: it merely takes us down two diverging paths."10 Barnes' suggested solution is to offer a series of alternative endings in sealed envelopes, labelled according to type, only one of which may be opened by the reader. This he argues, is the only way to provide a true choice of endings. Barnes is once again turning fiction itself into the subject matter of his novel, going on to state his view that this is would novelists would do if they, "Truly wanted to simulate the delta of life's possibilities."11

Another way in which these creators of metafiction refer to fiction itself is in their references to other literary figures and texts. Flaubert's Parrot itself is largely constituted of biographical material about Gustave Flaubert. However, Barnes refers to many other authors - Milton, Wordsworth, Yevtushenko, Pushkin, John Wain, Nabokov, Coleridge, Yeats, Browning, Golding and Tennyson12 - in his chapter, "Emma Bovary's Eyes". Elsewhere quotes Nabokov13, Jean-Paul Sartre14, and Freud15. Likewise, Fowles directly quotes Charles Darwin16, Jane Austen17, Karl Marx18, Alfred Lord Tennyson19, and others, often in the epigraphs that precede each chapter. On other occasions he refers to literary figures such as Alain Robbe-Grillet, Roland Barthes20, Charles Dickens21, and Thomas Hardy22 in the body of the text. These frequent contextualizations serve to remind the reader of the larger literary canon against which the works are set, and emphasise that a key feature of their subject matter is fiction itself. Seen against this far reaching backdrop of a vast historical heritage, one is made aware that the text was created in response to the works that have gone before it. The emphasis is once again drawn back to the process of creating the novel.

In metafictional texts, this process of creation goes beyond a mere replication of stories that have been told before, or styles that have been employed in the past. It is a highly experimental genre, and as such it often deviates wildly from the novelistic norms of the previous century. Both Flaubert's Parrot and The French Lieutenant's Woman exhibit unorthodox characteristics. In the case of Fowles' book, the existence of three endings is a radical departure from the expected form of a novel, and the uninitiated reader may find this shocking or confusing. Similarly, the self-conscious style of narrative may appear to be extremely unconventional, and could induce a feeling of uneasiness in the reader at times. Not only does Fowles address the reader directly - for example, saying, "Let us imagine the impossible"23, or, "Oh, but you say, come on"24 - but he actually makes two brief appearances in the text himself, posing as a important looking person with a so-called patriarchal beard. At being directly addressed, and at seeing this contemporary author make an impossible entrance into his own nineteenth-century novel, one may experience feelings of being manipulated and toyed with by the author. On the whole, Fowles is testing the limits of what has been considered suitable material for inclusion in a novel. His extensive use of epigraphs, and his supply of a great deal of explanatory historical detail, often in the form of footnotes, are examples of this.

Barnes pushes the boundaries of what constitutes acceptable content even further than Fowles. As has been stated, it is biographical detail and factual evidence that forms the backbone of the novel. The fictional sub-plot of Braithwaite's marriage seems thin and pallid in comparison to the lustrous detail with which Flaubert's history is breathed back to life. The line between fact and fiction is blurred in Flaubert's Parrot, to the point where the reader may question what parts are real and what parts imaginary. This sensation of uncertainty is heightened by the wildly unconventional structure of the text; despite the brevity of the work, the reader will encounter, amongst other things, three chronologies of Flaubert's life, a train-spotter's guide, a legal defence against an imagined attack on Flaubert, an invented statement by Louise Colet (which in itself may have a great deal of truth), a dictionary of ideas, and an examination paper. Barnes does not rigidly confine himself to a the prosaic style that Fowles employs in his imitation of the Victorian narrative style. Barnes' language approaches the poetic at times due to his liberal and elegant use of figurative language. Through Braithwaite, Barnes conveys some extremely vivid and effective metaphors. For instance, he writes (of his acquaintance, Ed Winterton), "What a smug, moralising bastard he was. He wore ethics the way tarts wear make-up,"25 and later, "Happiness is a scarlet cloak whose lining is in tatters."26

This use of figurative language highlights the importance of Art to the metafictional writer. It is through clever employment of language, something that John Gardner might term "lexical foregrounding", that the value of Art is emphasised in these texts. As an example consider Barnes' witty pun on Gustave Flaubert's name; respelling it as Gourstave Flaubear and thereby including both the French and English words for bear within the name.27 Even his titling of the chapter, "Pure Story", contains a double meaning; on one hand it is the purest example of fiction and invention in the text, dealing as it does with the completely fictional tale of Braithwaite's wife, yet on the other hand it treats the impure topic of repeated adultery and suicide.28 The emphasis on Art, particularly in Flaubert's Parrot, shows what an ideal vehicle metafiction is for the promotion of Art. Not only does Barnes talk about the value of Art, but the extremely elegant fashion in which he articulates this sentiment lends his convictions a doubled forcefulness. "Man is nothing, the work of art everything,"29 Braithwaite quotes Flaubert, and later, "Superior to everything is - Art."30 Such comparisons of Art and Life feature in both works. Fowles writes, "Fiction usually pretends to conform to the reality,"31 and Barnes similarly questions, "We no longer believe that language and reality 'match up' so congruently - indeed, we probably think that words give birth to things as much as things give birth to words."32 At one stage Barnes goes so far as to claim that, at times, "Life imitates and ironises art,"33 and not the other way around. Although Fowles' work is a much less extreme example of metafiction, like Barnes, he chooses not to use his novel as a vehicle for the conveyance of any social message. Rather, one gets the impression that he was motivated by two drives; one to create an artistic masterpiece for Art's sake, and two to comment on the social and literary transformations that have taken place between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

In contrast, there could hardly be a work with a more diametrically opposed style, than Isaac Singer's The Family Moskat. One will find no comparisons of Art and Life in this novel of pure realism. There is little reference to other literature, no self-conscious narrative, a minimum of figurative language, no wealth of biographical or historical detail, no alternative endings, and no deviations from the traditional novel form. In fact, it is a novel in which the authorial voice has almost disappeared, in conformity with the Flaubertian ideal that, "The author in his book must be like God in his universe, everywhere present and nowhere visible."34 This essay will now proceed to examine each of the above points in turn, before summarising the characteristics that make Singer's novel an example of realism.

In vast contrast to the other texts, The Family Moskat is a work almost devoid of references to other literature and literary figures. Only the Jewish philosopher, Spinoza, is explicitly mentioned at any length, and his inclusion is as a result of Asa Heshel's fascination with him. The information pertaining to Spinoza is filtered through Asa's eyes: "If Spinoza was right, that inadequate and confused ideas arise from a real necessity as adequate and clear ones ... then there is value in considering to ponder."35 This should be compared to the works of both Fowles and Barnes, where the narrative voice itself makes direct comment upon other authors and pieces of literature. One gets the impression that the external figure of Spinoza is introduced merely to provide more substance and depth to Asa's character, rather than to establish a contextual framework amidst which to interpret the authorial voice, as it might be in a metafictional text. Elsewhere in the text, only non-specific references are made to authors and texts. For example, when Nyunie is prompted to ponder nature as a result of "reading a book", no title or author is mentioned; only the fruits of his thoughts:

"Even the stars and planets could not last forever; they flared up and then they died. The cauldron of nature was eternally bubbling and eternally bringing forth new worlds, new species, new ways."36

This is in fact an example of Singer speaking through one of his characters, a function upon which no one character has a monopoly throughout the text. A glaring contrast with the other novels is the absence of self-conscious narrative in Singer's book. Not only does he avoid such a self-conscious narrative, but there is not even a figure whom he regularly employs as a mouthpiece for his views (as Leo Tolstoy did with Levin in Anna Karenin.) As a result of this, it can be very hard to find Singer in the narrative; questions such as, "Where is he, and what are his views?" are extremely difficult to answer. A key example is the treatment of religion and the Messiah in the text. Singer supplies the reader with several different points of view, granting each perspective a balanced and equal weight, so it can be problematic to ascertain which view Singer himself might ascribe to. For example, Asa himself rejects religion; Adele comes to the conclusion that, "He was not a worldly man by his very essence. He was one of those who must serve God or die. He had forsaken God, and because of this he was dead - a living body with a dead soul."37 Singer also speaks for the conservative Jews when he writes, "What would be the end of it all? There was only one hope left - for Messiah to come, to come quickly while there were still a few pious Jews left."38 The view of the Zionists is also given voice; they believed that there was no point in passively awaiting the coming of the Messiah, but that one had to take action for oneself. The last line of the novel conveys Hertz Yanovar's conclusion upon the subject; "Death is the Messiah. That's the real truth."39 The fact that this is the final message with which Singer leaves the reader gives credence to the theory that this may be Singer's personal stance; however, the only thing that can be gleaned with certainty from this ambiguity is that it was clearly not Singer's intention to use his novel as a transport for his own views on religion. For some of his characters religion provides an answer, yet for others it fails.

Although it may be troublesome to locate Singer in the narrative, one element of his style that is utterly clear is his unadorned and precise language. Unlike the other works, there is only the barest minimum of figurative language. Rather than using metaphors, similes, and symbols, Singer confines himself to a straightforward and objective realism, employing unambiguous adjectives to impart his intended meanings. This is another factor that explains his invisibility within the text. He does not even employ devices in the manner of Flaubert - a man who believed above all else in the absence of the author - who used items such as a blind beggar in Madame Bovary as a device. The only evidence of Singer's hand in the work, is in the very subtle patterning that he occasionally applies to the narrative. An example of this is the recurrent theme of characters accidentally catching sight of themselves in mirrors, and being granted an insight into their own souls. This occurs on three occasions, to Abram, Koppell, and Asa.40

As a result of this, Singer's work is starkly differentiated from the work of Barnes and Fowles. Another such contrast is found in the minimum of biographical and historical detail to be found in Singer's text. Rather than supplying reams of documentative information, Singer only includes enough information to firmly locate his story in place and time. His narrative contains pointers to the location of the action in the form of street names and vivid descriptions of Warsaw; similarly major historical landmarks such as the onset of World War Two help to place the novel within a specific time frame. But other than these details, there is no factual information that might blur the line between fact and fiction. The reader is under no illusions at any stage that the specific people they are seeing really existed, or that the specific possessions they own have an actual existence outside the mind of the author. (Whereas a reader of Barne's work might ask, "Did Ed really find and then burn Louise Colet's letters?"41; and a reader of Fowles might question, "Did Fowles really purchase Sarah's cracked Toby jug 'for a good deal more than the three pennies Sarah was charged'?"42 ) As Fowles says, "[Authors] wish to create worlds as real as, but other than the world that is."43 Singer succeeds in doing exactly that.

Needless to say, although Singer conforms precisely to Fowles' statement of authorial intent, he does not choose to employ Fowles' tool of more than one ending in The Family Moskat. Rather, the narrative is orthodox and linear, leaving no room for choice on the reader's part, and once again doing nothing to draw attention to the artifice of realism he has created. Likewise, there are no deviations from the traditional novel form. Where Barnes has chosen to create a chapter based around a Flaubertian version of a medieval bestiary44, the only deviations from simple prose that Singer takes are the inclusions of letters and diary entries from certain characters45. None of these violate traditional notions of the novel, nor do they occur outside of the chronological sequence of the plot. As a result Singer's hand maintains its transparency.

This invisibility of authorial presence is a feature of The Family Moskat that makes it such a pure example of realism. The reader is left with a clear impression that the characters therein really could have existed, and that the events described really could have taken place. The exquisite detail with which Singer reconstructs pre-war Jewish Warsaw paints an extremely realistic picture before one's eyes. Unlike the illusion created by Fowles or Barnes however, Singer's deft touch is almost undetected. Due to this skilful and realistic treatment, The Family Moskat serves as a fitting and poignant elegy for the many Jews whose lives and culture were destroyed by the ravages of the Second World War. As such, it would seem that Singer achieved his probable goal in writing the book.

Nevertheless, all three novels are extremely successful at fulfilling their aims, though they take extremely different tacts towards attaining them. One may ask the question, what has been lost from Singer's work as a result of the omission of the metafictional devices found in Flaubert's Parrot and The French Lieutenant's Woman? And similarly, what has been gained?

One clear advantage of these metafictional devices is the brilliance with which Art is glorified. Metafiction provides a fantastic outlet for authors who wish to champion Art's cause and exalt the virtues of language. An additional advantage is that such texts can be extremely enjoyable due to their wit, and their intellectual and philosophical scope. Such works are also rewarding subjects for study, parading the novelist's craft within the larger context of all fiction as they do. As a result of this placement within the literary canon, readers with extensive literary knowledge may be gratified at the opportunity to utilise their knowledge in the interpretation of such novels. However, this quality can also serve to detract from the enjoyment that people with less literary grounding will obtain from reading such works.

Also on the negative side, there is the risk that the reader will feel uneasy, alienated, and manipulated as a result of the at times confrontational self-conscious style of metafiction. Another disadvantage is that metafiction does not lend itself to the transmission of social messages in the same way as realism. Singer's text is a clear example of how effective realism can be at subtly conveying the author's intended message, in this case a tribute to the Jews of pre-war Poland. In addition many readers may prefer the straightforward narration of realist works, yet feel out of their depth when confronted with the highly complex, academic, unconventional style of Barnes and Fowles.

Ultimately however, both genres have merit, and it is a very personal thing as to which style one most enjoys. Regardless of the devices that a writer employs, Barnes' words hold true: "The correct word, the true phrase, the perfect sentence are always 'out there' somewhere; the writer's task is to locate them by whatever means he can."46 Perhaps the method chosen depends on what value one places on Art and Life, and whether one sees Art as "truer thing", or Life as "richer and creamier". Flaubert himself was amongst the staunchest of realist writers, yet there is little doubt that it was Art that he valued over Life. The twentieth century has given such authors an outlet for their beliefs in the form of metafiction. Perhaps if Gustave Flaubert was alive today, then he would be a writer of metafiction.

Bibliography

Barnes, Julian, Flaubert's Parrot, Picador, London, 1985.
Fowles, John, The French Lieutenant's Woman, Vintage, London, 1996.
Singer, Isaac Bashevis, The Family Moskat, translated by Gross, A. H., Penguin, London, 1980.

End Notes

1 Barnes, Julian, Flaubert's Parrot, Picador, London, 1985, p. 171.
2 Ibid., p. 67.
3 Ibid., pp. 97-8.
4 Fowles, John, The French Lieutenant's Woman, Vintage, London, 1996, p. 99.
5 Ibid., p. 97.
6 Barnes, p. 89.
7 Fowles, p. 389.
8 Ibid., p. 390.
9 Ibid., p. 97.
10 Barnes, p. 89.
11 Ibid., p. 89.
12 Ibid., pp. 76-7.
13 Ibid., p. 91.
14 Ibid., p. 105.
15 Ibid., p. 128.
16 Fowles, throughout, for example, p. 17.
17 Ibid., throughout, for example, p. 70.
18 Ibid., throughout, for example, p. 87.
19 Ibid., throughout, for example, p. 108.
20 Ibid., p. 97.
21 Ibid., p. 261.
22 Ibid., pp. 262-4.
23 Ibid., p. 59.
24 Ibid., p. 98.
25 Barnes, p. 47.
26 Ibid., p. 169.
27 Ibid., pp. 50-2.
28 Ibid., pp. 160-70.
29 Ibid., p. 87.
30 Ibid., p. 108.
31 Fowles, p. 390.
32 Barnes, p. 88.
33 Ibid., p. 68.
34 Ibid., p. 88.
35 Singer, Isaac Bashevis, The Family Moskat, translated by Gross, A. H., Penguin, London, 1980, p. 582.
36 Ibid., p. 193.
37 Ibid., p. 606.
38 Ibid., p. 179.
39 Ibid., p. 636.
40 Ibid., pp. 132, 490, 543.
41 See Barnes, p. 46.
42 See Fowles, p. 268.
43 Ibid., p. 98.
44 Barnes, pp. 49-65.
45 For example, Singer, pp. 239-242 (Letter from Adele to her mother), 444-52 (Hadassah's diary entries).
46 Barnes, p. 88.

This essay was written by Greg Hurrell, 1997.

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