Metafiction & Unreliable Narrators

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reading Guide |  Reviews |  Beyond the Book |  Read-Alikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

The Long Song by Andrea Levy

The Long Song

A Novel

by Andrea Levy
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (11):
  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • First Published:
  • Apr 27, 2010, 320 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Apr 2011, 320 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Metafiction & Unreliable Narrators

This article relates to The Long Song

Print Review

What is Metafiction?
It depends on whom you ask, as the term is somewhat slippery, meaning that various authors and literary critics define it differently. William H. Gass coined the term in 1970 in an essay entitled "Philosophy and the Form of Fiction". Commenting on American fiction of the 1960s, Gass pointed out that a new term was needed for the emerging genre of experimental texts that openly broke with the tradition of literary realism still dominant in post-WW II American literature. Metafiction is thus an elastic concept covering a wide range of fictions.

John Barth (Lost in the Funhouse), Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale), Kurt Vonnegut (Breakfast of Champions), A. S. Byatt (Possession) and Salman Rushdie (Midnight's Children) are a few authors who have either claimed to write in a metafictional style or were viewed that way by critics and literary theorists.

In The Long Song, a woman is writing a book about Miss July, the slave. That woman turns out to be Miss July herself and she periodically comments on her experience of writing the story with her son looking over her shoulder as editor. This device on Andrea Levy's part qualifies as an example of metafiction, which can include the writer intruding to comment on writing, directly addressing the reader. One or two critics found this distracting but I saw it as an entertaining way of showing how far Miss July had come in her life from slave to free woman.


What is An Unreliable Narrator?
An unreliable narrator is defined as an imaginary storyteller or character who describes what he witnesses accurately, but misinterprets those events because of faulty perception, personal bias, or limited understanding. The discrepancy between the unreliable narrator's view of events and the view that readers suspect to be more accurate creates a sense of irony.

A common unreliable narrator is a child, such as Huck Finn, David Copperfield, or Holden Caulfield, who are not in complete possession of the facts but tell the reader more than they understand precisely because they don't understand.

As it becomes apparent that the "writer" of Miss July's story is the character herself, the reader of The Long Song becomes aware that he or she is learning the history of slavery in Jamaica from a radically different viewpoint than can be found in history books, because our narrator interprets the actions of white masters and mistresses, of overseers, even of free Negroes, from a point of view which is naturally limited by her perspective and limited knowledge of wider events.

Filed under Books and Authors

Article by Judy Krueger

This "beyond the book article" relates to The Long Song. It originally ran in May 2010 and has been updated for the April 2011 paperback edition. Go to magazine.

This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access become a member today.
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    The Jackal's Mistress
    by Chris Bohjalian
    From the New York Times bestselling author of Hour of the Witch, a Civil War love story of a Confederate wife and a wounded Yankee.
  • Book Jacket
    Dream Count
    by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
    A searing new novel from the bestselling author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists, exploring four women's desires.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Fagin the Thief
    by Allison Epstein

    A thrilling reimagining of the world of Charles Dickens, as seen through the eyes of the infamous Jacob Fagin, London's most gifted pickpocket, liar, and rogue.

  • Book Jacket

    Girl Falling
    by Hayley Scrivenor

    The USA Today bestselling author of Dirt Creek returns with a story of grief and truth.

  • Book Jacket

    The Dream Hotel
    by Laila Lalami

    A Read with Jenna pick. A riveting novel about one woman's fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance.

Who Said...

Dictators ride to and fro on tigers from which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

S O, S N, S B, S B

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.