AUTHORIAL SELF-FASHIONING IN THE GERMAN METAFICTION OF THE 21st CENTURY

Abstract

The article deals with the phenomenon of the authorial self-fashioning in the contemporary German literature. The “increased visibility” of the author in his literary work is considered as a well-planned strategy to attract readers’ attention to the writer and his work in the situation of media competition. Taking into account contemporary classification, the article distinguishes between extra-textual and intra-textual self-fashioning. The study is focused on the textual forms of authorial self-fashioning and their functions in the novels by T. Glavinic “Isn’t That Me” and W. Haas “The Weather Fifteen Years Ago”. The study proved that the image of the author can be reconstructed from various projections – the writer as an ambitious loser who envies his more famous competitors (T. Glavinic) or the writer as a successful craftsman, who publishes romance novels and understands the needs of readers (W. Haas). In both works, which are examples of metafiction, the authors endow their character with autobiographical features. The identity of names, some facts of a real biography, references to their own works enable writers to model a pseudo-reality and construct an artificial image of themselves for the sake of provocative play with the reader. It is shown that T. Glavinic in his novel “Isn’t That Me” mocks the position of the readers, who always try to identify the narrator with the author. W. Haas in his novel “The Weather Fifteen Years Ago”, which is a fake interview with the author, criticizes mediocre readers and tendency to entertaining genres of literature. It is emphasized that the authors, turning to various forms of self- fashioning, appeal, first of all, to the readers who are attracted by any sort of authenticity and try to find the biographical trace in literary fiction. The analysis of the novels proved that the author’s self-fashioning in his own work is a medium used to imitate authenticity and criticize average tastes of the readers who turn into consumers of popular fiction. Likewise, self-fashioning can be described as an ironic auto-commentary and an effective strategy of self-promotion.