I Love Books!

First Person Narrative

I've just checked out a stack of books from the library.  It's an eclectic pile, including:  The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood, Chocolat by Joanne Harris, The Great Gatsby, Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner and Anybody Out There? by Marian Keyes.  The one thing they all have in common is first person narration. 

I'm interesting in seeing how different writers create fully developed characters using first person.  The last book I read, Water for Elephants, was also written in first person.  As I mentioned in that review, Gruen did an amazing job of creating interesting characters. 

Do you have any favorite first person narratives I should add to the stack?

Metafiction

I didn't know my favorite genre was a recognized genre until I was flipping through The Intellectual Devotional: Revive Your Mind, Complete Your Education, and Roam Confidently with the Cultured Class.  In it, the authors describe Metafiction, or fiction about fiction.  My favorite type of Metafiction is when an author takes an existing story and builds on it from a different perspective, such as in Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.  This is the story you know from The Wizard of Oz, but told from the wicked witch's perspective.  It explains how she became who she was in the original story, and is also an interesting discussion on the nature of evil and wickedness.  Other books by Gregory Maguire build on different well-known stories.

When I was a kid, books that were part of a longer series had the highest priority in the reading stack.  I'd browse the aisles of the library looking for series.  In addition to the Wizard of Oz series, I loved Walter Farley's Black Stallion and Island Stallion books.  I loved how the stories built on one another and the characters grew and changed.  And there was the thrill of realizing that at the end of one, when you'd have that feeling that you didn't want it to end, it didn't really.  You had the next in the series to enjoy.

Reading Metafiction is like this, only better.  It let's you revisit a story that you already loved once, and see it from a new perspective.  It gives you the story behind the story.