Reading Journal #2 - Metafiction?

Metafiction is 'frame structure' in Korean

-story within a story!

           At first, when some strange guy named Chico appeared abruptly in bold letters, I could not understand why. Why does he pop up all of sudden? What does this story mean? I even asked the friends about the meaning of the story because it was frustrating to not know the purpose of what I’m reading. They merely told me to keep on and I would know the answer, but I simply did not want to keep on reading! I decided I will read it some other time, and that state went on for quite a period of time. I admit, I’m a little bit picky in reading. 

        The next minute, I realized I would get in trouble if I put the reading off any longer. I opened the book reluctantly. It was still hard to focus, but as I continued on, I got the point. It was a kind of reflective story of Gordon- the narrator. It was exciting to see the pages left of the story decreasing, too. Then I finished it. It was when I read the part about Gordon dismissing the essay to a typical product of an undergraduate creative writing workshop. So it was the story Gordon wrote! It is even mentioned that Gordon did not show this story to his parents unlike everything else since it contains too much of his dead brother Dennis and ‘most of all, too much 1960s.’ The story, as a whole, was straight from own experiences.

         Surprisingly, it was pretty much interesting when I thought it over. What is his ultimate purpose of putting that story in, also keeping in mind that Gordon- and furthermore, Chico- is very similar to Stephen King himself in many ways? We used this tactic called metafiction- the method of literature which the narrator tells the authors that the story is fake- in class as well. Firstly, I wanted to know bit more about metafiction, not just the definition, so I looked it up on the internet. It said: ‘the metafiction novel gains significance beyond its fictional realms by outwardly projecting its inner self-reflective tendencies.’ Simply put, it becomes real by not pretending to be real. In the story ‘Stud City’, it becomes more reflective of the writer-in-book Gordon by stating that it is only a fiction. I don’t think I completely understand what his intends were, though; I guess I will read it again, this time more carefully and enjoyably.