Reading into the Metanarrative, by Casey Ferguson

One of the first things I do when reading a new novel is look for the author’s bio. Maybe this is only because I’m used to studying literature in a classroom setting, but regardless understanding a story’s background before reading it is important to me. I like to know the answers to questions such as Where and when was it written?, Who is the author?, and To whom was it originally written?

It used to be I could thumb through the first few pages and find this biography. Later I would find it either in the first or last few pages of the book. But more recently I’ve noticed that in some books this author’s bio may be absent altogether. At first this confused me, but considered in light of the post-modern worldview this changing trend makes more sense.

The relativistic mindset of the day tells us that, even with a piece of literature or maybe a musical work, context is not so important as was once thought and that anything can be experienced and interpreted standing on it’s own, read in a vacuum so to speak. This type of thinking tells us that, because each of our experiences are so unique, the author’s life is not crucial to understanding her story. Our understanding of what we read is all that matters. In fact, some newer works go so far as to take place within a vacuum, the stories themselves unfolding in a nameless setting with no location and a only a vague, grayish description.

Although the idea of reading a story outside of a particular context may seem enlightened at first, and despite the fact it feels good to hear that our interpretation of a thing is always correct, the truth of the matter is that understanding the context of a story is always necessary when trying to reconcile it to our own life experience. When I see an elephant pushing around a tree trunk,  whether I’m visiting the Ft. Worth Zoo or standing in my own backyard is very important in the way I understand what is happening. At the zoo this is natural and easily explained; in my own backyard this demands that I act against this situation and also raises several questions.

As much as the voices of our age would like us to believe our frame of reference is all that is needed to interpret life’s paradoxes and realities, the truth is that there is always a context in which a thing is taking place. In our own lives there is always an overarching narrative that establishes the background for our stories and provides the implications for our own decisions. This metanarrative, or big picture view, includes our take on God and should always be considered when trying to understand life.