Publisher's Synopsis
In the first full-length study of Wieland's first novel (1764), the plot and narrative technique are examined interdependently. Rather than satirising the hero (as the narrator pretends), the plot instead justifies his belief that the world around him is a fairy tale. Several structures, references and inset narratives underline this self-conscious artificiality. Two fictive readers, one critical, the other uncritical, are portrayed in their relation to the narrator's claims of verisimilitude. An ideal reader hovers between these two attitudes, concretely manifesting the rococo principle of play.
