"'There is an inn, the Cock and Bull, two kilometers west. Whoever sees you ought to suppose you spent the night there and set off early.'
"Everard whistled. 'That name's too eerily appropriate.'
"'Sir?'
"'Never mind.'" (p. 318)
Two points:
this dialogue prompted me to consult The Phrase Finder;
does Everard come close to recognizing that he himself is a character in a "cock and bull" story?
This would be metafiction.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I did have something like that "eerily appropriate" thought in the back of my mind when I saw the name of that inn! And I suspect Anderson deliberately created that name as a kind of ironic reflection on his own "cock and bull" story.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment