Finest Examples of Postmodern Literature
October 28, 2011 3:55 PM Subscribe
What are the finest works, in content and prose, of "postmodern" literature (or at least, how I defined it below)?
"Now look at anything Pynchon or David Foster Wallace writes. Narratives are often non-linear, the "system" is often portrayed as oppressive or silly, multiculturalism is highlighted, a view of history that portrays corporations and nations as self-serving. Some times things happen that just don't make sense. There is no cause-effect, Enlightenment rationality. Not nihilistic, but a general cynicism about Enlightenment ideals is presented. A common general theme is that why things may look great, the individual is no better off."
"JG Ballard said it in an interview way back when. You can't be true to the world anymore and write reality-based fiction, because for a writer to do so means he's claiming he's got a grasp on what's actually going on, and one of the conditions of post-split-atom humanity (everything since 1945) is that nobody has a grasp on what's actually going on -- we're all just surfing the chaos inherent in massive and sudden and fundamental CHANGE, making of it what we can ... hence sci-fi/fantasy etc becomes our most valid fiction."
"Now look at anything Pynchon or David Foster Wallace writes. Narratives are often non-linear, the "system" is often portrayed as oppressive or silly, multiculturalism is highlighted, a view of history that portrays corporations and nations as self-serving. Some times things happen that just don't make sense. There is no cause-effect, Enlightenment rationality. Not nihilistic, but a general cynicism about Enlightenment ideals is presented. A common general theme is that why things may look great, the individual is no better off."
"JG Ballard said it in an interview way back when. You can't be true to the world anymore and write reality-based fiction, because for a writer to do so means he's claiming he's got a grasp on what's actually going on, and one of the conditions of post-split-atom humanity (everything since 1945) is that nobody has a grasp on what's actually going on -- we're all just surfing the chaos inherent in massive and sudden and fundamental CHANGE, making of it what we can ... hence sci-fi/fantasy etc becomes our most valid fiction."
While Midnight's Children is Rushdie's greatest work, and contains many of the qualities you're looking for, The Satanic Verses is also fantastic, and meets almost precisely the definition you've set forth.
Murakami's The Wind-up Bird Chronicle also immediately comes to mind.
Of course, this kind of novel is most typically associated with Americans, so I tried to pick a couple of non-US examples... If you want a shot-down-the-middle American example, well, Gravity's Rainbow, right? Also, first Infinite Jest.
I dunno, this question is kind of hopelessly broad. You're asking for "fine" books. Maybe a more specific criterion would be useful.
posted by mr_roboto at 4:12 PM on October 28, 2011
Murakami's The Wind-up Bird Chronicle also immediately comes to mind.
Of course, this kind of novel is most typically associated with Americans, so I tried to pick a couple of non-US examples... If you want a shot-down-the-middle American example, well, Gravity's Rainbow, right? Also, first Infinite Jest.
I dunno, this question is kind of hopelessly broad. You're asking for "fine" books. Maybe a more specific criterion would be useful.
posted by mr_roboto at 4:12 PM on October 28, 2011
I'm really fond of the Perseid novella in John Barth's Chimera. I will say, though, that any sufficiently worthwhile piece of fiction of any genre will transcend that genre and therefore not fully reflect a summary quote such as the one listed. Further, it's impossible to fully escape rationality and remain a comprehensible narrative, so it being defined as 'Enlightenment' rationality is really a value judgment and thus arguable, but that's just my perspective.
posted by reenka at 4:18 PM on October 28, 2011
posted by reenka at 4:18 PM on October 28, 2011
Response by poster: I dunno, this question is kind of hopelessly broad. You're asking for "fine" books. Maybe a more specific criterion would be useful.
Hmmm. I suppose I'm looking at something with a seemingly normal, or "realistic" setting. I have Infinite Jest on my bookshelf but the setting sounds "ridiculous" (I don't mean that as a slight, and I mean to read through it sometime, but just that I'm looking for something else).
What I really enjoy about JG Ballard's quote is that this is a historical period. In the past people could look at the world and find meaning, but only recently has the world become an "uneasy marriage of reason and nightmare which... has given birth to an increasingly surreal world."
What I'm really interested in is a reflection of this depressive mood, situated in a "realistic" setting. I also have Gravity's Rainbow on my shelf (unread), but I was considering getting Mason & Dixon.
I don't know if Ballard is who I want though. I don't want to read Crash, and for instance this review:
Among the most memorable images in this collection is "The Drowned Giant". The title is self explanatory: a giant washes up on shore near a major city. Ballard worries less about where it comes from, more about how we'll react to seeing it. While the unnamed narrator reflects on the giant's mythological appearance, the body ends up getting chopped up and used as fertilizer, while the bones decorate doorways around the city. You can try tagging metaphorical meaning to that ending if you wish, but to Ballard it was just one analysis of how modern society functions, which isn't too well.
Isn't exactly what I'm looking for. I don't like how obvious Ballard is, the implication that it's so clear cut what has gone wrong, or even what is wrong. I saw this implication in a number of his other works too.
Maybe what I'm looking for moreso is absurdist or surrealist literature?
posted by SollosQ at 4:45 PM on October 28, 2011
Hmmm. I suppose I'm looking at something with a seemingly normal, or "realistic" setting. I have Infinite Jest on my bookshelf but the setting sounds "ridiculous" (I don't mean that as a slight, and I mean to read through it sometime, but just that I'm looking for something else).
What I really enjoy about JG Ballard's quote is that this is a historical period. In the past people could look at the world and find meaning, but only recently has the world become an "uneasy marriage of reason and nightmare which... has given birth to an increasingly surreal world."
What I'm really interested in is a reflection of this depressive mood, situated in a "realistic" setting. I also have Gravity's Rainbow on my shelf (unread), but I was considering getting Mason & Dixon.
I don't know if Ballard is who I want though. I don't want to read Crash, and for instance this review:
Among the most memorable images in this collection is "The Drowned Giant". The title is self explanatory: a giant washes up on shore near a major city. Ballard worries less about where it comes from, more about how we'll react to seeing it. While the unnamed narrator reflects on the giant's mythological appearance, the body ends up getting chopped up and used as fertilizer, while the bones decorate doorways around the city. You can try tagging metaphorical meaning to that ending if you wish, but to Ballard it was just one analysis of how modern society functions, which isn't too well.
Isn't exactly what I'm looking for. I don't like how obvious Ballard is, the implication that it's so clear cut what has gone wrong, or even what is wrong. I saw this implication in a number of his other works too.
Maybe what I'm looking for moreso is absurdist or surrealist literature?
posted by SollosQ at 4:45 PM on October 28, 2011
Donald Barthelme is somewhat like this, depending on which if his stuff you read. I like his book of short stories called Amateurs and I like his novels Snow White and Paradise. He has a few that are more fanciful, notably The Dead Father. He's thought to be one of the more early postmodern fiction writers though a lot of what he wrote was short stories for the New Yorker. I have made a page about him and some of the stories are linked there and you can see what you think.
posted by jessamyn at 4:54 PM on October 28, 2011 [3 favorites]
posted by jessamyn at 4:54 PM on October 28, 2011 [3 favorites]
From my post-modern lit class, back in the day:
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera; A Hundred Year of Solitude;
Kobo Abe, The Woman in the Dunes;
Michael Onddatke, The English Patient (though I hated that one);
Manuel Puig, Kiss of the Spider-Woman;
Miloard Pavic, The Dictionary of the Khazars;
-- The Satanic Verses was in there, too.
These may all fit your criteria, though in some senses they're more postmodern in terms of experimenting with the format of the modern novel and adapting entirely different structures than in your sense of rejecting causality -- though there is quite a lot of rejection of causality in there works, as well.
posted by Andrhia at 5:05 PM on October 28, 2011
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera; A Hundred Year of Solitude;
Kobo Abe, The Woman in the Dunes;
Michael Onddatke, The English Patient (though I hated that one);
Manuel Puig, Kiss of the Spider-Woman;
Miloard Pavic, The Dictionary of the Khazars;
-- The Satanic Verses was in there, too.
These may all fit your criteria, though in some senses they're more postmodern in terms of experimenting with the format of the modern novel and adapting entirely different structures than in your sense of rejecting causality -- though there is quite a lot of rejection of causality in there works, as well.
posted by Andrhia at 5:05 PM on October 28, 2011
James Joyce's Ulysses is the leader of the pack.
posted by Tylwyth Teg at 5:11 PM on October 28, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by Tylwyth Teg at 5:11 PM on October 28, 2011 [2 favorites]
Okay, so what you're looking for is literature written after WWII (postmodernism in literature is generally considered to start then) that is about the meaninglessness of life? The existentialista just might be your bag, Camus, Sartre and the like. As for later Francophone authors who deal with how to live in a world without meaning there are Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Romain Gary and Marguerite Duras.
Other authors that spring to mind are Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges and Milan Kundera.
posted by Kattullus at 6:54 PM on October 28, 2011
Other authors that spring to mind are Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges and Milan Kundera.
posted by Kattullus at 6:54 PM on October 28, 2011
I think that Philip K. Dick is a good fit. I like Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said.
posted by Quonab at 7:43 PM on October 28, 2011
posted by Quonab at 7:43 PM on October 28, 2011
What I really enjoy about JG Ballard's quote is that this is a historical period. In the past people could look at the world and find meaning, but only recently has the world become an "uneasy marriage of reason and nightmare which... has given birth to an increasingly surreal world."
What I'm really interested in is a reflection of this depressive mood, situated in a "realistic" setting.
This made me think of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. It's a bit early (1926), and the structure in the novel is modern, but the plot and characters have a definite postmodern flavor. It's Hemingway's best novel and is a lovely treatment of the "trying to find meaning in a world where the inherited narratives of meaning just aren't working."
posted by kprincehouse at 7:47 PM on October 28, 2011
What I'm really interested in is a reflection of this depressive mood, situated in a "realistic" setting.
This made me think of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. It's a bit early (1926), and the structure in the novel is modern, but the plot and characters have a definite postmodern flavor. It's Hemingway's best novel and is a lovely treatment of the "trying to find meaning in a world where the inherited narratives of meaning just aren't working."
posted by kprincehouse at 7:47 PM on October 28, 2011
I would actually suggest that The Hunger Games meets your criteria. (I remain baffled as to why this book was published as YA except for the fact that protagonist is 16.)
posted by DarlingBri at 9:17 PM on October 28, 2011
posted by DarlingBri at 9:17 PM on October 28, 2011
Pale Fire
posted by Joseph Gurl at 11:09 PM on October 28, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by Joseph Gurl at 11:09 PM on October 28, 2011 [2 favorites]
The Recognitions
Wittgenstein's Mistress
Cloud Atlas
Mason&Dixon is awesome but not what you are describing
posted by OHenryPacey at 11:36 PM on October 28, 2011
Wittgenstein's Mistress
Cloud Atlas
Mason&Dixon is awesome but not what you are describing
posted by OHenryPacey at 11:36 PM on October 28, 2011
Tadeusz Konwicki, A Minor Apocalypse.
And certainly not Capital-L Literature, but a great read: Thomas King, Green Grass, Running Water.
posted by bluebelle at 8:49 AM on October 29, 2011
And certainly not Capital-L Literature, but a great read: Thomas King, Green Grass, Running Water.
posted by bluebelle at 8:49 AM on October 29, 2011
What I'm really interested in is a reflection of this depressive mood, situated in a "realistic" setting.
Beyond Ballard himself, Christopher Priest, Paul Auster, Iain Banks with no "M.", Steve Erickson (not to be confused with fantasy writer Steven Erikson), Mark Danielewski, Jonathan Lethem, Tim Powers, off the top of my head.
posted by aught at 11:23 AM on October 29, 2011
Beyond Ballard himself, Christopher Priest, Paul Auster, Iain Banks with no "M.", Steve Erickson (not to be confused with fantasy writer Steven Erikson), Mark Danielewski, Jonathan Lethem, Tim Powers, off the top of my head.
posted by aught at 11:23 AM on October 29, 2011
Marguerite Young
Robert Walser, a literary cousin to Kafka and awesome in his own right
Fernando Pessoa
certain Jose Saramago books, like The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis
Thomas Bernhard, Peter Handke, and possibly (at times) Elfried Jelinek
Clarice Lispector, as mentioned above
Janet Frame
Violette Leduc
Julieta Campos
obvious maybe but Beckett and Pinter
The People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia
his mentor, Aimee Bender
arguably a lot of Faulkner's best and most infamous work, like As I Lay Dying and The Sound and the Fury, but even the stuff that doesn't seem this way often is in magical places
agreed about certain Nabokov, most notably Pale Fire
Diane Williams (grrreat)
Lydia Davis
nthing Barthelme for sure
John Barth
Robert Coover
certain Ondaatje titles focused on historiography, meta study like that, like Selected Works of Billy the Kid or In the Skin of a Lion
Rikki Ducornet
David Markson
Harry Mathews
Georges Perec
Gilbert Sorrentino
Grant Morrison (yeah I said it)
certain Julian Barnes
Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov
Elizabeth Costello or The Life and Times of Michael K by JM Coetzee
certain Flaubert, for real (which reminds...don't be fooled, a lot of seemingly straight up from the outside "classics" are shockingly modern/post-modern/contemporary, with lots of Difficulty dimensions to unpack...Madame Bovary, Don Quixote, the short stories of Gogol, The Story of an African Farm, to name some examples off the top of my head)
I would highly recommend checking out the catalog of books from Dalkey Archive Press and NYRB as one of the implied mission statements for both is to preserve and promote unusual and odd (for its context) or "Difficult" or Othered literature worth revisiting that might otherwise fall through the cracks.
posted by ifjuly at 5:33 PM on October 29, 2011 [1 favorite]
Robert Walser, a literary cousin to Kafka and awesome in his own right
Fernando Pessoa
certain Jose Saramago books, like The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis
Thomas Bernhard, Peter Handke, and possibly (at times) Elfried Jelinek
Clarice Lispector, as mentioned above
Janet Frame
Violette Leduc
Julieta Campos
obvious maybe but Beckett and Pinter
The People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia
his mentor, Aimee Bender
arguably a lot of Faulkner's best and most infamous work, like As I Lay Dying and The Sound and the Fury, but even the stuff that doesn't seem this way often is in magical places
agreed about certain Nabokov, most notably Pale Fire
Diane Williams (grrreat)
Lydia Davis
nthing Barthelme for sure
John Barth
Robert Coover
certain Ondaatje titles focused on historiography, meta study like that, like Selected Works of Billy the Kid or In the Skin of a Lion
Rikki Ducornet
David Markson
Harry Mathews
Georges Perec
Gilbert Sorrentino
Grant Morrison (yeah I said it)
certain Julian Barnes
Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov
Elizabeth Costello or The Life and Times of Michael K by JM Coetzee
certain Flaubert, for real (which reminds...don't be fooled, a lot of seemingly straight up from the outside "classics" are shockingly modern/post-modern/contemporary, with lots of Difficulty dimensions to unpack...Madame Bovary, Don Quixote, the short stories of Gogol, The Story of an African Farm, to name some examples off the top of my head)
I would highly recommend checking out the catalog of books from Dalkey Archive Press and NYRB as one of the implied mission statements for both is to preserve and promote unusual and odd (for its context) or "Difficult" or Othered literature worth revisiting that might otherwise fall through the cracks.
posted by ifjuly at 5:33 PM on October 29, 2011 [1 favorite]
Tom Stoppard's Arcadia addresses the downfall of Enlightenment rationality in a very direct way.
posted by sashapearl at 5:41 PM on October 29, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by sashapearl at 5:41 PM on October 29, 2011 [1 favorite]
Oh, and Emily Prager's Tales From the Footbinder and Clea and Zeus Divorce (the latter always reminds me of Cronenberg movies like Videodrome or Philip K. Dick in the glossy post-McLuhan lurid but cheerful absurdity of it all). She fell off the radar after writing an inflammatory novel about a woman getting a concentration camp-style tattoo that a lot of folks hated, but those first two have a lot of scathing modern absurdity going on.
posted by ifjuly at 5:46 PM on October 29, 2011
posted by ifjuly at 5:46 PM on October 29, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
"... There is no cause-effect, Enlightenment rationality. Not nihilistic, but a general cynicism about Enlightenment ideals is presented. A common general theme is that why things may look great, the individual is no better off."
posted by SollosQ at 3:59 PM on October 28, 2011