Postmodernist Fiction
by Brian McHale
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Book Summary Information
Author: Brian McHaleEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1987-08-12
ISBN: 0415045134
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Routledge
Book Reviews of Postmodernist Fiction
Book Review: A Useful, Easily Understood Analysis of Postmod Literature
Summary: 5 Stars
The one definable quality of postmodern literature is its resistance to definitions. Any survey of the criticism done in this field will turn up a huge number of "central characteristics," some of which seem contradictory, others of which are just plain impossible to wrap your mind around. McHale, like so many of his colleagues, does attempt a "paradigm" of postmodernism, but his at least has the advantage of being easy to grasp. Using the idea of the literary "dominant" as set forth by the narratologist/linguist Roman Jakobson, McHale argues that postmodernism in general "foregrounds" ontological issues (questions of being), as opposed to modernist writing, which foregrounds epistemological issues (questions of the nature and limits of knowledge). For example, a novel such as Carlos Fuentes' Terra Nostra is deeply postmodern to the extent that it disrupts time and space (factors that determine the nature of being) by gathering together various literary and historical figures in one place for "transtemporal feasts." A high-modernist book such as Joyce's Ulysses, on the other hand, concerns itself more with the nature of knowing: how people think, how information is created and transmitted, what discourses influence our thought and perceptions of the world, and so on. Obviously, this paradigm isn't perfect: seldom is fiction exclusively epistemological or ontological in emphasis, leaving the critic to make the highly subjective decision over which concern is foregrounded in any particular work. Nevertheless, McHale does a good job of accounting for "problem cases," explaining how texts can approach the condition of postmodernism but remain in a state of indecision (McHale classifies such texts as "limit-modernist" and offers a number of examples). Thus, even if it fails as a sure-fire way to distinguish postmodernist fish from modernist fowl, McHale's book offers a new way of looking at texts familiar to fans of both literary movements, which alone makes it a valuable addition to any library. Among the authors whose work is analyzed are Thomas Pynchon, Carlos Fuentes, Samuel Beckett, John Barth and Vladimir Nabokov, to name only a few.
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