The Cambridge Introduction to Postmodern FictionPostmodern fiction presents a challenge to the reader: instead of enjoying it passively, the reader has to work to understand its meanings, to think about what fiction is, and to question their own responses. Yet this very challenge makes postmodern writing so much fun to read and rewarding to study. Unlike most introductions to postmodernism and fiction, this book places the emphasis on literature rather than theory. It introduces the most prominent British and American novelists associated with postmodernism, from the 'pioneers', Beckett, Borges and Burroughs, to important post-war writers such as Pynchon, Carter, Atwood, Morrison, Gibson, Auster, DeLillo, and Ellis. Designed for students and clearly written, this Introduction explains the preoccupations, styles and techniques that unite postmodern authors. Their work is characterized by a self-reflexive acknowledgement of its status as fiction, and by the various ways in which it challenges readers to question common-sense and commonplace assumptions about literature. |
Contents
Poststructuralism postmodernism and the real | 6 |
What postmodern fiction does | 39 |
Samuel Beckett | 52 |
William Burroughs | 65 |
Coover Barth | 72 |
Kurt Vonnegut SlaughterhouseFive | 86 |
Graham Swift Waterland | 112 |
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Common terms and phrases
Acker aesthetic Alias Grace American Psycho argues Atwood Ballard Barth Beckett Borges Borges’s Burroughs Carter chapter characters City of Glass considered contemporary conventions Coover critics critique culture cyberpunk defined definition DeLillo detective fiction detective story Eco’s effect essay example existence fact fictional world figure film final find first Fowles French Lieutenant’s Woman function genre Gravity’s Rainbow Handmaid’s Tale historiographic metafiction Hutcheon idea influence influential J. G. Ballard Jes Grew John Barth Kathy Acker kind Linda Hutcheon literary literature logic McHale means Menard metanarrative modernism modernist Mumbo murder narrative narrator narrator’s Neuromancer nineteenth—century novel novelists official Pale Fire parody particular Pierre Menard plot postcolonial postmodern fiction postmodern writing present produced Pynchon’s reader reading real world realist reality references reflect rhizomatic science fiction self-reflexive sense sexual significant simply Slaughterhouse-Five social Sontag specific strategy suggests techniques term theorists theory tradition