What is post-modernism, exactly?

[waryan]

In trying to pin-point what Post-Modernism is, I visted a few websites and scoured a few books but I couldn't come up with much that wasn't overly-ambiguous or just said to refer to Modernism, which I am just as well a little lost on.

There are several knowledgeable people here and I thought it the perfect place to inquire.

Also I was wondering if someone could give me a few examples of PM works and perhaps why they're considered PM?

Once I read that Palahniuk was PM and so I just accepted that anything like Fight Club must be post-modernist, but this is a dangerous way of going about it, so please, someone enlighten me in this concern.

I like to write short stories, but I just write them, and have no idea what 'movement' they would fall into and I suppose I would like to be able to point out works with this knowledge.

Thanks as always.

[Drkshadow03]

Do you want to know what postmodernism is? Or postmodern literature?

[ben.!]

I wrote a short story explaining the theory of post-modernism. It's a bit out there, but your welcome to read it if you want an idea of a type of theory within post-modernism, in school we're taught english through post-modernism, and we were learning about satire, so I decided to satire the english syllabus through post-modernism. :)

Confusing, I know. Anyway, here's the link to the short story:

http://colabistruction.deviantart.com/art/A-Little-Internal-Short-Story-63030088

Enjoy! I hope it sheds a bit more light on the confusing modern analytical hip thing that is post-modernism. :)

[waryan]

post-modern literature, yes.

thanks for the story link ben, ill check it out

[PeterL]

Umberto Eco said that he was stopping using that term, because it had come to mean 'things that I like' to some people, and 'things that I don't like' to others. It is too elastic a term to convey much meaning.

[Drkshadow03]

post-modern literature, yes.

thanks for the story link ben, ill check it out

Postmodernism is the philosophy/perspective that calls into question Grand Narratives or the existence of objective truth to give a general overview. Many adherents of postmodernist would probably tell you I am oversimplifying, but I think that broad definition covers it well.

Postmodern fiction is the fiction whose themes reflect the basic tenet that objective truth doesn't exist. It, therefore, tends to take the form of metafiction (fiction about fiction).

Patricia Waugh defines metafiction as “a term given to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artefact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality” (2). This type of fiction “explores the possible fictionality of the world outside the literary fictional text” (2). In other words, since postmodernism has made the claim that there is no longer any Truth with a capital "T," that the existence of such a transcendental truth has been debunked, everything we can possibly know is a reflection of the culture we live in (even our most sacred truths). What this means for fiction writers is that there is no longer a need to write fiction that deals with transcendental truths. Instead a great deal of postmodern fiction deals with the very art of writing itself and the truth of political situations.

For example, a book that falls into both the Postmodern and metafiction definitions would be Philip Roth's Operation Shylock. The main character is Philip Roth himself who meets up with another man named Philip Roth who is posing as him within Israel to preach Diasporism (for the Jews to leave Europe and return to Israel). The point of this doppleganger is to demonstrate how Philip Roth's own identity is a social construct situated and formulated in a given historical context. Philip Roth just as easily could've been the other Philip Roth. In other words, the author serves as a larger metaphor for the Jewish community. Philip Roth talks about the Palestinian and Israeli conflict in the story and shows how much of a "fiction" that conflict is as well, that both sides are formulating these make believe identities.

A postmodernist wouldn't say the starvation and lack of supplies the Palestinian's suffer is fake, nor would he say that the Holocaust that the Jews suffered was fake either. The book deals with these elements throughout, but it does poke fun at the identities that formulate around these real events. There is one Palestinian character, George Zaid, for example who is a Palestinian intellectual who was trained in America and suddenly return to the Palestinian Territory and hate the Israelis and the larger Jewish public in a way he never did while living most of his life in America, positing the artificialness of his identity. This figure obviously pokes fun at famous Palestinian intellectual Edward Said.

Likewise, Ziad tells Roth the character, "the conspiracy against you in the Jewish press began at the beginning and has barely let up to this day, a smear campaign the likes of which has befallen no Jewish writer since Spinoza. Do I exaggerate?" (OS 136). Roth is thinking about his entire body of work up to this point within his story and how it relates to his life as a Jew and how the crazy events of his life reflect his work.

Basically postmodern fiction calls "truth" and "reality" and "grand narratives" we tell ourselves into question. All metafiction is pretty much Postmodern fiction, however not all Postmodern fiction need be metafiction. Fight Club for example doesn't really deal to much with the nature of writing and art (it does a little bit in very subtle ways), so it isn't really metafiction. But it is postmodern because it calls truths about masculinity into question.

How is this different from other fictional periods? For the most part 19th century fiction is about something, it has truths to reveal through the fiction. It isn't critiquing notions of truth, but rather is revealing to us the truth.

Does that help?

References:

Waugh, Patricia. Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-conscious Fiction. New York: Methuen & Co., 1984.

[JBI]

Post-modern is essentially a struggle for authenticity. It is trying to say the same thing, or perhaps even a new thing, but in a different way. So instead of saying, They love and die, you say, they are like them, who loved and died, essentially.
It is a lot more difficult than that, but to me authenticity seems to be the backbone of it.

[believin]

Those are some good descriptions of postmodern fiction. I might add that it is often nonlinear, as opposed to earlier forms of the novel.

For some movies that might make it accessible, you can think of The Matrix to illustrate Drkshadow03's excellent point about questioning the nature of reality. In that movie, we are not living our lives in the flesh, but in images projected into our brains while our bodies serve as nothing more than a sort of "battery" for the machines. It's a nice postmodern probing of the nature of our understanding of reality.

Mulholland Drive is a good example of the nonlinear approach, and also the search for authenticity.

A nice play that neatly illustrates all three of these aspects is "Noises Off" by Michael Frayn. You can read it, or you can watch a DVD version that features Carol Burnett, Christopher Reeve, and John Ritter. It is funny (another common aspect of postmodern fiction), nonlinear, seeking for authenticity, and questions our understanding of reality. And it does so with a very self-conscious approach to its place within a genre/tradition, also common in postmodern texts. In this case, the tradition it is interacting with is farce on the stage. Very fun!

[JBI]

I would hesitate to name Noises Off post-modern. It seems a modern example of the traditional English Farce, but not post-modern. The play within a play has a strong tradition in Western literature, from Shakespeare and Jonson, all the way to now.

That hardly is a good example, and the movie is very inaccurate to the text (I acted in the play, I should know), but yes, it is good for a few laughs.

[believin]

True, I am going more on my memory of the film than the text when I named Noises Off. It isn't exactly "postmodern," but it has those elements I was talking about, and I probably got too wrapped up in those elements.

I bet that was fun, acting in that play!

[waryan]

you all have helped tremendously- definitely blows away anything I've found in any texts concerning it. Ben I enjoyed your story and am bookmarking it for further reference, also Drkshadow03 I've been reading your wordpress for a while and love it. Keep up all the great work everyone.

[Drkshadow03]

Heh. Glad you like the blog.

[PeterL]

I wrote a short story explaining the theory of post-modernism. It's a bit out there, but your welcome to read it if you want an idea of a type of theory within post-modernism, in school we're taught english through post-modernism, and we were learning about satire, so I decided to satire the english syllabus through post-modernism. :)

Confusing, I know. Anyway, here's the link to the short story:

http://colabistruction.deviantart.com/art/A-Little-Internal-Short-Story-63030088

Enjoy! I hope it sheds a bit more light on the confusing modern analytical hip thing that is post-modernism. :)

I think that you ould like this site:
http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/

[byquist]

I have no idea how to define it, or even any interest in defining it. But when certain writers wax philosophic or intuitive, one can see it's essence.

For instance, in an essay, "'Indians": Textualism, Morality, and the Problem of History," Jane Tompkins says:

"The notion that all facts are only facts within a perspective has the effect of emptying statements of their content."

Also:

"The effect of bringing perspectivism to bear on history was to wipe out completely the subject matter of history. And it follows that bringing perspectivism to bear in this way on any subject matter would have a similar effect; everything is wiped out and you are left with nothing but a single idea--perspectivism itself."

And:

"The notion that facts are perspectival will have [a] disappearing effect on whatever it touches."

These advanced sort of statements have a sheen of postmodernity about them, and a dash of deconstructionism too.

[ben.!]

I've read in some places that people like James Joyce and Virginia Woolf were writing Post-modernist writing before post-modernism.

How is that so? I've read James Joyce's short stories and half of Portrait and apart from an experimental stream-of-consciousness style in Portrait of having the writing evolve as the narrator's mind evolves, I don't find the writing all that post-modern.

I don't know about Woolf, I haven't read any of her writing though.