Postmodern fiction - anyone?

[dark desire]

Postmodern fiction by the likes of Delillo, Pynchon, Rushdie, Byatt, Palahniuk have a distinct kind of intimacy when compared with fictions by Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Kafka or earlier writers Wilde, Dickens, and others.

I need a good starting point here. Has anyone read more than one book of any of postmodern writers? I have read Rushdie. I find him too political for my taste. I have no clue about others. It will be helpful if you can share your experience of reading postmodern writers here.

Thanks

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow is the staple of Pomo, in my opinion, but it's really hard read. V. or The Crying of Lot 49 would be better starters. Vonnegut's Slaughter-House 5 is also wonderful.

[OrphanPip]

I quite like Coetzee, Disgrace and Waiting for the Barbarians in particular.

[Desolation]

I love a lot of writers that are described as "Post-Modernist" and therefore I can only assume that I love s-Modernism (though I try not to get too hung up on movements and genres).

Some American suggestions - William Gaddis, Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, John Barth, William H. Gass, Philip Roth, Kurt Vonnegut, and David Foster Wallace.

The "Big Three" Irish writers - James Joyce (mostly for Finnegans Wake), Samuel Beckett, and Flann O'Brien - are also kind of fringe Post-Modernists.

[dark desire]

Thanks for the responses. Can you people write a little about your personal experience reading these authors?

Especially Delillo, Coetzee and Pynchon. How was it reading them? The difficulty, the fun, other things.

[My2cents]

Dellilo -- Reminds me of a well pitched baseball game; game moves quickly with little drama but for the game within the game which can be fascinating to the knowledgeable.

Coetzee--Your ideal writer; does everything well: textbook, clinical, flawless.

Pynchon--He's a rebel and an iconoclast. Very self-effacing, self-deprecating... doesn't take himself too seriously which is why we love him.

[ChicagoReader]

I've read Underworld, Cosmopolis, and Mao II by DeLillo and my experience with each was enjoyable. Underworld is considered his main text though White Noise gets a lot of good reviews and I've been meaning to get to it. DeLillo's dialogue is what sets him apart from most other writers in my opinion. It just has this energy to it; his dialogue is where he gets his message out, whether it be his opinion on capitalism or the glory of baseball. Of the three I've read I'd recommend Mao II; Underworld is better but it's like 800 pages and could be daunting.