# Postmodern Literature: a what, or a when? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 30, 2009, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/postmodern-literature-a-what-or-a-when/515784 "2009-10-30T22:52:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2009, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/postmodern-literature-a-what-or-a-when/515784/1 "2009-10-30T22:52:11Z")
When someone claims that a novel or a writer is “postmodern” what do they mean, generally? Postmodernism is something that is hard to pin a definition onto as a literary movement, but keywords like “irony”, “metafiction”, and “minimalism” are ones that crop up a lot when people set out to define the parameters of it. But on the other hand, postmodernism is also an era, being from the end of WWII onward. So which thing do people mean more often? Are all contemporary writers postmodern writers regardless of their writing styles and subjects? Lists like [this one on wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_postmodern_authors) include Stephen King and Lemony Snicket…did the creator of the list mean that they’re writing during the correct era, or can it be defended that they’re actually examples of people who write with (intentional) irony and delve into metafiction? Or is this one of those things that means whatever the person using the term wants it to mean? ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/postmodern-literature-a-what-or-a-when/515784/2 "2009-10-31T02:51:19Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Or is this one of those things that means whatever the person using the term wants it to mean? A lot of times. I actually do find the wiki article on postmodern lit to be very good: > **[Postmodern literature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern_literature)** > > Postmodern literature is a form of literature that is characterized by the use of metafiction, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, and intertextuality, and which often thematizes both historical and political issues. This style of experimental literature emerged strongly in the United States in the 1960s through the writings of authors such as Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, William Gaddis, Philip K. Dick, Kathy Acker, and John Barth. Postmodernists often challenge authorities, which has been ... It does make the point that the term is pretty nebulous, but it does have its core (rather than just a time period). > [@](#): > > The term Postmodern literature is used to describe certain tendencies in post-World War II literature. It is both a continuation of the experimentation championed by writers of the modernist period (relying heavily, for example, on fragmentation, paradox, questionable narrators, etc.) and a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature. Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, is hard to define and there is little agreement on the exact characteristics, scope, and importance of postmodern literature. However, unifying features often coincide with Jean-François Lyotard’s concept of the “meta-narrative” and “little narrative,” Jacques Derrida’s concept of “play,” and Jean Baudrillard’s “simulacra.” For example, instead of the modernist quest for meaning in a chaotic world, the postmodern author eschews, often playfully, the possibility of meaning, and the postmodern novel is often a parody of this quest. This distrust of totalizing mechanisms extends even to the author; thus postmodern writers often celebrate chance over craft and employ metafiction to undermine the author’s “univocal” control (the control of only one voice). The distinction between high and low culture is also attacked with the employment of pastiche, the combination of multiple cultural elements including subjects and genres not previously deemed fit for literature. I think that the when doesn’t matter to much at all; it is far more about the what. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/postmodern-literature-a-what-or-a-when/515784/3 "2009-10-31T03:09:41Z")
You do have to include when. Although there are precursors (there are always precursors) it makes no sense to talk about postmodern literature before about the 1960s. Even there you get a great deal of contention between those who find such writers as Barth and Barthelme and Coover to be the last gasp of modernism and those who see in them the beginnings of postmodernism. And I would argue that postmodernism has run its course as a reaction to modernism and that not much of today’s works should qualify, although whether post-postmodernism exists in any coherent sense is also contentious. But that’s just an opinion. Unless you find it in a 400-page professional academic treatise which is defining the word rigorously, it’s used to mean whatever people want it to mean. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/postmodern-literature-a-what-or-a-when/515784/4 "2009-10-31T04:55:56Z")
Like pornography, it’s hard to define, but you know it when you see it. I think to a certain extent almost all present-day literature is necessarily pomo, insofar as pomoism is a certain sense of awareness of literature; a loss of the “innocence” that was in place before. And you can’t reboot innocence; once lost it’s lost. Of course I recognize that this is a relatively difficult-to-defend opinion, and I’m not sure it’s even fully formed for my own understanding of it; it’s just a sense that I have about the subject. I suppose it can be argued that something like Alexander McCall Smith’s _ **No. 1 Lady’s Detective Agency** _ series is pretty close to pomo-free. The stories I mean. But what about the setting? In order to achieve the innocence that’s very much at the heart and soul of those storeis, he had to set the stories in a kind of, well, pomo Eden. While reading them, we can’t help but be aware of the world outside; that awareness is somehow pomo. I have similar thought about _Lars and the Real Girl._ It’s hard to watch that film and enjoy it for what it _is_, without appreciating that in large part that’s because we’re so used to what it’s _not_. But still, is audience awareness part of the equation? Kind of a tree/forest conundrum I think. _ **No.1LDA** _ isn’t pomo . . . until someone reads it. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2009, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/postmodern-literature-a-what-or-a-when/515784/5 "2009-10-31T06:05:00Z")
Look for a number of key themes, here’s 2: Post-colonialism as a theme; a discussion of former colonial states, or states subject to heavy foreign influence. Commonly these will be states outside the 1st world. Post-structualism as a theme; a discussion or reflection on how language itself shapes and creates experience. Particularly in ideas of political action and personal identity. Post-modern literature takes it as given that language is never neutral, nor that the narrator or narative is omniscient.