Posted 3 years, 6 months ago mid-afternoon by oso
I just now finished Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins and it is - there is no doubt - my favorite book of the year so far.
There is a genre of literature that some over-caffeinated professor decided to one day call post-modern. Despite my general aversion to both hyphens and professors, it’s a genre that suits me well. But describing post-modern literature is like describing the smell of a fart: agreement there is, but adjectives fall short.
Authors I’ve read who I lump in the PM category:
- Milan Kundera
- Tom Robbins
- Kurt Vonnegut
- Don DeLillo
- Thomas Pynchon
- Dave Eggers
Charecteristics of PM Lit:
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- The alternating lengths of chapters give a tempo to how the book reads. Kerouac was a master of tempo with his prose, but he composed in spastic, epileptic fits. The PM authors, maybe not quite as musical with their prose, create the same jazz-like effect by measuring out their chapter lengths in accordance with their content. It’s a practice of restraint and any lover of jazz knows that restraint is just as important as virtuosity.
- Author is a Character - Subjectivity
-
Not so much a character as a merry prankster, like all gods should be. A merry prankster and a patient ambassador, willing to help us better understand the embedded idiosyncracies of the characters they create.
I love how Milan Kundera explains to his reader how he created an entire character based on a single gesture. Then he introduces us to his character and finally goes off on a whole meditation about gestures themselves (more unique than individuals he tells us) and all the meanwhile there is a lingering sexuality in the air as thick as low tide. But isn’t there always?
- Poking Fun With Lightness and Irony at Topics Considered Heavy and Holy in Modern Lit. like Heroism, Sacrifice, Tragedy, Guilt, Yada, Yada, Yada …
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Heroism is for schmucks. Violence is for loonies. Revenge is for nutsos. And if you believe in tragedy, well, we’ll buy you a box of baby wipes, how’s that? These are the people laughing in the movie theater while everyone else is crying during Titanic, Pearl Harbor, Bambi for god’s sake, and any Hollywood formula movie ever made. (It should be pointed out that Adaptation and The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind both fall into the PM genre and that I loved them both.)
Anyway, these people laughing in the movie theaters, they write fucking great books.
- Elements of Eroticism in the Background of Philosophical Meditation
- Playfulness
- But I should be careful in my description. While Vonnegut and Robbins carry their grins, chuckles, and April Fool’s jokes throughout their entire novels, Pynchon, Kundera, and DeLillo are much more stern-faced and subtle with their joking around. But the point is still there: you should be taking yourself less seriously.
- Finally
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But maybe there is one more characteristic: Post-Modern Literature seems to be the domain of men. Why is that? Are we more ironic? More easy going? More detached because of our evolutionary responsibility to spread the seed rather than care for it?
There are many contemporary female writers I enjoy and respect. Among them: Barbara Kingsolver, Toni Morrison, Zadie Smith, Jane Smiley. They are talented and holistic, but they share so few of the characteristics with their heavy hitting counterparts on that side of the aisle cursed by the Y chromosome and I want to know why.
I see the same patterns throughout the blogosphere. Many of the male bloggers - the ones not writing about the latest Apple this an the latest Sony that - I would describe as much more Post Modern. We’d definitely lump Moreno in there right? But of all the female bloggers I read, only one I’d describe as post-modern - Legally Bored - and she’s stopped writing because:
I can’t write about people I care about.
Can anyone enlighten me?
When does the cave dwelling sagacious, bearded Chink share his philosophy with Sissy?
Although her mind was aware that Marie Barth, not to mention millions of Arabs, enjoyed it regularly, Sissy’s body had not yet decided whether the unfamiliar pleasure of anal intercourse compensated for the unfamiliar pain. The Chink, with yam oil as a lubricant, had just performed for a half-hour in Sissy’s fundamental orifice, and now she rested belly-down on a blanket in the sun.
The Chink then expostulates his great wisdom as Sissy let’s “Dakota sunlight warm her rectal tissues.”
As a side note, while there is anal sex and lesbianism galore in post modern lit, I have never once encountered male gay sexuality and I think homophobia could be a justified criticism. (I think this is also a fair criticism)
Why the aversion to professors? What did we ever do to you?
Post-modernism is actually a tired cliche’ in academia now (at least in the social sciences). I am actually covering postmodernism (note: no hyphen) in anthropology in my intro course this week. I showed a very strange film to illustrate this perspective - a perspective that many (including myself) feel like engages too much in navel-gazing (yes, I had to add the hyphen just for you Oso - maybe that is why you don’t like us professors).
Some thoughts -
1. Don’t hate on professors. To be honest, your writings make you sound like one.
2. Must there be classifications for literature (or anything else for that matter)? A long time ago I could see classifications bearing some sort of meaningful resemblance to the material and artists/authors included in the classification, but today’s world seems much more difficult to classify neatly. What with broadened knowledge, limited attention spans, and availability of resources, many forms of art (including literature and music) have just become massive morphs of many different classifications.
3. You really overestimate the “blogosphere”. There is a difference, I think, between a person who goes to school for years and acquires advanced degrees in subjects such as English and Rhetoric who subsequently writes novels weaving characters, plots, and themes in a way that is compelling, stands the test of time, and sells product; versus a person who signs up for a web address and lazily types things out at a keyboard on a semi-daily basis. Not many of us could do the former. A lot of us could do the latter. No offense.
Oso, whenever I think of postmodernism I think of it in terms of the social sciences like Xoloitzquintle. I don’t apply it to literature because I think, “who cares” what theory, school of though, tradition this piece falls into.
Nobody puts me in my place like you guys. I’ve got nothing but love for you.
Xolo,
As Bobby anticipates, it is painfully obvious that I will probably one day become a professor, drive a station wagon, and try to flirt with the girls at the university coffee cart who think I’m a wacko. I also have aversion to neither hyphen nor dash. In fact, I’m a serious benefactor to the dash.
I think postmodernism, hypen or no hypen, is more than tired. If it’s not dead, it’s asleep and drooling. Publications like The Believer and Cabinet poke fun of the insecure irony of “postmodernism” all the time.
And I use quotes because Bobby is right. Genres, like any category, like any element of any taxonomy are limiting. It’s not like Kundera, Pynchon, and DeLillo got together and formed a club to decide what their writing style should be like. But there are similarities based on the philosophical and social climate of when they wrote their books. (all of these authors are still writing today, but their prime was really in the 70’s) And I don’t think it does any harm to point those similarities out. And if you want to classify them with a five syllable term, go for it.
Bobby,
I think I poorly described what I meant about the blogosphere. I wasn’t saying that bloggers write as well as novelists (though a few do and very few novelists have “advanced degrees in subjects such as English and Rhetoric”). What I was saying, is there is an overall, much generalized, writing difference between male and female bloggers and that the male bloggers share more of the characteristics I listed above and that their style is more similar to (or more influenced by?) the authors I listed above.
No offense taken and you are absolutely right: anyone can start a blog and I wish that more would.
cindylu,
Funny ’cause I think the same thing when I read postmodern social theory … who cares what “line of thought” someone’s argument comes from … just give me the argument.
But yeah, I mostly agree with you about literature and its silly genres. Like right now I’m reading The House on Mango Street and everyone has always told me how it’s such an important work in “Chicano Literature” and I’m like, sweet, I’ve never read anything of “Chicano Literature” before so I check it out. But what’s amazing to me isn’t how she describes growing up as an immigrant in Chicago, but rather how incredibly well she describes the neighborhood around her and the people that make it up. Totally reminds me of Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas. So if it were up to me, I wouldn’t call it Chicano Literature at all, but rather “Place Literature.”
I think genres try to summarize how we react to a group of books/works/art/theory/whatever and since we each react differently, of course a genre can only represent so much. But the fact that we can actually agree on so much - in regard to genres - around the world, I think is impressive.
I meant to add that one of major arguments in favor of folksonomies (like cosmoso) over categorical taxonomies was summed up nicely in Bobbo’s second paragraph.
mother dont worry ive got a car and some friends on the corner
remember the night that the dog had its pups in the pantry
blood on the phone please on the poem and you cried till the morning
so may the sun right bring hope where it once was forgotten
suns are like birds flying all ways over the mountain
Oso, here’s some writers I would suggest you read. These are all across the board from Chicano lit to non-fiction, but they’re incredible reads none-the-less. Don’t hate on professors, yo.
Dagoberto Gilb “Gritos”
George Saunders “Perelandria”
JT LeRoy “Sarah”
Gloria Anzaldua “Borderlands/La Frontera”
Daniel Alarcon “War By Candlelight”
David Sedaris “Me Talk Pretty One Day”
I got drunk hanging out with Jonathan Safran Foer, the “Everything is Illuminated” guy, the other night. My friend and I wrote two different accounts on our blogs.
Thought I’d share, man. I got more books and stuff to share if you’re interested.
Cez