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. |
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Acker actually aesthetic American Psycho argues Atwood Ballard Barth Baudrillard Beckett becomes Borges Borges's Burroughs century chapter characters considered constructed contemporary conventions Coover critics critique culture cyberpunk DeLillo detective fiction detective story effect essay example existence experience fact fictional world Flaubert Fowles French Lieutenant's Woman function genre Gravity's Rainbow Handmaid's Tale historiographic metafiction Hutcheon idea imagined interpretation intertextual J. G. Ballard Jameson Jes Grew John Barth kind literary literature logic Lyotard McHale means Menard metanarrative Midnight's Children modernism modernist Mumbo murder mystery narrative narrator Neuromancer nineteenth-century novel novelists Pale Fire parallel parody particular plot postcolonial postmod postmodern detective postmodern fiction postmodern writing postmodernist present produced Pynchon's Quixote reader reading real world realist reality references Robbe-Grillet science fiction self-reflexive sense sexual significant simply Slaughterhouse-Five social strategy structure suggests techniques tells term theorists theory things Tlön tradition words