POMO rants

[dennis grace]

Henry admits:

>As a primo pre-Mo, let me be the first on the list to admit that I 
>hardly know anything about meta-fiction (like a good defnition, even) 
>or post-modernism (in case, horrors, there is anyone on the list 
>who isn't cool/modern enough to know what pomo stands for).
>
>Untutored as I am, I am requesting a reading list. If this isn't TRP 
>p-list relevant enought for ya, point me to the pomo-list.

Thanks for the query, Henry.  This gives me a chance to organize some
thoughts the recent POMO rants have birthed.  

Postmodern is one of those terms no one ever really manages to define.
Lyotard, the French apologist for postmodernism says "postmodern" has
different meanings in literature than in other artistic venues.  In art and
architecture, it seems to mean a sort of eclecticism that both mocks and
incorporates structuralism and modernism (as you can see, these discussions
create an infinite regression of jargon--sorry).

For my mind, the best definitions of postmodern are the non-definitions.
F'rinstance, Tony Hilfer (_American Fiction Since 1940_; New York: Longman,
1992) defines the predecessors of postmodernism--modernism, naturalism, and
black humor--but doesn't exactly define "postmodern" except as a response.
F'rinstance, Joyce and Faulkner--as moderns--give us a worldview that denies
any reality but that of the author.   Postmodernism gives us
works--Nabokov's _Lolita_, Barth's _Giles Goat Boy_, TRP's _GR_--that leave
us questioning even the artists' versions.

Where a lot of these academical types fall short is in not noting--as
Umberto Eco says--that the pomo authors always do this with a wink and a nudge.

Goofy side bar:  "Pomo," incidentally, is considered an insult to some
postmodern scholars--rather like calling science fiction sci-fi.  Yeahright.
That's like saying you shouldn't laugh at Groucho if you admire the wit
informing his humor.

A prof named (I think) Collins, in an interview for _Omni_ about seven years
back (sorry, couldn't find my copy) gave one of the best riffs on pomo I've
seen yet. He sez academe has this Grand Hotel view of human knowledge.  Art
with a capital A and Culture with a capital C have always been admitted to
the main lobby, the dining room, the ball room, and the best suites.  Pop
culture and inartistic endeavors have been forced to use the service
entrance or at least not allowed to loiter in the lobby.  They get the small
rooms, can't afford room service, work in the basement and kitchen, smoke in
janitor closets, and only see the better rooms to clean the toilets and
leave complimentary mints on the pillows.  Well, pomo slips a lude to the
hotel detective, seduces the concierge, swipes a credit card from someone
who can afford it, and--dressed in bluejeans and a Spike Jones
t-shirt--joins the party in the ballroom, demanding the band play Melancholy
Baby or Freebird.  (Okay, so I editorialized a bit.)

In other words, pomo allows Batman and Three Stooges references into Haute
Litterature.

Okay, now as to those other foax:  Lacan, Derrida, Foucault, Barthes.  They
ain't pomo.  Hell, they ain't even funny.  They're post-structuralists.
I've noticed that--even though Foucault and Barthes remain the most
frequently cited sources in English lit--many academics have developed an
automatic eye-roll in response to these names.  Post-structuralism is kinda
wearin' out its welcome.  I mean, okay, we get it:  any argument can be
turned against itself to some degree.  Good point, now can we talk about
something else?

MetafictionEZ--the short form.  "Meta" means "beyond" and usually implies a
critique of whatever it's attached to.  Derrida's critique of Sassure and
others, turning their own logic against them, is a type of metacriticism or
metalogic.  So, metafiction steps outside of a particular genre and looks
into it.  Good examples would have to include Nabokov's _Lolita_, _Ada_, and
_Pale Fire_; Ralph Ellison's _Invisible Man_; Barth's _Sot-Weed Factor_,
_Giles Goat-Boy_, _Lost in the Funhouse_; Coover's _Pricksongs and
Descants_; TRP's _COL49_; Robert Altman's take on Tolkin's _The Player_;
Quentin Tarrentino's _Pulp Fiction_; lots of episodes of the Simpsons. 

Of course, metafiction existed long before pomo, so you can also go back to
Ovid's _Metamorphoses_, Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_, Shakespeare's _Taming
of the Shrew_, Swift's _Tale of a Tub_, Sterne's _Tristram Shandy_, and
anything by Lewis Carroll. 

Metafiction A--the long form.  If you're into the critical stuff, find a
copy of Robert Scholes' _Fabulation and Metafiction_.  Accessible and
concise if a bit dated.  Explains Gass's creation of the term "metafiction."

Well, that was fun.  Hope 'snot too tedious.

Honos servio,

dgg
__________________


Dennis Grace
University of Texas at Austin
English Department
Assistant Instructor
Recovering Medievalist

"Oh God comma I abhor self-consciousness."  --JB