Brian McHale on narative in literary history

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

"Derek C. Maus" wrote:
> 
> Quoted from the introduction to Brian McHale's CONSTRUCTING POSTMODERNISM
> (1992), this snippet represents a pretty good summary of the role I also
> see for the postmodern teacher of literature, as written by one of the
> foremost (and in my mind, most skillful) elaborators of postmodern theory:
> 
> "Moreover, I have in recent years bcome increasingly aware of the degree
> to which I am also a storyteller in my 'other' profession, that of
> university lecturer. A lecture, particularly if it is about literary
> history (my usual subject), is a story; an entire course of lectures is a
> long complicated story with many episodes and sub-plots. Reflecting on the
> role of narrative in the organization and transmission of
> literary-historical knowledge, I have come more and more to emphasize the
> narrativity, the story-telling character, of my own pedagocial practice. I
> begin most courses by reminding my students that literary history is, by
> definition, a narrative discipline, and that we are here to tell
> cooperatively...what we hope will be a 'good' story about (say) the
> relations between British and American literary systems during a specified
> period. I often invite my students to reflect on 'the story so far'--its
> intelligibility, its persuasiveness; and I insist on the multiplicity of
> possible alternative or competing stories, and seek to develop criteria
> for distinguishing better literary-historical narratives from les good
> ones."
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Derek C. Maus               | "What am I opposed to tell my customers?"
> dmaus at email.unc.edu         | Swearingen said. "'Sorry, Washington says
> UNC-CH, Dept. of English    | no more fanny packs for you; time to spend
> http://www.unc.edu/~dmaus/  | your money on great works of literature'?
>                             | It doesn't work that way."   --THE ONION
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------


Now no student is going to be unhappy sitting in this class.
I hope to god you don't think my soap-boxing is directed at
teachers. I'm not suggesting that we limit education, but
expand it, so it need not be so focused-- (degree, grades,
specialization, j o b, pay off these loans) so that students
get what they pay for and  resources are available to
support the Humanities in particular and contemporary
scholarship in postmodernism in particular. We need more not
less, so that we may have pluralism and balance in the
university. The problems of our postmodern world are what we
must be concerned with first. We are not prophets so we
don't know the future, and the past, well I think McHale, to
bring this back to Pynchon makes a great argument, a
beautiful analysis of Pynchon's roots in Modernism. This all
stems I think, from my most sincere suggestions to this
list, that we not get fixed in camps of "been there done
that" and "that can be divorced from this."  That, given the
nature of this medium,  the best way for us to enjoy Pynchon
might just be giving  folks the opportunity to come at him
from where ever they choose. To respond critically and
discuss openly what we think, have read and would like to
have others read and respond to. Postmodern literature has
modern roots, and with Pynchon, it helps to bring them up
and examine the hairs that Pynchon knots into. 

Pynchon it seems, is going to be read and written about for
a long time, none of us has the last word, I am usually
stumbling in the dark after dropping my flashlight and
hoping I don't shoot someone in the ass or myself in the
balls. 

I got on the soap-box, and I has too much coffee, ...and so
on.

Thanks, really, I needed it.

Terrance