Teaching Pynchon not PoMo

[Otto]

"I have a confession to make. For over 10 years now, I've been offering a
course called "Postmodernism and American Fiction" as an undergraduate
honors seminar and on the graduate level."
(M. Berube)

And  now? Does he pay his fees back? Because Pomo seems to be out of tune I
change my mind?

The article is mostly disappointing. That most contemporary successful
fiction is 19th-century stuff is obvious:

"There's nothing postmodern about most of today's popular writers, like
Maeve Binchy or John Grisham. More tellingly, there's nothing especially
postmodern about most critically acclaimed writers of "quality fiction,"
either. Richard Ford, E. Annie Proulx, Mary Carr, Madison Smartt Bell, Oscar
Hijuelos -- those are some of the most prominent writers of our time, and
you can't plausibly call them postmodernists. For the most part, they seem
to be capable, mimesis-minded chroniclers of contemporary life, and their
subplots are never tetrahedronal."

"mimesis-minded chroniclers of contemporary life" - that's the point. The
assertion that there is *a truth* to be told

I'm missing the point, the explanantion why Pynchon is *not* postmodern if
there isn't any postmodern fiction.

Pointing out to a geographical explanation as Berube does is a little bit
simplistic:

"The answer, I think, would be both obvious and striking: The crucial
difference between the major English literature of the first half of the
20th century and the major English literature of the second half is not that
one was modern and the other postmodern. The crucial difference is that one
was produced largely in the United States, Britain, and Ireland, whereas the
other was written in the United States, Britain, Ireland, and South Africa
(J.M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, Bessie Head), India (Salman Rushdie),
Nigeria (Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka), Guyana (Wilson Harris), Kenya (Ngugi
wa Thiong'o), Canada (Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje), and Trinidad (V.S.
Naipaul)." (M. Berube)

People should read the postmodern "Midnight's Children" instead of the
premodern "The English Patient" because it simply is better literature,
Ondaatje bored me to death.

There isn't much cabbie-business tonight, therefore this break. So thanks
for posting the url, I even forgot to drink my coffee.

Otto

> from: Terrance:
> Re: Teaching Pynchon not PoMo


> http://chronicle.com/free/v46/i37/37b00401.htm