/lit/ - Literature

The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien

got all these?

you mean from the chart or that you have already read everything on the chart and want more

>>3472776
I kept it to one book per author, or else I could easily double the size of the list. Nice chart, though, saved.

>>3472761
I haven't read any of those books (embarrassing, I know). I guess I'll read Catch-22 first

>>3472779
I consider O'Brien pre-postmodern like Borges and Nabokov.

>>3472800
>proto*

>>3472800

I wouldn't disagree with you on that.

gtfo.

>>3472761
Is Pale Fire really a good entry point? I read Lolita and thought it was a bit over my reading level, and I decided to wait until I get better before I read Pale Fire, because I heard that it's harder.

>>3472800
I would also consider Beckett one of the proto-postmodernists

>>3472953

Mary is a very good starting point.
It's short and not as flowery as his later books.

>>3472953
Pale Fire is more complex, in form than Lolita but Lolita is harder judging just by vocabulary. Pale Fire is a great entry point to Postmodernism though, if it came out in 2005 it would be heralded as a masterful ironic critique of postmodern literary techniques.

>>3472961

I mean as a starting point for Nabokov and not pomo.
Don Quixote is probably the best starting point for pomo.

>>3472953
>I read Lolita and thought it was a bit over my reading level

Let Jeremy Irons read it to you first:
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1b5IpWYKl7b

Then read the book, watch the second film version, and read the book again, twice.

>>3472966
While this is a very odd suggestion, I can see your point. I would suggest the Crying of Lot 49 as the best possible intro to postmodernism.

would A Confederacy of Dunces qualify for it?
there's some weird shit going on.

>>3472761
I can't really speak upon The Lime Twig since i haven't read it, but wouldn't the Cannibal be more hypersensitive of John Hawkes since it is cited usually as being the first postmodernist text?

>>3472761
VALIS should be added.

>>3472953
>I read Lolita and thought it was a bit over my reading level
>Lolita

Wow, you must be one dumb fuck.

What is "postmodernism" exactly.

Google gives me "after modernism," which even I could have told you.

>>3473804
in terms of literature, meta-fictional writing, satires of popular culture ( i.e. consumerism, capitalism ), blending and jumping of events in time, and literary allusions.

>>3473804
think of 'post' things as being alike the artist formerly known as prince. it's what you have when you tear the name down and write 'former location of X': postmodernism is what was modernism, and what is now refusing to fabricate or define itself. when reality is believed unknowable or indescribable, postmodernism is the chaos which results.

>>3472761
>Postmodernism
>Cites The Man in the High Castle
>The Man in the High Castle
Do you even know what on earth you're talking about, OP?

>>3473899
I find that the pseudo-literati often mistake 'unusual' or 'mind-blowing' for postmodern elements. Obviously wrong, and so is that list.

But hey, the book is on Wikipedia's list of examples of postmodern fiction, so who am I to judge.

>>3473908
>the book is on Wikipedia's list of examples of postmodern fiction

>>3473913
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmern_literature#Examples_of_postmorn_literature

So is Watchmen and the work of Bret Easton Ellis it seems. Just going by what I've read myself (tfw i'm the true pleb)

Hey OP, did you go by this list when you made your chart?

>>3473908
>the book is on Wikipedia's list of examples of postmodern fiction

>>3473908
>>3473913
>>3473937
Turns out /lit/'s literary expertise is pretty shit, huh?

>>3473899
Metafiction
http://www.personal.psu.edu/facultj/p/jpj1/CASTLE.htm
I haven't read it but there is a story within a story going on. Google The Man in the Hugh Castle postmodernism you will get a lot results. Many critics and academics believe that PKD is a postmodernist.

Not OP

Naked Lunch and F&L:ILV are good, haven't got infinite jest yet but a plan on reading it soon.

>>3473996
>Metafiction
Well, hell. Why not toss in Dead Souls and Don Quixote into Wikipedia's list of postmodern fiction. After all, they also have stories within stories going on too.

>>3474034
I said I didn't read it bud. If you read the link it explains it further. I'll quote it actually.

Unfortunately most of these seem to be study questions for a class or something

>What are the implications of the book for our understanding of history? What is real history and how do we know? Is history more than consensus illusion? If people stop believing in an event, does it become untrue? Is history subjective?

>It is possible to make quite radical or even extreme claims for the shifting nature of history, that it is a kind of consensus illusion – maybe Franklin Roosevelt really WAS assassinated in 1933, and we are deluding ourselves when we believe otherwise. At what point, though, does historical revisionism end and what we might call fantastic subjectivism begin? How can we tell?

>Who’s paranoid? And why are you asking me a threatening question like that?

From the few lines I have quoted above it shows that there is a long interrogation of history. Later on in the link I posted it questions history and how faulty it is since that it is based solely upon memories. I wish I read the text so I could prove this,but I didn't. I understand the problem with the word postmodernism being thrown around wildly, but PKD has been frequently pinned with the label for a while and I don't think it is really that bad to put on him. He was truly pushing science fiction in a way where reality and fiction merge and at the same time showing a large distrust of metanarratives.

>>3473869
>>3473864
By this, I would categorize Dante's Divine Comedy as postmodernism. Do these academia twats not realize that people have written stories that allude to others and satire culture since the beginning of the medium?

>>3474073
>Do these academia twats not realize that people have written stories that allude to others and satire culture since the beginning of the medium?
Yes. Seriously. They think 'literature' is equivalent to the 'large realist doorstopper' genre invented mid-19th century. (Thus, they seriously believe that literature began in the nineteenth century.)

>>3474073
I think there is a large misunderstanding of what postmodernism is on this board. It has a vague definition so it makes sense. Basically there is a large distrust of everything. It has been related to multiple fields of studies. Postmodernism in anthropology, literature and sociology really all relate in that they question themselves

Literature questions itself and what it is doing for the public. There is this large distrust of systems and language as well. What can one do when language's meaning is faulty? The metafiction involved with postmodernism is different from other metafiction. It can be seen that the author places himself or even makes a story within a story because things are more complicated on a grand scale. I am pretty sure this is a pretty shitty explanation so I will stop here and will link you to two very useful essays written by John Barth.


http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/fmsolleges/College%20of%20Humanities0and%20Social%20Sciences/EMS/Readgs/139.105/Additional/The%20Literure%20of%20Exhaustion%20-%20John%Barth.pdf

http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/fmsolleges/College%20of%20Humanities0and%20Social%20Sciences/EMS/Readgs/139.105/Additional/The%20Literure%20of%20Replenishment%20-%20Jo%20Barth.pdf

>>3474100
Forgot to add, start with Exhaustion then read Replenishment. They are both connected in meaning.

>>3474073
I remember that in the preface of one of the Sandman's tome, the guy said something akin to "what we called post-modernism could be considered as old as Dante's Comedy, or even Homer."
>>3474100
>critics really believe literature was invented in the nineteenth century

So this is why big-ass nineteenth century and post-nineteenth century novels are so proeminently discussed on /lit compared to any other genre or era ? Thank you for clearing that up.

bump

the term 'postmodern' has more to do with the underlying cultural/philosophical 'attitude' of a novel than its stylistic tics.

>>3474913
No

I know /lit/ isn't a big fan of him but Martin Amis is a major writer in the movement, certainly more so then the likes of McElroy who's just being listed so people can pretend to have read one of the hardest to obtain books going

>>3472761

Saved. This is a pretty good chart, with some stuff I hadn't thought of. Who made it? Some patrician, living in a bunker somewhere, posting on /lit/?

This defines it fairly well:
http://people.virginia.edu/~jrw3k/wr/106-7/readings/Jameson_Postmodnism_and_Consumer_Society.pdf

>>3474926
I did, was hoping to add another row which might be possible. What do you guys think about adding Waiting For Godot? I've heard it called pomo many times but didn't quite agree with it so I wanted a second opinion.

>>3474945
You shouldn't be making a chart if you're this clueless

>>3474945

Why are you putting WFG on a book chart? It's a play.

>>3474999
I'm not going to anyway, it doesn't fit the slip.

>>3474923
McElroy was a major influence on DFW, so he's pretty important.

>>3475036
>DFW
>important in any way
Regardless the charts are supposed to be recommendations, don't recommend a book that can't be obtained. There's a reason The Magnetic Fields isn't on the surrealist chart and it's that.

>>3475036
DFW isn't even important, so influencing DFW doesn't mean shit.

>>3475050
There's an ebook of Women & Men floating around. It's been posting on /lit/ before.

>>3474945

It's one of those plays that'll leave you
Cold; you'll be completely indifferent to
Play around with it:
Waiting for Godot;
Godot to Wait:
For you;
To you.

You aren't Estragon
And Beckett isn't Vladimir;
You won't unlearn things
With this play,
Because you're already well-learned.

>>3475051
Sure thing, kiddo.

>>3475050
Can someone post the aforesaid chart? I'd like to take a look at it.

>>3475071
I don't care if you don't believe me, because in 10 year's time you'll still be clutching your unread copy of "Infinite Jest" while the rest of the world goes, "Who? Oh, him," shrugging.

Pretend all you want, I'm not interested and DFW is not relevant.

how do i learn about what postmodernism really is?

>>3475083
Start at the linked pdf earlier in the thread and explore theory, it's an ill-defined field with several attributes so it can be hard to pin down.
Essentially pomo is about playing games with the reader, merging popular and high culture and generally being irreverent

>>3475083
You step forth with the uncreated consciousness Of your fellows.

>>3475091
I advise you actually go and learn something before continuing with these contrived, empty, posts

>>3475091
Wait, that was Modernism.

To the Post of the Post:
You realize anyone can be a writer
When they realize the secret of writing,
So you insist upon playing around with Language anyway:
Hopefully making your Continental dead
Brothers happy;
As you're all analytical or something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yAQuUyYk

>>3475101
Go away, dumbfuck.

Tripfags get worse by the day, I swear to God.

>>3475099
I'm too busy unlearning the universe
My beautiful learned lad of truthfulness -
That you are so well accustomed to presenting Me with Physics, build me a rocket ship God, Build it just for me.

Beckett wrote a lot about nothing . . .

"That I may learn in my own life and away with from home and friends what the heart is and feels. Amen, so be it. Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul THE UNCREATED CONSCIENCE OF MY RACE," James Joyce.

And what did Joyce do:
He played with Language; referenced the maestros; knew philosophy to be a language game; was narcissistic satirically to match everyone else 'altruism'.

Shit I think I'll learn from you my God of Godliness, tell me something new, I know you have a lot of things to tell me in not only just words, I'm sure I'll read about you in myself one day. Not only just a professional bullshitter but a Scientist as well.

Please reply back, I'm missing you already.

>>3475128
You should at least learn when to capitalise

>>3475108
Stratford, why haven't we've ever saw you write Before?
We all know you had someone to type for you.
Why don't you send us all a little sweet song From Your Avon Sire.

>>3475142
i wouldn't know how to do that.
I really wouldn't.
Please tell me how to do those things God.
Please help me God.
And yet again, it's always ourselves.

You should check out the Reckoning album by the REM: all the titles of their songs are a-fucking with a rule we should all adhere to.

>>3475108
/lit/ is in some weird, new phase of tripfaggotry. I'm willing to bet most of them were regulars as Anon who just one day decided that if they were trips but spoke in try-hard, erudite personae that that would somehow make them less obnoxious and self-serving than the trips of yore.

Personally, I think we should get moot to make the board trip-free. Otherwise, the board lends itself too readily to these socially-retarded-yet-inflated-ego personalities.

>>3472761
the author of this pic should have used a different cover for IJ or a different color for his/her personal favorites because one can't see the blue dot on the IJ cover.

>Calling Daid Foster Wallace a postmodernist

lel

>>3475182
>because one can't see

I think a general 'you' would have sufficed, m8.

>>3475185
he is

>>3475167
It's still so far from being anywhere near as bad as it was in the heyday of BB and D&E and all them.

I mean, Essex de Vere is an idiot, but he's closer to REI than to any of those guys. Easy to ignore.

>>3475260
I agree. Honestly, I abstained from browsing /lit/ for nearly two years because of that shiet. Then on a whim I decided to look the place over yesterday. Gotta say, guys, I'm falling in love with /lit/ all over again. :3

>>3475375
That'll last a week until you realise nobody ever actually discuses literature (at most you get the semantics of genre) and then wonder why you keep clicking on /lit/

>>3472761

Kafka on the Shore

I've had a realization confirmed many times throughout my life that first popped into my mind about two years ago. It was an awareness that our thoughts are immaterial and that what a person knows is only made up of a series of significant moments and experiences where certain self-hypothesis are confirmed, and like fibers in a beanstalk, the watering of our ideas and analysis of experiences allows us self actualization and growth, but it is an individual type of growth, as it is only confirmed in our own mind.

Someone recently told me this share's some themes with post-modernism, and I'm really interested. Where should I start, or am I on the wrong track?