Best postmodern novelist?

[Anonymous No.17511161]

Obviously pynchon. But who else?

[Anonymous No.17511310]

>>17511161
I'm not so sure about Pynchon. I generally believe in quality over quantity in regards to an authors output, but Pynchon's career looks like a fluke. He's written 8 novels in about 60 years and only two of them are any good. Gravity's Rainbow and Mason and Dixon. To be fair, those are great novels but nothing else he has written is worth jack shit. The praise and acclaim he has received over the years seems a bit hyperbolic.

[Anonymous No.17511312]

>>17511161
uuhhhhh

[Anonymous No.17511322]

>>17511310
u r cringe

[Anonymous No.17511326]

>>17511310
V is a great novel

[Anonymous No.17511338]

>>17511326
I really like V., but it has some really great sections and some really mediocre sections. Thematically it feels like a first draft of Gravity's Rainbow.

[Anonymous No.17511367]

>>17511338
extrapolate. the only similarity i can see is that they both deal with a journey of discover but so many novels do

[Anonymous No.17511375]

>>17511310
Who would you put in that discussion? I thought so much of pynchon was fantastic. All i've read from him is endlessly inventive and i truly think vineland and inherent vice are a hair shy of masterpieces. I havent read against the day and bleeding edge though.
He will be remembered for writing 2 of the best hundred books of the 1900s - gr and mason and dixon.

[Anonymous No.17511415]

>>17511326
The first egypt chapter is legitimately one of the greatest chapters of fiction i’ve ever read.

[Anonymous No.17511488]

>>17511161
William Gaddis

[Anonymous No.17511575]

>>17511161
I've always preferred British postmodern novelists like John Fowles, Graham Swift, and A.S Byatt. Personally, Graham Swift's Waterland is one of the best postmodern novels ever written

[Anonymous No.17511607]

>>17511161
Barth was much more concerned with fucking around with story structure and making things "postmodern" for postmodernity's sake, using metafiction etc.

[Anonymous No.17511641]

Kobo Abe?

[Anonymous No.17511703]

>>17511607
Barth is also such a joy to read. I havent gone that deep into him yet but menelaiad was one of the ballsiest pieces of prose i've read. Also hilarious. I think its unfair to say that he's being postmodern for postmodernity's sake. More than anything what i've read from him is about stories and language/how those things shape reality.
>>17511488
Gaddis seems pretty great as well. I've only read carpenters gothic (pretty good) and i'm reading the recognitions, which is really good. Not completely sold it yet though. It's obviously the type of book that improves on reread. Jr seems to be much bolder and the stylistic experiment seems to be up my alley.

[Anonymous No.17512061]

>>17511641
Is he a postmodernist? I'm not sure. But kobo does write fire novels, i otta read mo from him

[Anonymous No.17512095]

>>17511161
>>17511488
>>17511575
>>17511641
How exactly are you guys defining "postmodern?"

[Anonymous No.17512149]

>>17512095
The gaddis of recognitions is a late modernist. If kafka is a modernist (which he is), then abe is as well.
Postmodernism is kinda stupid if we take it to mean after modernism. Modernist novels are still being created.

[Anonymous No.17512174]

>>17511161
Havent read many but i like John Fowles.

[Anonymous No.17512203]

>>17512095
Modernist is fixed in thesis-antithesis-synthesis for as far as I understand that and post-modernism is more incoherent. Post-modernism is sandbox mode.

[Anonymous No.17512205]

How is Against the Day? I'm picking that up next. I've read em all except that and Inherent Vice. Fav by far is Gravitys Rainbow and I have a soft spot for Vineland. Didn't think mason and Dixon lived up to the hype but it was a fun read.

[Anonymous No.17512227]

John Fowles, A.S Byatt, John Hawkes, Donald Barthelme, and especially Alasdair Gray are all wonderful writers.

[Anonymous No.17512242]

>>17512205
>I have a soft spot for Vineland

Same. I loved Vineland.
Against the Day is fun, and you'll no doubt like the Chums of Chance bits.

[Anonymous No.17512281]

>>17511415
That is the worst of the Stencil chapters desu. V. really fluctuates in quality. She hangs on the western wall and Mondaugen's story are some of his best but a lot others feel like filler.

[Anonymous No.17512471]

>>17512242
>>17512205
Based. Vineland is fantastic. After reading gr and mason and dixon i'm nervous to start against the day.

[Anonymous No.17512498]

>>17512095
OP of British postmodern post. I define postmodern literature in two ways: 1) as using literary techniques than having an overarching theme/philosophy. Intertextuality, minimalism, maximalism, meta-narratives, etc., are all techniques that I consider to be postmodern. 2) I look at it in a historical and a period point, roughly 1940-1990.

[Anonymous No.17512693]

>>17511703
I worked through the Recognitions while travelling in summer 2018 right after i finished my degree. such a massive book to bring backpacking, but damn. it's definitely top 5 books all time for me, if not best. the whole plot line is genius. the psychology of otto is one of the most perplexing parts of any book i've read.

[Anonymous No.17512861]

>>17512693
Yeah, im really appreciating how forgeries/copies/fakeness/replacements bleeds into every single page.
Problem is there are certain sections that just seem excruciatingly obtuse and the reading becomes a chore next to amazing sections with some of the best stuff i've read. Case in point, we get a section lampooning advertising that is fucking hysterical (laughing lazarus's necrostyle/zap/on the cuff) next to a completely perplexing and absolutely jawdroppingly amazing section about the sun going into the earth to wait for day next to one of the most tediously dense internal monologues of a psychosis.
Reading the psychosis passage literally made me pledge to myself i'd never write that type of literature again in my entire life, even if there were parts i liked.
Also the dialogue in there is A+, to the point where when wyatt loses his name i always know when he's there and when he's talking.

[Anonymous No.17512907]

>>17512095
Postmodern has no definition. That's what it means, fucko

[Anonymous No.17512993]

>>17512907
Why the fuck did you call me a fucko? How fucking dare you.

[Anonymous No.17513187]

>>17511161
He's a Rothschild. Pynchon isn't his real name. It’s Posner. He was born and raised in Westchester, the son of an investment banker and a condom industry executive’s secretary.

He is a puppet concocted by the liberal elites in 1965, as a ploy to disorient the minds of leftist intellectuals and distract them from devising workable alternatives to capitalism. He was never working class nor was anyone in his family. He doesn’t even write his own books. It’s all a sham.

[Anonymous No.17513240]

>>17513187
Go away kantbot

[Anonymous No.17513243]

it's John Barth :)

[Anonymous No.17513311]

>>17513187
Can't tell if expert troll or extremely misfortunate person worth my pity.
Either way, this idea that postmodern lit doesn't offer solutions is naive and shows a lack of understanding in what they do. Yes its difficult, and the reader has to do the work to get it, but most good postmodern writers do provide hints at solutions at least.

[Anonymous No.17514905]

>>17511488
>>17511703
>>17512693
>>17512861
Is there anything I should read before The Recognitions like there is with Ulysses?

[Anonymous No.17515667]

>>17514905
Im not done but i dont think so. Maybe faust or the clementine recognitions

[Anonymous No.17515803]

>>17511161
Georges Perec

Most underrated Postmodernist of all time. He has just as much heart as he has inventiveness. a joyous peculiar feel strikes me when I read Life A Users Manual. I can treat the novel as a puzzle, or I can just get lost in the stories that make it up. Makes me hope the rest of his oeuvre can compare to it.

[Anonymous No.17516036]

>>17513187
wrong

[Anonymous No.17516821]

>>17516036
>Takes bait

[Anonymous No.17516921]

>>17515803
Based and Perecpilled

[Anonymous No.17516968]

>>17514905
IMO no. You can go straight into it. People overstate the reliance on art references. Read carefully and you will have no trouble. It's a really cool book.

[Anonymous No.17516993]

>Sharts in your path

[Anonymous No.17518204]

Vonnegut and Bolanos are quite good

[Anonymous No.17518217]

>>17512227
>>17511575
I am glad there are anons mentioning A.S Byatt. She is super underrated. If you other anons haven't read her yet, I, and I am sure these other anons would as well, highly recommend her. Her novel Possession: A Romance has some of the best prose and poetry in a novel, and if you love Victorian literature, her examination and use of Victorian literary style is crazy good.

[Anonymous No.17518377]

>>17511575
>>17512227
>>17518217
Based

[Anonymous No.17519131]

>>17518217
I copped Possession for $1 a few months back. I'll give it a go. I've been putting off Waterland as well.

[Anonymous No.17519196]

>>17511161

[Anonymous No.17519486]

>>17518377
Both books are fantastic. If you were to twist my arm, I'd say read Possession first. That's mostly because I have a deep love for Victorian poetry, and A.S Byatt sets her fictitious poets based off of Browning and Rossetti/Dickinson, and the poems that are included are fantastic. The comparison between the modern-day romance and the Victorian era romance is also extremely well written. This isn't to say that Waterland is a lesser novel. Its structure alone is worth reading the novel. There is one chapter that's a bit of a slog, showing the history of this one family in the Fens and the evolution of the eels in the area, but once you finish the novel, you realize how interconnected the webs Graham Swift sets up in Waterland.

[Anonymous No.17519647]

>>17519196
Good ol Hawkes. Destined to be underrated for eternity

[Anonymous No.17519728]

>>17516993
What should i read from gass?

[Anonymous No.17519773]

>>17519728
I recommend starting with Omensetter's Luck or The Pedersen Kid from In The Heart Of The Heart Of The Country. Neither of those are particularly postmodern, more "high modern" if you subscribe to labels

[Anonymous No.17520203]

>>17519773
I fuck with modernism. Thanks daddy

[Anonymous No.17520470]

>>17512205
Vineland is so underrated, it's easily Pynchons filter.