The Cambridge Introduction to Postmodern Fiction
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Postmodern fiction presents a challenge to the reader: instead of enjoying it passively, the reader has to work to understand its meanings, to think about what fiction is, and to question their own responses. Yet this very challenge makes postmodern writing so much fun to read and rewarding to study. Unlike most introductions to postmodernism and fiction, this book places the emphasis on literature rather than theory. It introduces the most prominent British and American novelists associated with postmodernism, from the 'pioneers', Beckett, Borges and Burroughs, to important post-war writers such as Pynchon, Carter, Atwood, Morrison, Gibson, Auster, DeLillo, and Ellis. Designed for students and clearly written, this Introduction explains the preoccupations, styles and techniques that unite postmodern authors. Their work is characterized by a self-reflexive acknowledgement of its status as fiction, and by the various ways in which it challenges readers to question common-sense and commonplace assumptions about literature.
Preface: reading postmodern fiction IntroductionPostmodernism and postmodernity 1Ch. 1 Postmodern fiction: theory and practice 17Ch. 2 Early postmodern fiction: Beckett, Borges, and Burroughs 50Ch. 3 US metafiction: Coover, Barth, Nabokov, Vonnegut, Pynchon 72Ch. 4 The postmodern historical novel: Fowles, Barnes, Swift 99Ch. 5 Postmodern-postcolonial fiction 121Ch. 6 Postmodern fiction by women: Carter, Atwood, Acker 140Ch. 7 Two postmodern genres: cyberpunk and 'metaphysical' detective fiction 164Ch. 8 Fiction of the 'postmodern condition': Ballard, Delillo, Ellis 184References 205Index 215
