Ten Titans of Postmodern Fiction

This channel so far has focused a lot on novels and other major works of fiction. But we must not ignore the short form, which has been a fecund source of expert and innovative postmodern fiction. In this episode I go through eight iconic and seminal collections of short postmodern fiction. Works include Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino, Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges, Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth, Pricksongs and Descants by Robert Coover, The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (and also Girl with Curious Hair) by David Foster Wallace, 60 Stories by Donald Barthelme, and Unlikely Stories, Mostly by Alasdair Gray.

In this episode I offer the suggestion that there can exist a "degree" of postmodernism in a work of fiction, with some works being more postmodern than others. I illustrate with four examples" A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller, The Universal Baseball Association, J. Henry Waigh Proprietor by Robert Coover, If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino, and Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.

In this episode I describe the postmodern narrative structure called the Garden of Forking Paths and give examples from Jorge Luis Borges, John Fowles, Mark Danielewski, Robert Coover, Alan Lightman, Steven Milhauser, Thomas Pynchon, and film.

Sometimes a postmodernist will start with a completely mind-blowing premise for a work of fiction and then will diligently tell that story as if it were the plainest of ideas. This technique, when done well, can be surprising and delightful. I explain the concept and give you examples from Gogol (The Nose), Italo Calvino (Cosmicomics), Robert Coover (Whatever Happened to Gloomy Gus of the Chicago Bears), Terry Bisson (Bears Discover Fire), Will Self (Great Apes), and China Meiville (The City and the City).

In this episode I discuss the most basic defining characteristic of postmodernism, which is acute self-awareness. I explain how postmodernism, as a response to modernism, is fundamentally about figuring out how we want to create literature in a world where all accepted prescriptive and proscriptive norms have been eliminated. I take a broad set of a dozen examples to show the many forms in which this self-awareness can manifest. Books discussed include Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig, Pure Drivel by Steve Martin, The Universe and Other Fictions by Paul West, The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, End Zone by Don DeLillo, The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists by Gideon DeFoe, Perchance to Dream by Robert B. Parker, The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde, The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, The Archivist by Martha Cooley, and Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon.