The Cambridge Introduction To Postmodern Fiction (cambridge Introductions To Literature)

This page intentionally left blank The Cambridge Introduction to Postmodern Fiction Postmodern fiction presents its readers with a challenge: instead of enjoying it passively, they have to work to understand it, to question their own responses, and to examine their views about what fiction is. Yet accepting this challenge is what makes postmodern writing so pleasurable 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. bran nicol is Reader in Modern and Contemporary Literature at the University of Portsmouth and has previously taught at Lancaster and Chichester. He has published on D. M. Thomas, Iris Murdoch, postmodernism and stalking in contemporary culture. The Cambridge Introduction to Postmodern Fiction BRAN NICOL CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521861571 © Bran Nicol 2009 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2009 ISBN-13 978-0-511-64161-9 eBook (NetLibrary) ISBN-13 978-0-521-86157-1 Hardback ISBN-13 978-0-521-67957-2 Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. For Karen, Joe and Jamie Contents Acknowledgements Preface: reading postmodern fiction Introduction: postmodernism and postmodernity page xi xiii 1 Postmodernity and ‘late capitalism’ Baudrillard and simulation Poststructuralism, postmodernism, and ‘the real’ Sociology and the construction of reality Jameson and the crisis in historicity Lyotard and the decline of the metanarrative Irony and