Postmodern Fiction Timeline

1945
Germany surrenders
U.S. drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; W.W. II ends
"The Lost Weekend," directed by Billy Wilder

1946
Nuremberg war trials begin
Churchill's Iron Curtain speech marks the beginning of the cold war
ENIAC, first fully electronic digital computer
"It's a Wonderful Life," directed by Frank Capra

1947
"A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams
Jackie Robinson joins the Brooklyn Dodgers
Marshall Plan
Independence of India from the British Empire

1948
Harry S. Truman elected president
Gandhi assassinated in India
"Number One" by Jackson Pollock
Transistor invented
Columbia introduces first 33 1/3-rpm 12" record
"Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano" by John Cage

Check out the rest at the site for Norton's Anthology of Postmodern American Fiction. It also features sample syllabi and suggested reading lists.

From the introduction: "'Postmodern' authors. We selected specific authors (or texts) for inclusion because they had already been labeled 'postmodern' by a consensus of critics, scholars, and general readers too significant to ignore. These authors and texts include men and women like Donald Barthelme and Kathy Acker, novels such as Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, and short stories such as William Gass's 'In the Heart of the Heart of the Country.'"

antiMuzak

Animals Eating Jonathan Safran Foer

This sounds like a cop-out to me (from Amazon):

"Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his teenage and college years oscillating between omnivore and vegetarian. But on the brink of fatherhood-facing the prospect of having to make dietary choices on a child's behalf-his casual questioning took on an urgency. His quest for answers ultimately required him to visit factory farms in the middle of the night, dissect the emotional ingredients of meals from his childhood, and probe some of his most primal instincts about right and wrong.

Brilliantly synthesizing philosophy, literature, science, memoir and his own detective work, Eating Animals explores the many fictions we use to justify our eating habits-from folklore to pop culture to family traditions and national myth-and how such tales can lull us into a brutal forgetting. Marked by Foer's profound moral ferocity and unvarying generosity, as well as the vibrant style and creativity that made his previous books, Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, widely loved, Eating Animals is a celebration and a reckoning, a story about the stories we've told-and the stories we now need to tell."

JSF has obviously suffered a lot by "oscillating between omnivore and vegetarian." A lot. So much that I'm sure millions of people are dying to know the reasoning behind his dietary habits and ethical stances. And now, as a father, he is being forced to decide what to feed his child, and we should care. Go read Consider the Lobster. I honestly respect vegans and vegetarians, wish I had the willpower necessary to commit to something that strenuous myself, and think that vegetarianism will eventually become a worldwide phenomenon due to economic reasons and the amount of water necessary to grow crops to feed livestock. On the other hand, meat consumption is an ancient and tasty practice, but that is beside the point. If you haven't been persuaded by arguments for or against vegetarianism thus far, maybe you are 15 years old and are therefore a large proportion of JSF's target demographic. Happy reading.

The Letters of Samuel Beckett: Volume 1, 1929-1940

"Beckett's letters demonstrate his numerous commitments: to reading in a systematic way the classics as well as the literatures of several cultures; to training himself in music and the visual arts; to learning languages, becoming fluent in at least five and familiar with many more; keeping up with a broad range of acquaintances, friends, and professional associates; to answering in polite and timely fashion practically every letter that was addressed to him, even when he became famous and the inquiries grew in number; to WRITING, of course--criticism, fiction, poetry, drama; and perhaps more surprisingly, a commitment to getting published and to seeing his dramatic work realized on stage. The letters also show the author's endeavor to lead the life that would make all these commitments realizable."

GI Joe, Canzo Empyrean, Liberia, What?

I came across a link today to a trailer for a fascinating movie, which is also possibly fake. Barrelhouse has a post up called The GI Joe Movie I actually want to see, which links to this site, with an embedded YouTube video. A word of warning, the trailer is only loosely connected to GI Joe, and is quite disturbing. I wouldn't watch it if you are squeamish, though as several people have already said, I can't stop watching it.














The premise of the film Canzo Empyrean is this: in a future or alternate world, AIDS has become a pandemic and sexual intercourse is made illegal. Destro, a man in a metal mask appears as a savior/terrorist, claiming to have the cure to AIDS and promising "pleasure without consequence, pleasure eternal." The movie supposedly had its world premiere in Monrovia, Liberia, where it became a sensation. Seems a bit hoax-like, but that only makes the "film" all the more interesting. The inability to find a copy, or to actually see the film only causes fascination, increases the potential for horror and pleasure.

William T. Vollmann Can't Speak Spanish

Even though he spent the past 10 years researching his latest nonfiction brick, Imperial, which concerns Imperial county and the Mexico-California border. The book is 1300 pages long, and (according to Amazon) 3.8 pounds. Three links to reviews follow:


New York Magazine

The Rumpus

New York Times

Mad respect to Vollmann, but I really prefer his fiction, especially his short story collection The Rainbow Stories. In it, as well as in Imperial, his obsession with violence, criminals, the dispossessed, and (especially) prostitutes is apparent. He's one of the most ambitious and prolific writers around. Which makes it even harder for me to understand why he didn't put in the time to actually learn Spanish. The NYT brings up the same point, and they provide this quote from the tome:

“Day after day I went there, hoping to invade their [Mexicans] thoughts and steal their stories, but most refused to talk to me, eyeing me with a hatred as lushly soft as a smoke tree sweeping its hair against a sand dune.”

Maybe Vollmann isn't interested in or "good at" languages. Maybe he figured picking up Spanish would add 1-2 years to his already daunting project (he ended up hiring a translator/guide instead). Whatever the reason, he manages to publish roughly one giant book per year, the word genius is often mentioned in the same sentence as his name, and he is a probable contender for the Nobel Prize. And he is resistant to editing and owns many guns.


a NYT profile

Some Screen Captures from Twin Peaks