Graham Swift, Waterland. 112. Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot. 116. Chapter 5
Postmodern-postcolonial fiction. 121. Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children. 124.
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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 ‘double-coding’
3 4 6 8 9 11 12
Chapter 1 Postmodern fiction: theory and practice
17
An incredulity towards realism What postmodern fiction does How to read postmodern fiction
17 30 39
Chapter 2 Early postmodern fiction: Beckett, Borges, and Burroughs
50
Samuel Beckett Jorge Luis Borges William Burroughs
52 58 65
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viii
Contents Chapter 3 US metafiction: Coover, Barth, Nabokov, Vonnegut, Pynchon
72
Barth’s Funhouse and Coover’s Descants Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five Thomas Pynchon
75 82 86 89
Chapter 4 The postmodern historical novel: Fowles, Barnes, Swift
99
Historiographic metafiction British historiographic metafiction John Fowles, The French Lieutenant’s Woman Graham Swift, Waterland Julian Barnes, Flaubert’s Parrot
103 105 106 112 116
Chapter 5 Postmodern-postcolonial fiction
121
Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children Toni Morrison, Beloved Ishmael Reed, Mumbo Jumbo
124 127 133
Chapter 6 Postmodern fiction by women: Carter, Atwood, Acker
140
Angela Carter Margaret Atwood Kathy Acker
142 148 156
Chapter 7 Two postmodern genres: cyberpunk and ‘metaphysical’ detective fiction
164
Sci-fi and cyberpunk William Gibson, Neuromancer Detective fiction Jorge Luis Borges, ‘Death and the Compass’ Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose Paul Auster, City of Glass
164 167 171 173 175 178
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Contents Chapter 8 Fiction of the ‘postmodern condition’: Ballard, DeLillo, Ellis
184
Conclusion: ‘ficto-criticism’ J. G. Ballard, Crash Don DeLillo, White Noise and Libra Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho
184 186 191 197
References Index
205 215
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