Postmodern Pfiction with Ptim Callan

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...

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 t...

I follow up my episode "What Is a Frame?" to discuss the concept of nested frames, or frames within frames. I discuss some of the possibilities for this structure and why it may be appealing to metafictionists and other postmodernists. I use examples from Stanislaw Lem, John Barth, David Mitchell, and Julia Donaldson.

I describe how the very alphabet itself is a potential source of content, technique, and constraint for the postmodern writer. We discuss abecedaries, lipograms, and other alphabetical games. Authors include Georges Perec, Ernest Vincent Wright, Stanislaw Lem, Mark Dunn, Christian Bok, and Walter Abish.

I discuss subject matter and technique as two ways to address a school like postmodernism in literature. I describe the pitfalls of simply associating the postmodern movement with subject matter that is anchored to the postmodern era and how traditionalist writing can feature these same subjects. I discuss why we must deal with content as a topic in our study of postmodernism and how we can produc...

I always have a long reading list, including works both postmodern and otherwise. I go over six books on my reading list, including The One Hundred Brothers by Donald Antrim, Numbers in the Dark by Italo Calvino, Voice of the Fire by Alan Moore, At Swim Two Birds by Flann O'Brien, Huck Out West by Robert Coover, and Bats of the Republic by Zachary Thomas Dodson.

Concrete poetry or concrete prose is poetry or prose in which the arrangement of the printed words on the page adds to the meaning of the work in a meaningful way. I explain the form and give an overview of contributions from writings like e.e. cummings, Richard Kostelanetz, Mark Danielewski, William H. Gass, Ronald Sukenik, Harlan Ellison, Raymond Federman, and more.

Postmodernists pay great attention to the form of a literary work, be it a short story, a play, a novel, a film, a TV series, a book of short stories, or even a series of novels. But what happens when a postmodern storyteller starts to look at his own career like it's a single, literary work? In this episode I walk through three accomplished postmodernists (John Barth, Robert Coover, Quentin Taran...

I generally am a huge fan of hardcore postmodernism, but these five popular and highly postmodern authors simply don't resonate with me. Join me as I discuss Kathy Acker, William S. Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, Chuck Palahnuik, and Umberto Eco.

The frame structure is very common in postmodernist writing. I define frames, explain why they are popular among postmodernists, and give examples going all the way back to medieval times. We look at The Canterbury Tales, Hyperion, Freddy's Book, and The Princess Bride. We end with a sneak peek at future episodes including nested frames and interesting examples of frames in postmodern fiction.

Aleatory fiction is the technique whereby the narrative can be presented in a different order to different readers based on their choice or some randomizing element. This is as opposed to tabular fiction, where multiple, independent narrative lines are presented simultaneously to the reader, and a garden of forking paths, where the narrative splits and forces the reader to choose. We look at shuff...

The biggest novels are getting bigger than ever before. I give you real examples of how the top end in novel size is growing and explore this trend and its significance in postmodern fiction. Works covered include Ulysses by James Joyce, Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, Darconville's Cat by Alexander Thereux, The Tunnel by William Gass, The Christine Brook-Rose Omnibus, Dune by Frank Herbert,...

I pick out six unambiguous science fiction authors with strong postmodern tendencies and explain what they are. My list includes Kurt Vonnegut, Philip K. Dick, Gene Wolfe, Stanislaw Lem, Harlan Ellison, and J.G. Ballard.

This episode explores the fascinating world of tabular narrative in fiction, examining how authors create parallel, simultaneous storylines that challenge and engage readers. Join me to explore examples from John Barth, Samuel R. Delaney, Steve Katz, Arno Schmidt, Vladimir Nabokov, Johan Harstad, and Mark Danielewski as we discover how these complex narrative structures reshape storytelling.

Traditional fiction defines specific forms it can take, such as short stories, plays, poetry, and novels. Postmodernism intentionally blurs these lines, challenging the traditional definitions of types of literature. In this episode I examine a handful of books and ask, is this a novel?

I discuss the postmodern focus on the form our writing takes as an empowered response to the Literature of Exhaustion. Form can be structure, or types of documents, or genre and tropes and stock characters. I include plenty of real examples to show how this interest in form manifests itself to the betterment of postmodern literature.

Thousands of years of previous writing captured in millions of books has seemed to many postmodernists to be a massive obstacle to their own original contribution to literature. I describe this sentiment and some of the responses we see to this predicament.

I define irrealism, fabulism, and magic realism and discuss how delightful they can be. I explain the fundamental strategy behind irrealism and how it fits into literary postmodernism.

Our books are full of fictional people, places, and events. But what if the books themselves could be fictional? Some clever postmodernists have done exactly that.

I share the first of what will be many lists, this one of ten undeniable titans of postmodern fiction. Plus, see who didn't make the list and why.

Beowulf, the Wizard of Oz, Jane Eyre, and Hamlet all have one thing in common: Postmodern authors have retold them from the perspective of characters other than the protagonists we imagine. In this episode I discuss this marvelous technique and some of the shining works it has produced.

I define metafiction as fiction that takes at least some its narrative energy from its own status as fiction. I discuss different degrees and types of metafiction and its relationship to postmodernism.

Ptim corrects an error, proves he is unscripted, and digs into recursiveness, loops, Mandelbrot sets, mirrors, and fun stuff like that.

Postmodernism is a broad, complex tent with many occupants. In this episode I attempt a working definition that is clear, defensible, and ultimately useful in driving exploration of this topic. I cast postmodernism as a response to modernism and its earth-shattering effects on all forms of art, with the most salient difference being heightened awareness (self-awareness but also of influences, hist...