Post-modernist Fiction

http://www.artandculture.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/ACLive.woa/wa/movement?id=469

The website I’ve chosen to look at deals with attempting to provide an analysis on a history of arts and culture, and in this case looks to provide one definition and attempted understanding at Post-modern fiction. It addresses the timeframe for post-modernism from the mid 1960’s to modern day, and details the emergence of post-modern fiction. The argument made is that authors use a vast number of methods – “typically including bricolage, pastiche, fabulation and metafiction” – to ‘convey the complex absurdity of contemporary life.’ Emphasis is drawn on the ‘lack of the grand narrative’, an issue raised by Lyotard and key to post-modernism and its constraints. The article describes the boundaries, or lack of, for post-modernist authors, in the ability to write about hyperreality; the fact that they are not contained by reality, that in a sense they can write their own sense of reality without argument as its feasibility cannot really be argued against.

Italo Calvino

Calvino, born in 1923, was an Italian author of short stories and novels, as well as a journalist. He was born in Cuba, but returned to Italy shortly after his birth. Many short stories are quoted as his best works, including the ‘Our Ancestors’ trilogy and ‘Cosmicomics’ collection of short stories. By the time of his death in 1985, he was listed as the most translated contemporary Italian writer. His style was described in a number of ways; not easily defined, ranging from the style of fantastical fairy tales to more serious and ‘realistic’ styles. In terms of being addressed as post-modernist, Calvino described his style as trying to ‘remove weight’ – “I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people, sometimes from heavenly bodies, sometimes from cities; above all I have tried to remove weight from the structure of stories and from language.” This can be seen to relate to the notion of removing boundaries from writing in a post-modern fashion.