Postmodern Literature and the Joseph Heller connection

The website http://www.esoteric-sensationalism.com/userguide.html describes Postmodernist literature as a movement which arose after World War II which is described as being a counter reaction to the modernist movement, such as the convention of the single narrative. Death of the author considered a postmodern term “which originated with literary critic Roland Barthes”. It suggests the author’s work is not as important as the interpretation given to it by the reader suggesting that the postmodern text is interpreted in every reading. It continues by stating “By blatantly reusing existing texts as fodder in the meat grinder of her own postmodern writing process, Acker became the first mashup dub DJ of the literary world.” This suggests that Intertextuality to its logical extreme is plagiarism.

The site makes a clear distinction between what it believes postmodernism to be and what it is not. Experimentalism alone does not constitutes postmodernism and suggests writers who get into the mindset of their characters in a "Stream of Consciousness" style is not postmodern.



Joseph Heller (1923-1999) was born in New York to a Jewish family and is considered to be an early postmodernist writer. The style he used was dark comedy and satire which was used for purposes of parody. In his early career he wrote stories for such magazine as “Atlantic Monthly and Esquire” His Magnum Opus was Catch-22 (1961) which is also a term in the book which describes a no-win situation which was based around the World War II setting of airman’s trying to dodge combat missions partially based on Heller’s own experiences. The book is presented in a “non-chronological, fragmented narrative underlines the surreal experience of the characters and the contrast between real life and illogicalities of war.” This suggests the death of the grand narrative such as the ideological constructs that were exhibited during World War II and Cold War in favour of multiple conflicting narratives such as pacifist ideals were exhibited in the anti-Vietnam war movement that Heller was a part of. Other novels included Something Happened (1974), Good as Gold (1979), God Knows (1984), Picture This (1988), Closing Time (1994).