Literature for the 21st Century

Transcription

Literature for the 21st
Century
Summer 2013 Coursebook
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Contents
Articles
Postmodern literature
1
Alice Munro
14
Hilary Mantel
20
Wolf Hall
25
Bring Up the Bodies
28
Thomas Cromwell
30
Louise Erdrich
39
Dave Eggers
44
Bernardo Atxaga
50
Mo Yan
52
Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out
58
Postmodernism
59
Post-postmodernism
73
Magic realism
77
References
Article Sources and Contributors
91
Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors
94
Article Licenses
License
95
Postmodern literature is literature characterized by heavy reliance on techniques like fragmentation, paradox, and
questionable narrators, and is often (though not exclusively) defined as a style or trend which emerged in the
post–World War II era. Postmodern works are seen as a reaction against Enlightenment thinking and Modernist
approaches to literature.[1]
Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, tends to resist definition or classification as a "movement".
Indeed, the convergence of postmodern literature with various modes of critical theory, particularly reader-response
and deconstructionist approaches, and the subversions of the implicit contract between author, text and reader by
which its works are often characterised, have led to pre-modern fictions such as Cervantes' Don Quixote (1605,1615)
and Laurence Sterne's eighteenth-century satire Tristram Shandy being retrospectively inducted into the fold.[2][3]
While there is little consensus on the precise characteristics, scope, and importance of postmodern literature, as is
often the case with artistic movements, postmodern literature is commonly defined in relation to a precursor. For
example, a postmodern literary work tends not to conclude with the neatly tied-up ending as is often found in
modernist literature, but often parodies it. Postmodern authors tend to celebrate chance over craft, and further
employ metafiction to undermine the writer's authority. Another characteristic of postmodern literature is the
questioning of distinctions between high and low culture through the use of pastiche, the combination of subjects and
genres not previously deemed fit for literature.[citation needed]
Background
Notable influences
Playwrights who worked in the late 19th and early 20th century whose thought and work would serve as an influence
on the aesthetic of postmodernism include Swedish dramatist August Strindberg, the Italian author Luigi Pirandello,
and the German playwright and theorist Bertolt Brecht. In the 1910s, artists associated with Dadaism celebrated
chance, parody, playfulness, and challenged the authority of the artist.Wikipedia:Please clarify Tristan Tzara claimed
in "How to Make a Dadaist Poem" that to create a Dadaist poem one had only to put random words in a hat and pull
them out one by one. Another way Dadaism influenced postmodern literature was in the development of collage,
specifically collages using elements from advertisement or illustrations from popular novels (the collages of Max
Ernst, for example). Artists associated with Surrealism, which developed from Dadaism, continued experimentations
with chance and parody while celebrating the flow of the subconscious mind. André Breton, the founder of
Surrealism, suggested that automatism and the description of dreams should play a greater role in the creation of
literature. He used automatism to create his novel Nadja and used photographs to replace description as a parody of
the overly-descriptive novelists he often criticized.[citation needed] Surrealist René Magritte's experiments with
signification are used as examples by Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. Foucault also uses examples from Jorge
Luis Borges, an important direct influence on many postmodernist fiction writers.[citation needed] He is occasionally
listed as a postmodernist, although he started writing in the 1920s. The influence of his experiments with metafiction
and magic realism was not fully realized in the Anglo-American world until the postmodern period. Ultimately, this
is seen as the highest stratification of criticism among scholars.[4]
Other early twentieth century novels such as Raymond Roussel's Impressions d'Afrique (1910) and Locus Solus
(1914), and Giorgio de Chirico's Hebdomeros (1929) have also been identified as important "postmodern
precursor[s]".[5][6]
1
Comparisons with modernist literature
Both modern and postmodern literature represent a break from 19th century realism. In character development, both
modern and postmodern literature explore subjectivism, turning from external reality to examine inner states of
consciousness, in many cases drawing on modernist examples in the "stream of consciousness" styles of Virginia
Woolf and James Joyce, or explorative poems like The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot. In addition, both modern and
postmodern literature explore fragmentariness in narrative- and character-construction. The Waste Land is often cited
as a means of distinguishing modern and postmodern literature.[citation needed] The poem is fragmentary and employs
pastiche like much postmodern literature, but the speaker in The Waste Land says, "these fragments I have shored
against my ruins". Modernist literature sees fragmentation and extreme subjectivity as an existential crisis, or
Freudian internal conflict, a problem that must be solved, and the artist is often cited as the one to solve it.
Postmodernists, however, often demonstrate that this chaos is insurmountable; the artist is impotent, and the only
recourse against "ruin" is to play within the chaos. Playfulness is present in many modernist works (Joyce's
Finnegans Wake or Virginia Woolf's Orlando, for example) and they may seem very similar to postmodern works,
but with postmodernism playfulness becomes central and the actual achievement of order and meaning becomes
unlikely.[4]
Shift to postmodernism
As with all stylistic eras, no definite dates exist for the rise and fall of postmodernism's popularity. 1941, the year in
which Irish novelist James Joyce and English novelist Virginia Woolf both died, is sometimes used as a rough
boundary for postmodernism's start. Irish novelist Flann O'Brien completed The Third Policeman in 1939. It was
rejected for publication and remained supposedly 'lost' until published posthumously in 1967. A revised version
called The Dalkey Archive was published before the original in 1964, two years before O'Brien died.
Notwithstanding its dilatory appearance, the literary theorist Keith Hopper[7] regards The Third Policeman as one of
the first of that genre they call the postmodern novel.
The prefix "post", however, does not necessarily imply a new era. Rather, it could also indicate a reaction against
modernism in the wake of the Second World War (with its disrespect for human rights, just confirmed in the Geneva
Convention, through the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Holocaust, the bombing of Dresden, the
fire-bombing of Tokyo, and Japanese American internment). It could also imply a reaction to significant post-war
events: the beginning of the Cold War, the civil rights movement in the United States, postcolonialism (Postcolonial
literature), and the rise of the personal computer (Cyberpunk fiction and Hypertext fiction).[8][9][10]
Some further argue that the beginning of postmodern literature could be marked by significant publications or
literary events. For example, some mark the beginning of postmodernism with the first publication of John Hawkes'
The Cannibal in 1949, the first performance of En attendant Godot in 1953 (Waiting for Godot, 1955), the first
publication of Howl in 1956 or of Naked Lunch in 1959.[citation needed] For others the beginning is marked by
moments in critical theory: Jacques Derrida's "Structure, Sign, and Play" lecture in 1966 or as late as Ihab Hassan's
usage in The Dismemberment of Orpheus in 1971. Brian McHale details his main thesis on this shift, although many
postmodern works have developed out of modernism, modernism is characterised by an epistemological dominant
while postmodernism works are primarily concerned with questions of ontology.[11]
Post-war developments and transition figures
Though postmodernist literature does not include everything written in the postmodern period, several post-war
developments in literature (such as the Theatre of the Absurd, the Beat Generation, and Magic Realism) have
significant similarities. These developments are occasionally collectively labeled "postmodern"; more commonly,
some key figures (Samuel Beckett, William S. Burroughs, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar and Gabriel García
Márquez) are cited as significant contributors to the postmodern aesthetic.[citation needed]
2
The work of Jarry, the Surrealists, Antonin Artaud, Luigi Pirandello and so on also influenced the work of
playwrights from the Theatre of the Absurd. The term "Theatre of the Absurd" was coined by Martin Esslin to
describe a tendency in theatre in the 1950s; he related it to Albert Camus's concept of the absurd. The plays of the
Theatre of the Absurd parallel postmodern fiction in many ways. For example, The Bald Soprano by Eugène Ionesco
is essentially a series of clichés taken from a language textbook. One of the most important figures to be categorized
as both Absurdist and Postmodern is Samuel Beckett.[citation needed] The work of Samuel Beckett is often seen as
marking the shift from modernism to postmodernism in literature. He had close ties with modernism because of his
friendship with James Joyce; however, his work helped shape the development of literature away from modernism.
Joyce, one of the exemplars of modernism, celebrated the possibility of language; Beckett had a revelation in 1945
that, in order to escape the shadow of Joyce, he must focus on the poverty of language and man as a failure. His later
work, likewise, featured characters stuck in inescapable situations attempting impotently to communicate whose only
recourse is to play, to make the best of what they have. As Hans-Peter Wagner says, "Mostly concerned with what he
saw as impossibilities in fiction (identity of characters; reliable consciousness; the reliability of language itself; and
the rubrication of literature in genres) Beckett's experiments with narrative form and with the disintegration of
narration and character in fiction and drama won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. His works published
after 1969 are mostly meta-literary attempts that must be read in light of his own theories and previous works and the
attempt to deconstruct literary forms and genres.[...] Beckett's last text published during his lifetime, Stirrings Still
(1988), breaks down the barriers between drama, fiction, and poetry, with texts of the collection being almost
entirely composed of echoes and reiterations of his previous work [...] He was definitely one of the fathers of the
postmodern movement in fiction which has continued undermining the ideas of logical coherence in narration,
formal plot, regular time sequence, and psychologically explained characters."[12]
The "The Beat Generation" was the youth of America during the materialistic 1950s; Jack Kerouac, who coined the
term, developed ideas of automatism into what he called "spontaneous prose" to create a maximalistic, multi-novel
epic called the Duluoz Legend in the mold of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. More broadly, "Beat
Generation" often includes several groups of post-war American writers from the Black Mountain poets, the New
York School, the San Francisco Renaissance, and so on. These writers have occasionally also been referred to as the
"Postmoderns" (see especially references by Charles Olson and the Grove anthologies edited by Donald Allen).
Though this is now a less common usage of "postmodern", references to these writers as "postmodernists" still
appear and many writers associated with this group (John Ashbery, Richard Brautigan, Gilbert Sorrentino, and so on)
appear often on lists of postmodern writers. One writer associated with the Beat Generation who appears most often
on lists of postmodern writers is William S. Burroughs. Burroughs published Naked Lunch in Paris in 1959 and in
America in 1961; this is considered by some the first truly postmodern novel because it is fragmentary, with no
central narrative arc; it employs pastiche to fold in elements from popular genres such as detective fiction and
science fiction; it's full of parody, paradox, and playfulness; and, according to some accounts, friends Kerouac and
Allen Ginsberg edited the book guided by chance. He is also noted, along with Brion Gysin, for the creation of the
"cut-up" technique, a technique (similar to Tzara's "Dadaist Poem") in which words and phrases are cut from a
newspaper or other publication and rearranged to form a new message. This is the technique he used to create novels
such as Nova Express and The Ticket That Exploded.
Magic Realism is a technique popular among Latin American writers (and can also be considered its own genre) in
which supernatural elements are treated as mundane (a famous example being the practical-minded and ultimately
dismissive treatment of an apparently angelic figure in Gabriel García Márquez's "A Very Old Man with Enormous
Wings"). Though the technique has its roots in traditional storytelling, it was a center piece of the Latin American
"boom", a movement coterminous with postmodernism. Some of the major figures of the "Boom" and practitioners
of Magic Realism (Gabriel García Márquez, Julio Cortázar etc.) are sometimes listed as postmodernists. This
labeling, however, is not without its problems. In Spanish-speaking Latin America, modernismo and posmodernismo
refer to early 20th-century literary movements that have no direct relationship to modernism and postmodernism in
English. Finding it anachronistic, Octavio Paz has argued that postmodernism is an imported grand récit that is
3
4
incompatible with the cultural production of Latin America.
Along with Beckett and Borges, a commonly cited transitional figure is Vladimir Nabokov; like Beckett and Borges,
Nabokov started publishing before the beginning of postmodernity (1926 in Russian, 1941 in English). Though his
most famous novel, Lolita (1955), could be considered a modernist or a postmodernist novel, his later work
(specifically Pale Fire in 1962 and Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle in 1969) are more clearly postmodern, see
Brian McHale.[13]
Scope
Postmodernism in literature is not an organized movement with leaders
or central figures; therefore, it is more difficult to say if it has ended or
when it will end (compared to, say, declaring the end of modernism
with the death of Joyce or Woolf). Arguably postmodernism peaked in
the 60s and 70s with the publication of Catch-22 in 1961, Lost in the
Funhouse in 1968, Slaughterhouse-Five in 1969, and many others.
Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel Gravity's Rainbow is "often considered
as the postmodern novel, redefining both postmodernism and the novel
in general."[14]
American author and publisher Dave Eggers is
one of several contemporary authors who
represent the latest movement in post-modern
literature which some have deemed
post-postmodernism
Some declared the death of postmodernism in the 80's with a new
surge of realism represented and inspired by Raymond Carver. Tom
Wolfe in his 1989 article "Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast" called for
a new emphasis on realism in fiction to replace postmodernism.[15] With this new emphasis on realism in mind,
some declared White Noise in 1985 or The Satanic Verses in 1988 to be the last great novels of the postmodern era.
A new generation of writers—such as David Foster Wallace, Giannina Braschi, Dave Eggers, Michael Chabon,
Zadie Smith, Chuck Palahniuk, Jennifer Egan, Neil Gaiman, Richard Powers, Jonathan Lethem—and publications
such as McSweeney's, The Believer, and the fiction pages of The New Yorker, herald either a new chapter of
postmodernism or possibly post-postmodernism.[4][16]
Common themes and techniques
All of these themes and techniques are often used together. For example, metafiction and pastiche are often used for
irony. These are not used by all postmodernists, nor is this an exclusive list of features.
Irony, playfulness, black humor
Linda Hutcheon claimed postmodern fiction as a whole could be characterized by the ironic quote marks, that much
of it can be taken as tongue-in-cheek. This irony, along with black humor and the general concept of "play" (related
to Derrida's concept or the ideas advocated by Roland Barthes in The Pleasure of the Text) are among the most
recognizable aspects of postmodernism. Though the idea of employing these in literature did not start with the
postmodernists (the modernists were often playful and ironic), they became central features in many postmodern
works. In fact, several novelists later to be labeled postmodern were first collectively labeled black humorists: John
Barth, Joseph Heller, William Gaddis, Kurt Vonnegut, Bruce Jay Friedman, etc. It's common for postmodernists to
treat serious subjects in a playful and humorous way: for example, the way Heller and Vonnegut address the events
of World War II. The central concept of Joseph Heller's Catch-22 is the irony of the now-idiomatic "catch-22", and
the narrative is structured around a long series of similar ironies. Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 in
particular provides prime examples of playfulness, often including silly wordplay, within a serious context. For
example, it contains characters named Mike Fallopian and Stanley Koteks and a radio station called KCUF, while
the novel as a whole has a serious subject and a complex structure.[4][17][18]
Intertextuality
Since postmodernism represents a decentered concept of the universe in which individual works are not isolated
creations, much of the focus in the study of postmodern literature is on intertextuality: the relationship between one
text (a novel for example) and another or one text within the interwoven fabric of literary history. Critics point to this
as an indication of postmodernism’s lack of originality and reliance on clichés. Intertextuality in postmodern
literature can be a reference or parallel to another literary work, an extended discussion of a work, or the adoption of
a style. In postmodern literature this commonly manifests as references to fairy tales – as in works by Margaret
Atwood, Donald Barthelme, and many other – or in references to popular genres such as sci-fi and detective fiction.
An early 20th century example of intertextuality which influenced later postmodernists is "Pierre Menard, Author of
the Quixote" by Jorge Luis Borges, a story with significant references to Don Quixote which is also a good example
of intertextuality with its references to Medieval romances. Don Quixote is a common reference with postmodernists,
for example Kathy Acker's novel Don Quixote: Which Was a Dream. Another example of intertextuality in
postmodernism is John Barth’s The Sot-Weed Factor which deals with Ebenezer Cooke’s poem of the same
name.[citation needed] Often intertextuality is more complicated than a single reference to another text. Robert Coover’s
Pinocchio in Venice, for example, links Pinocchio to Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. Also, Umberto Eco’s The
Name of the Rose takes on the form of a detective novel and makes references to authors such as Aristotle, Arthur
Conan Doyle, and Borges.[19][20][21]
Pastiche
Related to postmodern intertextuality, pastiche means to combine, or "paste" together, multiple elements. In
Postmodernist literature this can be an homage to or a parody of past styles. It can be seen as a representation of the
chaotic, pluralistic, or information-drenched aspects of postmodern society. It can be a combination of multiple
genres to create a unique narrative or to comment on situations in postmodernity: for example, William S. Burroughs
uses science fiction, detective fiction, westerns; Margaret Atwood uses science fiction and fairy tales; Umberto Eco
uses detective fiction, fairy tales, and science fiction, Derek Pell relies on collage and noir detective, erotica, travel
guides, and how-to manuals, and so on. Though pastiche commonly involves the mixing of genres, many other
elements are also included (metafiction and temporal distortion are common in the broader pastiche of the
postmodern novel). In Robert Coover's 1977 novel The Public Burning, Coover mixes historically inaccurate
accounts of Richard Nixon interacting with historical figures and fictional characters such as Uncle Sam and Betty
Crocker. Pastiche can instead involve a compositional technique, for example the cut-up technique employed by
Burroughs. Another example is B. S. Johnson's 1969 novel The Unfortunates; it was released in a box with no
binding so that readers could assemble it however they chose.[4][22][23]
Metafiction
Metafiction is essentially writing about writing or "foregrounding the apparatus", as it's typical of deconstructionist
approaches,[24] making the artificiality of art or the fictionality of fiction apparent to the reader and generally
disregards the necessity for "willing suspension of disbelief. For example, postmodern sensibility and metafiction
dictate that works of parody should parody the idea of parody itself.[25][26][27]
Metafiction is often employed to undermine the authority of the author, for unexpected narrative shifts, to advance a
story in a unique way, for emotional distance, or to comment on the act of storytelling. For example, Italo Calvino's
1979 novel If on a winter's night a traveler is about a reader attempting to read a novel of the same name. Kurt
Vonnegut also commonly used this technique: the first chapter of his 1969 novel Slaughterhouse-Five is about the
process of writing the novel and calls attention to his own presence throughout the novel. Though much of the novel
has to do with Vonnegut's own experiences during the firebombing of Dresden, Vonnegut continually points out the
artificiality of the central narrative arc which contains obviously fictional elements such as aliens and time travel.
Similarly, Tim O'Brien's 1990 novel/story collection The Things They Carried, about one platoon's experiences
5
during the Vietnam War, features a character named Tim O'Brien; though O'Brien was a Vietnam veteran, the book
is a work of fiction and O'Brien calls into question the fictionality of the characters and incidents throughout the
book. One story in the book, "How to Tell a True War Story", questions the nature of telling stories. Factual
retellings of war stories, the narrator says, would be unbelievable and heroic, moral war stories don't capture the
truth.
Fabulation
Fabulation is a term sometimes used interchangeably with metafiction and relates to pastiche and Magic Realism. It
is a rejection of realism which embraces the notion that literature is a created work and not bound by notions of
mimesis and verisimilitude. Thus, fabulation challenges some traditional notions of literature—the traditional
structure of a novel or role of the narrator, for example—and integrates other traditional notions of storytelling,
including fantastical elements, such as magic and myth, or elements from popular genres such as science fiction. By
some accounts, the term was coined by Robert Scholes in his book The Fabulators. Strong examples of fabulation in
contemporary literature are found in Giannina Braschi's "United States of Banana" and Salman Rushdie´s Haroun
and the Sea of Stories.[28]
Poioumena
Poioumenon (plural: poioumena; from Ancient Greek: ποιούμενον, "product") is a term coined by Alastair Fowler to
refer to a specific type of metafiction in which the story is about the process of creation. According to Fowler, "the
poioumenon is calculated to offer opportunities to explore the boundaries of fiction and reality—the limits of
narrative truth."[29] In many cases, the book will be about the process of creating the book or includes a central
metaphor for this process. Common examples of this are Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus, and Laurence Sterne's
Tristram Shandy, which is about the narrator's frustrated attempt to tell his own story. A significant postmodern
example is Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire, in which the narrator, Kinbote, claims he is writing an analysis of John
Shade's long poem "Pale Fire", but the narrative of the relationship between Shade and Kinbote is presented in what
is ostensibly the footnotes to the poem. Similarly, the self-conscious narrator in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's
Children parallels the creation of his book to the creation of chutney and the creation of independent India. Jan
Křesadlo purports to be merely the translator of a "chrononaut's" handed down homeric Greek science fiction epic,
the Astronautilia. Other postmodern examples of poioumena include Samuel Beckett's trilogy (Molloy, Malone Dies
and The Unnamable); Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook; John Fowles's Mantissa; William Golding's Paper
Men; and Gilbert Sorrentino's Mulligan Stew.[21][29][30][31][32]
Historiographic metafiction
Linda Hutcheon coined the term "historiographic metafiction" to refer to works that fictionalize actual historical
events or figures; notable examples include The General in His Labyrinth by Gabriel García Márquez (about Simón
Bolívar), Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes (about Gustave Flaubert), Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow (which features
such historical figures as Harry Houdini, Henry Ford, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, Booker T. Washington,
Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung), and Rabih Alameddine's Koolaids: The Art of War which makes references to the
Lebanese Civil War and various real life political figures. Thomas Pynchon's Mason and Dixon also employs this
concept; for example, a scene featuring George Washington smoking marijuana is included. John Fowles deals
similarly with the Victorian Period in The French Lieutenant's Woman. In regard to critical theory, this technique
can be related to "The Death of the Author" by Roland Barthes.[4]
6
Temporal distortion
This is a common technique in modernist fiction: fragmentation and non-linear narratives are central features in both
modern and postmodern literature. Temporal distortion in postmodern fiction is used in a variety of ways, often for
the sake of irony. Historiographic metafiction (see above) is an example of this. Distortions in time are central
features in many of Kurt Vonnegut's non-linear novels, the most famous of which is perhaps Billy Pilgrim in
Slaughterhouse-Five becoming "unstuck in time". In Flight to Canada, Ishmael Reed deals playfully with
anachronisms, Abraham Lincoln using a telephone for example. Time may also overlap, repeat, or bifurcate into
multiple possibilities. For example, in Robert Coover's "The Babysitter" from Pricksongs & Descants, the author
presents multiple possible events occurring simultaneously—in one section the babysitter is murdered while in
another section nothing happens and so on—yet no version of the story is favored as the correct version.[4]
Magic realism
Magic realism may be literary work marked by the use of still, sharply defined, smoothly painted images of figures
and objects depicted in a surrealistic manner. The themes and subjects are often imaginary, somewhat outlandish and
fantastic and with a certain dream-like quality. Some of the characteristic features of this kind of fiction are the
mingling and juxtaposition of the realistic and the fantastic or bizarre, skillful time shifts, convoluted and even
labyrinthine narratives and plots, miscellaneous use of dreams, myths and fairy stories, expressionistic and even
surrealistic description, arcane erudition, the element of surprise or abrupt shock, the horrific and the inexplicable. It
has been applied, for instance, to the work of Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentinian who in 1935 published his Historia
universal de la infamia, regarded by many as the first work of magic realism. Colombian novelist Gabriel García
Marquez is also regarded as a notable exponent of this kind of fiction—especially his novel One Hundred Years of
Solitude. The Cuban Alejo Carpentier is another described as a "magic realist". Postmodernists such as Salman
Rushdie and Italo Calvino commonly use Magic Realism in their work.[4][21] A fusion of fabulism with magic
realism is apparent in such early 21st century American short stories as Kevin Brockmeier's "The Ceiling", Dan
Chaon's "Big Me", Jacob M. Appel's "Exposure", and Elizabeth Graver's "The Mourning Door".[33]
Technoculture and hyperreality
Fredric Jameson called postmodernism the "cultural logic of late capitalism". "Late capitalism" implies that society
has moved past the industrial age and into the information age. Likewise, Jean Baudrillard claimed postmodernity
was defined by a shift into hyperreality in which simulations have replaced the real. In postmodernity people are
inundated with information, technology has become a central focus in many lives, and our understanding of the real
is mediated by simulations of the real. Many works of fiction have dealt with this aspect of postmodernity with
characteristic irony and pastiche. For example, Don DeLillo's White Noise presents characters who are bombarded
with a "white noise" of television, product brand names, and clichés. The cyberpunk fiction of William Gibson, Neal
Stephenson, and many others use science fiction techniques to address this postmodern, hyperreal information
bombardment.[34][35][36] Steampunk, a subgenre of science fiction popularized in novels and comics by such writers
as Alan Moore and James Blaylock, demonstrates postmodern pastiche, temporal distortion, and a focus on
technoculture with its mix of futuristic technology and Victorian culture.
Paranoia
Perhaps demonstrated most famously and effectively in Joseph Heller's Catch-22, the sense of paranoia, the belief
that there's an ordering system behind the chaos of the world is another recurring postmodern theme. For the
postmodernist, no ordering is extremely dependant upon the subject, so paranoia often straddles the line between
delusion and brilliant insight. Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, long-considered a prototype of postmodern literature,
presents a situation which may be "coincidence or conspiracy -- or a cruel joke".[37] This often coincides with the
theme of technoculture and hyperreality. For example, in Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, the character
7
Dwayne Hoover becomes violent when he's convinced that everyone else in the world is a robot and he is the only
human.[4]
Maximalism
Dubbed maximalism by some critics, the sprawling canvas and fragmented narrative of such writers as Dave Eggers
and David Foster Wallace has generated controversy on the "purpose" of a novel as narrative and the standards by
which it should be judged. The postmodern position is that the style of a novel must be appropriate to what it depicts
and represents, and points back to such examples in previous ages as Gargantua by François Rabelais and the
Odyssey of Homer, which Nancy Felson hails as the exemplar of the polytropic audience and its engagement with a
work.
Many modernist critics, notably B.R. Myers in his polemic A Reader's Manifesto, attack the maximalist novel as
being disorganized, sterile and filled with language play for its own sake, empty of emotional commitment—and
therefore empty of value as a novel. Yet there are counter-examples, such as Pynchon's Mason & Dixon and David
Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest where postmodern narrative coexists with emotional commitment.[38][39]
Minimalism
Literary minimalism can be characterized as a focus on a surface description where readers are expected to take an
active role in the creation of a story. The characters in minimalist stories and novels tend to be unexceptional.
Generally, the short stories are "slice of life" stories. Minimalism, the opposite of maximalism, is a representation of
only the most basic and necessary pieces, specific by economy with words. Minimalist authors hesitate to use
adjectives, adverbs, or meaningless details. Instead of providing every minute detail, the author provides a general
context and then allows the reader's imagination to shape the story. Among those categorized as postmodernist,
literary minimalism is most commonly associated with Samuel Beckett.[40]
Different perspectives
John Barth, the postmodernist novelist who talks often about the label "postmodern", wrote an influential essay in
1967 called "The Literature of Exhaustion" and in 1979 wrote "Literature of Replenishment" in order to clarify the
earlier essay. "Literature of Exhaustion" was about the need for a new era in literature after modernism had
exhausted itself. In "Literature of Replenishment" Barth says,
My ideal Postmodernist author neither merely repudiates nor merely imitates either his 20th-century
Modernist parents or his 19th-century premodernist grandparents. He has the first half of our century
under his belt, but not on his back. Without lapsing into moral or artistic simplism, shoddy
craftsmanship, Madison Avenue venality, or either false or real naiveté, he nevertheless aspires to a
fiction more democratic in its appeal than such late-Modernist marvels as Beckett's Texts for Nothing...
The ideal Postmodernist novel will somehow rise above the quarrel between realism and irrealism,
formalism and "contentism," pure and committed literature, coterie fiction and junk fiction...[41]
Many of the well-known postmodern novels deal with World War II, one of the most famous of which being Joseph
Heller's Catch-22. Heller claimed his novel and many of the other American novels of the time had more to do with
the state of the country after the war:
The antiwar and anti government feelings in the book belong to the period following World War II: the
Korean War, the cold war of the Fifties. A general disintegration of belief took place then, and it
affected Catch-22 in that the form of the novel became almost disintegrated. Catch-22 was a collage; if
not in structure, then in the ideology of the novel itself ... Without being aware of it, I was part of a
near-movement in fiction. While I was writing Catch-22, J. P. Donleavy was writing The Ginger Man,
Jack Kerouac was writing On the Road, Ken Kesey was writing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,
8
Thomas Pynchon was writing V., and Kurt Vonnegut was writing Cat's Cradle. I don't think any one of
us even knew any of the others. Certainly I didn't know them. Whatever forces were at work shaping a
trend in art were affecting not just me, but all of us. The feelings of helplessness and persecution in
Catch-22 are very strong in Cat's Cradle.[42]
In his Reflections on 'The Name of the Rose', the novelist and theorist Umberto Eco explains his idea of
postmodernism as a kind of double-coding, and as a transhistorical phenomenon:
[P]ostmodernism ... [is] not a trend to be chronologically defined, but, rather, an ideal category - or
better still a Kunstwollen, a way of operating. ... I think of the postmodern attitude as that of a man who
loves a very cultivated woman and knows that he cannot say to her "I love you madly", because he
knows that she knows (and that she knows he knows) that these words have already been written by
Barbara Cartland. Still there is a solution. He can say "As Barbara Cartland would put it, I love you
madly". At this point, having avoided false innocence, having said clearly it is no longer possible to talk
innocently, he will nevertheless say what he wanted to say to the woman: that he loves her in an age of
lost innocence.[43]
Novelist David Foster Wallace in his 1990 essay "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction" makes the
connection between the rise of postmodernism and the rise of television with its tendency toward self-reference and
the ironic juxtaposition of what's seen and what's said. This, he claims, explains the preponderance of pop culture
references in postmodern literature:
It was in post-atomic America that pop influences on literature became something more than technical.
About the time television first gasped and sucked air, mass popular U.S. culture seemed to become
High-Art-viable as a collection of symbols and myth. The episcopate of this pop-reference movement
were the post-Nabokovian Black Humorists, the Metafictionists and assorted franc-and latinophiles only
later comprised by "postmodern." The erudite, sardonic fictions of the Black Humorists introduced a
generation of new fiction writers who saw themselves as sort of avant-avant-garde, not only
cosmopolitan and polyglot but also technologically literate, products of more than just one region,
heritage, and theory, and citizens of a culture that said its most important stuff about itself via mass
media. In this regard one thinks particularly of the Gaddis of The Recognitions and JR, the Barth of The
End of the Road and The Sot-Weed Factor, and the Pynchon of The Crying of Lot 49 ... Here's Robert
Coover's 1966 A Public Burning, in which Eisenhower buggers Nixon on-air, and his 1968 A Political
Fable, in which the Cat in the Hat runs for president.[44]
Hans-Peter Wagner offers this approach to defining postmodern literature:
Postmodernism ... can be used at least in two ways – firstly, to give a label to the period after 1968
(which would then encompass all forms of fiction, both innovative and traditional), and secondly, to
describe the highly experimental literature produced by writers beginning with Lawrence Durrell and
John Fowles in the 1960s and reaching to the breathless works of Martin Amis and the "Chemical
(Scottish) Generation" of the fin-de-siècle. In what follows, the term 'postmodernist' is used for
experimental authors (especially Durrell, Fowles, Carter, Brooke-Rose, Barnes, Ackroyd, and Martin
Amis) while "postmodern" is applied to authors who have been less innovative.[45]
9
Examples of postmodern literature
Some well known examples of postmodern literature, in chronological order, include:
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The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759-1767) by Laurence Sterne[46]
The Cannibal (1949) by John Hawkes
The Recognitions (1955) by William Gaddis
Naked Lunch (1959) by William Burroughs
The Sot-Weed Factor (1960) by John Barth
Catch-22 (1961) by Joseph Heller
The Lime Twig (1961) by John Hawkes
Mother Night (1961) by Kurt Vonnegut
Pale Fire (1962) by Vladimir Nabokov
The Man in the High Castle (1962) by Philip K. Dick
V. (1963) by Thomas Pynchon
Hopscotch (1963) by Julio Cortázar
The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) by Thomas Pynchon
Lost in the Funhouse (1968) by John Barth
Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut
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The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969) by John Fowles
Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (1969) by Vladimir Nabokov
Moscow-Petushki (1970) by Venedikt Erofeev
The Atrocity Exhibition (1970) by J. G. Ballard
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971) by Hunter S. Thompson
Invisible Cities (1972) by Italo Calvino
Chimera (1972) by John Barth
Crash (1973) by J. G. Ballard
Breakfast of Champions (1973) by Kurt Vonnegut
Gravity's Rainbow (1973) by Thomas Pynchon
The Magus (1973) by John Fowles
Alphabetical Africa (1974) by Walter Abish
J R (1975) by William Gaddis
The Illuminatus! Trilogy (1975) by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
The Dead Father (1975) by Donald Barthelme
Dhalgren (1975) by Samuel R. Delany
Options (1975) by Robert Sheckley
It's Me, Eddie (1976) by Eduard Limonov
The Public Burning (1977), by Robert Coover
Life: A User's Manual (1978) by Georges Perec
If on a winter's night a traveler (1979) by Italo Calvino
Mulligan Stew (1979) by Gilbert Sorrentino
How German Is It (1980) by Walter Abish
Nikopol Trilogy (1980 to 1993) by Enki Bilal
Sixty Stories (1981) by Donald Barthelme
Lanark: A Life in Four Books (1981) by Alasdair Gray
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982) by Philip K. Dick
• Mantissa (1982) by John Fowles
• The Name of the Rose (1983) by Umberto Eco
• Watchmen (1984) by Alan Moore
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Dictionary of the Khazars (1984) by Milorad Pavić
The New York Trilogy (1985–86) by Paul Auster
White Noise (1985) by Don DeLillo
A Maggot (1985) by John Fowles
The Infinite Deadlock (1985–1988) by Dmitry Galkovsky
Women and Men (1987) by Joseph McElroy
The Mezzanine (1988) by Nicholson Baker
Foucault's Pendulum (1988) by Umberto Eco
Empire of Dreams (1988) by Giannina Braschi
Wittgenstein's Mistress (1988) by David Markson
The Sandman (1989 to 1996) by Neil Gaiman
My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist (1990) by Mark Leyner
Omon Ra (1991) by Victor Pelevin
What a Carve Up! (1991) by Jonathan Coe
Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture (1991) by Douglas Coupland
Vurt (1993) by Jeff Noon
A Frolic of His Own (1994) by William Gaddis
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Astronautilía Hvězdoplavba (1995) by Jan Křesadlo
The Tunnel (1995) by William Gass
Reservation Blues (1995) by Sherman Alexie
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1995) by Haruki Murakami
Infinite Jest (1996) by David Foster Wallace
Chapayev and Void (1996) by Victor Pelevin
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
Mason & Dixon (1997) by Thomas Pynchon
Underworld (1997) by Don DeLillo
The Hundred Brothers (1998) by Donald Antrim
Tomcat in Love (1998) by Tim O'Brien
Yo-Yo Boing! (1998) Giannina Braschi
Hatzfeld Tetralogy (1998 to 2007) by Enki Bilal
Generation "П" (1999) by Victor Pelevin
The Rings of Saturn (1999) by W. G. Sebald
Natural Novel (1999) by Georgi Gospodinov
Blue Salo (1999) by Vladimir Sorokin
Q (1999) by Luther Blissett
House of Leaves (2000) by Mark Danielewski
The Verificationist (2000) by Donald Antrim
This is Not a Novel (2001) by David Markson
Life of Pi (2001) by Yann Martel
Austerlitz (2001) by W. G. Sebald
Everything Is Illuminated (2002) by Jonathan Safran Foer
2666 (2004) by Roberto Bolaño
Cloud Atlas (2004) by David Mitchell
Lunar Park (2005) by Bret Easton Ellis
Trance (2005) by Christopher Sorrentino
• Remainder (2007) by Tom McCarthy
• The Last Novel (2007) by David Markson
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Generation A (2009) by Douglas Coupland
Z213: Exit (2009) by Dimitris Lyacos
1Q84 (2009–2010) by Haruki Murakami
C (2010) by Tom McCarthy
A Visit From the Goon Squad (2010) by Jennifer Egan
Witz (2010) by Joshua Cohen
The Pale King (2011) by David Foster Wallace
United States of Banana (2011) by Giannina Braschi
References
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
http:/ / www. cla. purdue. edu/ english/ theory/ postmodernism/ modules/ introduction. html
http:/ / www. filmjournal. com/ filmjournal/ esearch/ article_display. jsp?vnu_content_id=1001264495
http:/ / latimesblogs. latimes. com/ jacketcopy/ 2009/ 07/ the-mostly-complete-annotated-and-essential-postmodern-reading-list. html
Lewis, Barry. Postmodernism and Literature // 'The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism. NY: Routledge, 2002.
McHale, Brian. Postmodernist Fiction. Methuen, 1987, p. 66. (http:/ / books. google. com. au/ books?id=oOkcZKysBoAC&
source=gbs_navlinks_s)
[6] http:/ / www. jansvenungsson. com/ by/ hebdomeros_text. html
[7] Hopper, Keith (2009) Flann O’Brien: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Post-Modernist, 2nd edn. Cork University Press, Cork, Ireland,
(ISBN 9781859184479)
[8] Postmodern American Fiction: An Anthology, Chapter 6: Technoculture, p. 510 (http:/ / www. wwnorton. com/ college/ titles/ english/ pmaf/
resources. htm)
[9] Cyberpunk and the Dilemmas of Postmodern Narrative: The Example of William Gibson (http:/ / www. jstor. org/ view/ 00107484/
ap040101/ 04a00040/ 0)
[10] Hypertext fiction: The latest in postmodern literary theory (http:/ / findarticles. com/ p/ articles/ mi_qa3860/ is_199901/ ai_n8839108/ print)
[11] McHale, Brian (1987) Postmodernist Fiction. London: Routledge, (ISBN 0-4150-4513-4)
[12] Wagner, p. 194
[13] McHale, Brian. Postmodernist Fiction. London: Routledge, 1987 and "Constructing Postmodernism" New York: Routledge, 1992).
[14] Pöhlmann, Sascha Nico Stefan. "Gravity's Rainbow". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 October 2006 accessed 17 March 2013.
(http:/ / www. litencyc. com/ php/ sworks. php?rec=true& UID=4900,)
[15] http:/ / www. lukeford. net/ Images/ photos3/ tomwolfe. pdf
[16] John Barth. "Very Like an Elephant: Reality vs. Realism" Further Fridays. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1995.
[17] Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. NY: Routledge, 2004.
[18] Barth, John. "Postmodernism Revisited." Further Fridays. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1995.
[19] Graham Allen. Intertextuality. Routledge, 2000. ISBN 0-415-17474-0. pg. 200.
[20] Mary Orr. Intertextuality: debates and contexts. Wiley-Blackwell, 2003. ISBN 0-7456-3121-5.
[21] The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. J.A.Cuddon. ISBN 0-14-051363-9
[22] Hutcheon
[23] McHale
[24] Richard Dyer (2004) Isaac Julien in Conversation (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=PEJAAQAAIAAJ) in Wasafiri, Issue 43, 2004,
p.29
[25] César J. Ayala, Rafael Bernabe (2007) Puerto Rico in the American century: a history since 1898 (http:/ / books. google. com/
books?id=RYK87EBJWSMC) p.331
[26] Historias tremendas de Pedro Cabiya, in Modernidad literaria puertoriqueña (San Juan: Isla Negra, 2005), 257-58, 260
[27] Daniele Luttazzi (2004), Introduction to the Italian translation of Woody Allen's Complete Prose. Bompiani.
[28] Patricia Waugh. Metafiction: the theory and practice of self-conscious fiction. Routledge, 1984 ISBN 0-203-13140-1, ISBN
978-0-203-13140-4. pg. 19.
[29] Fowler, Alastair. The History of English Literature, p. 372 Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA (1989) ISBN 0-674-39664-2
[30] M. Keith Booker. Techniques of subversion in modern literature: transgression, abjection, and the carnivalesque. University Press of
Florida, 1991. ISBN 0-8130-1065-9. pg. 81-82.
[31] Fowler, Alastair. The History of English Literature, p. 372 Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts (1989) ISBN
0-674-39664-2
[33] Things That Fall From the Sky, The Village Voice, May 7, 2002
[34] Postmodern American Fiction: A Norton Anthology. Ed. Paula Geyh, Fred G. Leebron, and Andrew Levy. New York: W. W. Norton &
Company, 1998.
[35] ’’Storming the Reality Studio: A Casebook of Cyberpunk and Postmodern Fiction’’. Ed. Larry McCaffery. Duke University Press, 1994.
[36] ’’Virtual Geographies: Cyberpunk at the Intersection of Postmodern and Science Fiction’’. Ed. Sabine Heuser. ISBN 90-420-0986-1
12
[37] "The Crying of Lot 49." "Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr.: Spermatikos Logos." The Modern Word. 4 February 2008. http:/ / www.
themodernword. com/ pynchon/ pynchon_works. html#Anchor-The-35882
[38] Currie, Mark. Postmodern Narrative Theory. NY: Palgrave, 1998.
[39] Hoffmann, Gerhard. From Modernism to Postmodernism: Concepts and Strategies of Postmodern American Fiction: Postmodern Studies
38; Textxet Studies in Comparative Literature.
[40] An Introduction to Literary Studies. Marion Klarer. ISBN 0-415-33382-2
[41] John Barth. "The Literature of Replenishment" in The Friday Book. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984.
[42] Heller, Joseph. "Reeling in Catch-22". Catch as Catch Can. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003.
[43] Eco, Umberto. Reflections on 'The Name of the Rose' (translated by William Weaver). London: Secker and Warburg, 1985, pp 65-67.
[44] David Foster Wallace. "E Unibus Pluram". A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1997.
[45] Hans-Peter Wagner, A History of British, Irish and American Literature, Trier 2003, p. 211. ISBN 3-88476-410-1
[46] http:/ / digital. library. unt. edu/ ark:/ 67531/ metadc84181/
Further reading
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•
•
•
Barthes, Roland (1975). The Pleasure of the Text, New York: Hill and Wang.
Barthes, Roland (1968). Writing Degree Zero, New York: Hill and Wang.
Foucault, Michel (1983). This is Not a Pipe. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hoover, Paul. ed. (1994). Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology. New York: W. W. Norton &
Company.
• Jameson, Fredric (1991). Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (ISBN 0-8223-1090-2)
• Lyotard, Jean-François (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (ISBN 0-8166-1173-4)
• Lyotard, Jean-François (1988). The Postmodern Explained: Correspondence 1982-1985. Ed. Julian Pefanis and
Morgan Thomas. (ISBN 0-8166-2211-6)
• McHale, Brian (1987). Postmodernist Fiction, London: Routledge. (ISBN 0-4150-4513-4)
• McHale, Brian (1992). Constructing Postmodernism, London: Routledge. (ISBN 0-4150-6013-3)
• Magliola, Robert (1997), On Deconstructing Life-Worlds: Buddhism, Christianity, Culture (Lafayette: Purdue
University Press, 1997; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000; ISBN 0-7885-0296-4). This book's long and
experimental first part is an application of Derridean "oto-biography" to postmodern life-writing.
• Arik Glasner, "The Thirst for Classical Works" (http://acheret.co.il/en/?cmd=articles.326&act=read&
id=2053), Acheret Magazine
13
Alice Munro
14
Alice Munro
Alice Munro
Born
Alice Ann Laidlaw
10 July 1931
Wingham, Ontario, Canada
Nationality
Canadian
Alice Ann Munro (née Laidlaw; born 10 July 1931) is a Canadian author. The winner of the 2009 Man Booker
International Prize for her lifetime body of work, she is also a three-time winner of Canada's Governor General's
Award for fiction, and a perennial contender for the Nobel Prize.[1] The locus of Munro’s fiction is her native
southwestern Ontario.[2] Her "accessible, moving stories" explore human complexities in a seemingly effortless
style.[3] Munro's writing has established her as "one of our greatest contemporary writers of fiction," or, as Cynthia
Ozick put it, "our Chekhov."[4]
Life and career
Munro was born in the town of Wingham, Ontario. Her father, Robert Eric Laidlaw, was a fox and poultry farmer,
and her mother, Anne Clarke Laidlaw (née Chamney), was a schoolteacher. Munro began writing as a teenager,
publishing her first story, "The Dimensions of a Shadow," in 1950 while a student at the University of Western
Ontario. During this period she worked as a waitress, a tobacco picker, and a library clerk. In 1951, she left the
university, where she had been majoring in English since 1949, to marry James Munro and move to Vancouver,
British Columbia. Her daughters Sheila, Catherine, and Jenny were born in 1953, 1955, and 1957 respectively;
Catherine died 15 hours after birth. In 1963, the Munros moved to Victoria where they opened Munro's Books, a
popular bookstore still in business. In 1966, their daughter Andrea was born. Alice and James Munro were divorced
in 1972. She returned to Ontario to become Writer-in-Residence at the University of Western Ontario. In 1976 she
married Gerald Fremlin, a geographer. The couple moved to a farm outside Clinton, Ontario. They have since moved
from the farm to a house in the town of Clinton.
Alice Munro's highly acclaimed first collection of stories, Dance of the Happy Shades (1968), won the Governor
General's Award, Canada’s highest literary prize. That success was followed by Lives of Girls and Women (1971), a
collection of interlinked stories published as a novel. In 1978, Munro's collection of interlinked stories Who Do You
Alice Munro
Think You Are? was published (titled The Beggar Maid: Stories of Flo and Rose in the United States). This book
earned Munro a second Governor General’s Literary Award. From 1979 to 1982, she toured Australia, China and
Scandinavia. In 1980 Munro held the position of Writer-in-Residence at both the University of British Columbia and
the University of Queensland. Through the 1980s and 1990s, she published a short-story collection about once every
four years. In 2002, her daughter Sheila Munro published a childhood memoir, Lives of Mothers and Daughters:
Growing Up With Alice Munro.
Alice Munro's stories frequently appear in publications such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Grand Street,
Mademoiselle, and The Paris Review. In interviews to promote her 2006 collection The View from Castle Rock,
Munro suggested that she might not publish any further collections. She has since recanted and published further
work. Her collection, Too Much Happiness, was published in August 2009.[5] Her story "The Bear Came Over the
Mountain" was adapted for the screen and directed by Sarah Polley as the film Away from Her, starring Julie Christie
and Gordon Pinsent. It debuted at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. Polley's adaptation was nominated
for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, but lost to No Country for Old Men.
At a Toronto appearance in October 2009, Munro indicated that she received treatment for cancer and a heart
condition, the latter requiring bypass surgery. At that time, she indicated that her next work would involve a theme
of sexual ambivalence.[]
Writing style
Many of Munro's stories are set in Huron County, Ontario. Her strong regional focus is one of the features of her
fiction. Another is the omniscient narrator who serves to make sense of the world. Many compare Munro's
small-town settings to writers of the U.S. rural South. Her female characters, though, are more complex. Much of
Munro's work exemplifies the literary genre known as Southern Ontario Gothic.[6]
Munro's work is often compared with the great short story writers. In Munro stories, as in Chekhov's, plot is
secondary and "little happens." As with Chekhov, Garan Holcombe notes: "All is based on the epiphanic moment,
the sudden enlightenment, the concise, subtle, revelatory detail." Munro's work deals with "love and work, and the
failings of both. She shares Chekhov’s obsession with time and our much-lamented inability to delay or prevent its
relentless movement forward."[]
A frequent theme of her work—particularly evident in her early stories—has been the dilemmas of a girl coming of
age and coming to terms with her family and the small town she grew up in. In recent work such as Hateship,
Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (2001) and Runaway (2004) she has shifted her focus to the travails of
middle age, of women alone and of the elderly. It is a mark of her style for characters to experience a revelation that
sheds light on, and gives meaning to, an event.
Munro's prose reveals the ambiguities of life: "ironic and serious at the same time," "mottoes of godliness and honor
and flaming bigotry," "special, useless knowledge," "tones of shrill and happy outrage," "the bad taste, the
heartlessness, the joy of it." Her style places the fantastic next to the ordinary with each undercutting the other in
ways that simply, and effortlessly, evoke life.[7] As Robert Thacker notes: "Munro's writing creates ... an empathetic
union among readers, critics most apparent among them. We are drawn to her writing by its verisimilitude—not of
mimesis, so-called and... 'realism'—but rather the feeling of being itself... of just being a human being."[8] Many
critics have asserted that Munro's stories often have the emotional and literary depth of novels. The question of
whether Munro actually writes short-stories or novels has often been asked. Alex Keegan, writing in Eclectica, has a
simple answer: "Who cares? In most Munro stories there is as much as in many novels."[9]
15
Alice Munro
Books
Novel
• Lives of Girls and Women – 1971
Original short story collections
• Dance of the Happy Shades – 1968 (winner of the 1968 Governor General's Award for Fiction)
• Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You – 1974
• Who Do You Think You Are? – 1978 (winner of the 1978 Governor General's Award for Fiction; also published as
The Beggar Maid)
• The Moons of Jupiter – 1982 (nominated for a Governor General's Award)
• The Progress of Love – 1986 (winner of the 1986 Governor General's Award for Fiction)
• Friend of My Youth – 1990 (winner of the Trillium Book Award)
• Open Secrets – 1994 (nominated for a Governor General's Award)
• The Love of a Good Woman – 1998 (winner of the 1998 Giller Prize)
• Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage - 2001 (recently republished as "Away From Her")
• Runaway – 2004 (winner of the 2004 Giller Prize) ISBN 1-4000-4281-X
• The View from Castle Rock – 2006
• Too Much Happiness – 2009
• Dear Life – 2012
Short story compilations
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Selected Stories – 1996
No Love Lost – 2003
Vintage Munro – 2004
Carried Away: A Selection of Stories – 2006
New Selected Stories - 2011
Selected awards and honours
Awards
• Governor General's Award for English-language fiction (Canada) - 1968, 1978, 1986
• Canadian Booksellers Award for Lives Of Girls And Women (1971)
• Shortlisted for the annual (UK) Booker Prize for Fiction (now the Man Booker Prize) (1980) for The Beggar
Maid
• Marian Engel Award (1986)
• Trillium Book Award (1990)
• WH Smith Literary Award (1995, UK) for Open Secrets
• PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction (1997)
• National Book Critics Circle Award (1998, U.S.) For The Love of a Good Woman
• Giller Prize (1998 and 2004)
• Rea Award for the Short Story (2001) given to a living American or Canadian author.
• Libris Award
• O. Henry Award for continuing achievement in short fiction in the U.S. for "Passion" (2006) and "What Do You
Want To Know For" (2008)
• Man Booker International Prize (2009, UK)[10]
16
Alice Munro
• Canada-Australia Literary Prize
• Commonwealth Writers Prize Regional Award for Canada and the Caribbean.
Honours
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1992 Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
1993 Royal Society of Canada's Lorne Pierce Medal
2005 Medal of Honor for Literature from the U.S. National Arts Club [11]
2010 Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters [12]
References
[6] Susanne Becker, Gothic Forms of Feminine Fictions. Manchester University Press, 1999.
[8] Thacker, Robert (1998) Review of Some other reality: Alice Munro's Something I've been Meaning to Tell You, by Louis K. MacKendrick.
(http:/ / findarticles. com/ p/ articles/ mi_qa3683/ is_199807/ ai_n8800214) Journal of Canadian Studies, Summer 1998.
[10] The Booker Prize Foundation "Alice Munro wins 2009 Man Booker International Prize." (http:/ / www. themanbookerprize. com/ news/
stories/ 1226)
[11] Munro wins top U.S. honour (http:/ / www. cbc. ca/ arts/ story/ 2005/ 02/ 03/ munroUSaward050203. html). Arts and Entertainment,
CBC.ca. Retrieved on 2007-06-22.
Further reading
Books
• Besner, Neil Kalman. Introducing Alice Munro's Lives of Girls and Women: a reader's guide. (Toronto: ECW
Press, 1990.)
• Blodgett, E. D. Alice Munro. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1988.)
• Carrington, Ildikó de Papp. Controlling the Uncontrollable: the fiction of Alice Munro. (DeKalb: Northern Illinois
University Press, 1989.)
• Carscallen, James. The Other Country: patterns in the writing of Alice Munro. (Toronto: ECW Press, 1993.)
• Cox, Alisa. Alice Munro. (Tavistock: Northcote House, 2004.)
• Hallvard, Dahlie. Alice Munro and Her Works. (Toronto: ECW Press, 1984.)
• Hebel, Ajay. The Tumble of Reason: Alice Munro's discourse of absence. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
1994.)
• Hooper, Brad The Fiction of Alice Munro: An Appreciation (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2008), ISBN
978-0-275-99121-0
• Howells, Coral Ann. Alice Munro. (New York: Manchester University Press, 1998), ISBN 978-0-7190-4558-5
• MacKendrick, Louis King. Some Other Reality: Alice Munro's Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You.
(Toronto: ECW Press, 1993.)
• Martin, W.R. Alice Munro: paradox and parallel. (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1987.)
• Mazur, Carol and Moulder, Cathy. Alice Munro: An Annotated Bibliography of Works and Criticism. (Toronto:
Scarecrow Press, 2007.) ISBN 978-0-8108-5924
• McCaig, JoAnn. Reading In: Alice Munro's archives. (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2002.)
• Miller, Judith, ed. The Art of Alice Munro: saying the unsayable: papers from the Waterloo conference.
(Waterloo: Waterloo Press, 1984.)
• Munro, Sheila. Lives of Mother and Daughters: growing up with Alice Munro. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart,
2001.)
• Pfaus, B. Alice Munro. (Ottawa: Golden Dog Press, 1984.)
• Rasporich, Beverly Jean. Dance of the Sexes: art and gender in the fiction of Alice Munro. (Edmonton: University
of Alberta Press, 1990.)
17
Alice Munro
• Redekop, Magdalene. Mothers and Other Clowns: the stories of Alice Munro. (New York: Routledge, 1992.)
• Ross, Catherine Sheldrick. Alice Munro: a double life. (Toronto: ECW Press, 1992.)
• Smythe, Karen E. Figuring Grief: Gallant, Munro and the poetics of elegy. (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University
Press, 1992.)
• Steele, Apollonia and Tener, Jean F., editors. The Alice Munro Papers: Second Accession. (Calgary: University of
Calgary Press, 1987.)
• Thacker, Robert. Alice Munro: writing her lives: a biography. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2005.)
• Thacker, Robert. Ed. The Rest of the Story: critical essays on Alice Munro. (Toronto: ECW Press, 1999.)
Periodicals
• Awano, Lisa Dickler. "An Interview With Alice Munro." (http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2013/spring/
munro-interview/) Virginia Quarterly Review 89/2 (Spring 2013):180-184. Interview with Alice Munro about her
latest collection of stories, Dear Life, her writing life and loves, and her relationship with her parents.
• Awano, Lisa Dickler. "Kindling The Creative Fire: Alice Munro’s Two Versions of ‘Wood.’" (http://www.
newhavenreview.com/index.php/2012/05/kindling-the-creative-fire-alice-munros-two-versions-of-wood/)
New Haven Review (May 30, 2012). Examining overall themes in Alice Munro’s fiction through a study of her
two versions of “Wood.”
• Awano, Lisa Dickler. "The Tremendous Importance of Ordinary Events: An interview with Alice Munro about
two versions of 'Wood'," (http://www.newhavenreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/NHR-9-Awano.
pdf) New Haven Review, Issue 009 (Winter 2011): 46-67. Munro discusses her first version of “Wood,” which
appeared in The New Yorker in 1980; and her second version, which appears in her collection Too Much
Happiness and is reprinted in this NHR issue alongside this interview; and she speaks about the craft of writing.
• Awano, Lisa Dickler. "Appreciations of Alice Munro." (http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2006/summer/
awano-munro/) Virginia Quarterly Review 82.3 (Summer 2006): 91-107. Interviews with various authors
(Margaret Atwood, Russell Banks, Michael Cunningham, Charles McGrath, Daniel Menaker and others)
presented in first-person essay format. Munro's story "Home," which appears in her collection The View from
Castle Rock, is printed in this VQR issue alongside this interview.
• Awano, Lisa Dickler. "An Interview with Alice Munro." (http://www.vqronline.org/blog/2010/10/22/
an-interview-with-alice-munro/) Virginia Quarterly Review (22 October 2010). Interview with Alice Munro
about Too Much Happiness and the craft of writing.
• Awano, Lisa Dickler. "Alice Munro's Too Much Happiness." (http://www.vqronline.org/blog/2010/10/22/
alice-munros-too-much-happiness/) Virginia Quarterly Review (22 October 2010). Long-form book review of
Too Much Happiness in the context of Alice Munro's canon.
• Awano, Lisa Dickler. "An Interview with Alice Munro," (http://www.vqronline.org/webexclusive/2006/06/
11/awano-interview-munro/) Virginia Quarterly Review (Summer 2006). Interview with Alice Munro about The
View from Castle Rock and the craft of writing.
• de Papp Carrington, Ildiko."What's in a Title?: Alice Munro's 'Carried Away.'" Studies in Short Fiction. 20.4 (Fall
1993): 555.
• Elliott, Gayle. "A Different Track: Feminist meta-narrative in Alice Munro's 'Friend of My Youth.'" Journal of
Modern Literature. 20.1 (Summer 1996): 75.
• Fowler, Rowena. "The Art of Alice Munro: The Beggar Maid and Lives of Girls and Women." Critique. 25.4
(Summer 1984): 189.
• Garson, Marjorie. "Alice Munro and Charlotte Bronte." University of Toronto Quarterly. 69.4 (Fall 2000): 783.
• Genoways, Ted. "Ordinary Outsiders." Virginia Quarterly Review 82.3 (Summer 2006): 80-81.
• Gittings, Christopher E.. "Constructing a Scots-Canadian Ground: Family history and cultural translation in Alice
Munro." Studies in Short Fiction 34.1 (Winter 1997): 27
18
Alice Munro
• Hiscock, Andrew. "Longing for a Human Climate: Alice Munro's 'Friend of My Youth' and the culture of loss."
Journal of Commonwealth Literature 32.2 (1997): 18.
• Houston, Pam. "A Hopeful Sign: The making of metonymic meaning in Munro's 'Meneseteung.'" Kenyon Review
14.4 (Fall 1992): 79.
• Hoy, H. "'Dull, Simple, Amazing and Unfathomable': Paradox and Double Vision In Alice Munro's Fiction."
Studies in Canadian Literature/Études en littérature canadienne (SCL/ÉLC), Volume 5.1. (1980).
• Lynch, Gerald. "No Honey, I'm Home." Canadian Literature 160 (Spring 1999): 73.
• Levene, Mark. "It Was About Vanishing: A Glimpse of Alice Munro's Stories." University of Toronto Quarterly
68.4 (Fall 1999): 841.
External links
• Works by or about Alice Munro (http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n79-63498) in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• British Council Biography of Munro (http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/
?p=auth03D29L044112635689). Retrieved 2010-09-22
• Munro, Alice (132 Summer 1994). The Art of Fiction No. 137 (http://www.parisreview.org/viewinterview.
php/prmMID/1791). Interview with Jeanne McCulloch. Mona Simpson. The Paris Review. Retrieved
2010-09-22.
• Blodgett, E.D. "Munro, Alice" (http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&
Params=A1ARTA0005522). The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2010-09-22.
• A Biocritical Essay of Munro's early work by Thomas E. Tausky (1986) (http://specialcollections.ucalgary.ca/
manuscript-collections/literary-and-art-archives-canadian/-alice-munro-fonds/biocritical-essay) The University
of Calgary Library Special Collections.Retrieved 2010-09-22
• A Quiet Genius (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/12/a-quiet-genius/2366/) Review by
Mona Simpson (2001) The Atlantic Online. Retrieved 2010-09-22
• An excerpt (http://blog.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/blog/posts/stories-about-storytellers-alice-munro-2/)
from Douglas Gibson's book, "Stories About Storytellers," on his experience with Alice Munro.
• "Literarily Speaking with Alice Munro" (http://www.tvo.org/TVOsites/WebObjects/TvoMicrosite.
woa?b?8551641144281600000). TV Ontario. 5 April (year unknown). Retrieved 2010-09-22.
19
Hilary Mantel
20
Hilary Mantel
Hilary Mantel
Born
Hilary Mary Thompson
6 July 1952
Glossop, Derbyshire, England, UK
Occupation
Novelist, short story writer, essayist and critic
Nationality
British
Alma mater
University of Sheffield
Notable work(s)
Wolf Hall,
Bring Up the Bodies
Notable award(s) Man Booker Prize
2009, 2012
Walter Scott Prize
2010
Costa Novel Prize
2012
Hilary Mary Mantel, CBE, (/mænˈtɛl/ man-TEL;[] born 6 July 1952, née Thompson) is an English writer whose
work ranges in subject from personal memoir and short story to historical fiction and essay.[] She has twice been
awarded the Booker Prize.
She won her first Booker Prize for the 2009 novel, Wolf Hall, about Thomas Cromwell's rise to power in the court of
Henry VIII. She won her second Booker Prize for the 2012 novel, Bring Up the Bodies, the second instalment of the
Thomas Cromwell Trilogy. This made her the first woman to receive the award twice, following in the footsteps of
J. M. Coetzee, Peter Carey and J. G. Farrell (who posthumously won the Lost Man Booker Prize).[1][] The Mirror
and the Light is the title of the Thomas Cromwell Trilogy's final instalment.
Early life
Hilary Mary Thompson was born in Glossop, Derbyshire, the eldest of three children, and was brought up in the mill
village of Hadfield, attending St Charles local Roman Catholic primary school. Her parents, Margaret and Henry
Thompson, both of Irish descent, were also born in England.[] Her parents separated and she did not see her father
after age eleven. The family minus her father, but with Jack Mantel (1932-1995)[2] who by now had moved in with
them, relocated to Romiley, Cheshire, and Jack became her unofficial stepfather.[3] She took her de-facto stepfather's
surname legally. She has explored her family background, the mainspring of much of her fiction, in her memoir,
Giving Up the Ghost (2003). She lost her religious faith at age 12 and says that this left a permanent mark on her:
the "real cliche, the sense of guilt. You grow up believing that you're wrong and bad. And for me,
because I took what I was told really seriously, it bred a very intense habit of introspection and
self-examination and a terrible severity with myself. So that nothing was ever good enough. It's like
installing a policeman, and one moreover who keeps changing the law."[4]
She attended Harrytown Convent in Romiley, Cheshire. In 1970 she began her studies at the London School of
Economics to read law.[] She transferred to the University of Sheffield and graduated as Bachelor of Jurisprudence in
1973. During her university years, she was a socialist.[]
Hilary Mantel
Early career
After university, Mantel worked in the social work department of a geriatric hospital, and then as a sales assistant in
a department store. In 1972 she married Gerald McEwen, a geologist. In 1974 she began writing a novel about the
French Revolution, which was later published as A Place of Greater Safety. In 1977 Mantel went to live in Botswana
with her husband. Later they spent four years in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. She published a memoir of this time,
Someone to Disturb, in the London Review of Books. She later said that leaving Jeddah felt like "the happiest day of
my life".[5]
Her husband Gerald McEwen gave up geology to manage his wife's business affairs.[6]
Literary career
Her first novel, Every Day is Mother's Day, was published in 1985, and its sequel, Vacant Possession, a year later.
After returning to England, she became the film critic of The Spectator and a reviewer for a number of papers and
magazines in Britain and the United States. Her novel Eight Months on Ghazzah Street (1988), which drew on her
first-hand experience in Saudi Arabia, uses a threatening clash of values between the neighbours in a city apartment
block to explore the tensions between Islamist culture and the liberal West. Her Winifred Holtby Memorial
Prize-winning novel Fludd is set in 1956 in a fictitious northern village called Fetherhoughton, centring on a Roman
Catholic church and a convent. A mysterious stranger brings about transformations in the lives of those around him.
A Place of Greater Safety (1992) won the Sunday Express Book of the Year award, for which her two previous
books had been shortlisted. A long and historically accurate novel, it traces the career of three French
revolutionaries, Danton, Robespierre and Camille Desmoulins, from childhood to their early deaths during the Reign
of Terror of 1794.
A Change of Climate (1994), set in rural Norfolk, explores the lives of Ralph and Anna Eldred, as they raise their
four children and devote their lives to charity. It includes chapters about their early married life as missionaries in
South Africa, when they were imprisoned and deported to Bechuanaland, and the tragedy that occurred there.
An Experiment in Love (1996), which won the Hawthornden Prize, takes place over two university terms in 1970. It
follows the progress of three girls – two friends and one enemy – as they leave home and attend university in
London. Margaret Thatcher makes a cameo appearance in this novel, which explores women’s appetites and
ambitions, and suggests how they are often thwarted. Though Mantel has used material from her own life, it is not an
autobiographical novel.
Her next book, The Giant, O'Brien (1998), is set in the 1780s, and is based on the true story of Charles O'Brien or
Byrne. He came to London to earn money by displaying himself as a freak. His bones hang today in the Museum of
the Royal College of Surgeons. The novel treats O'Brien and his antagonist, the Scots surgeon John Hunter, less as
characters in history than as mythic protagonists in a dark and violent fairytale, necessary casualties of the Age of
Enlightenment. She adapted the book for BBC Radio 4, in a play starring Alex Norton (as Hunter) and Frances
Tomelty.[citation needed]
In 2003, Mantel published her memoir, Giving Up the Ghost, which won the MIND ‘Book of the Year’ award. That
same year she brought out a collection of short stories, Learning To Talk. All the stories deal with childhood and,
taken together, the books show how the events of a life are mediated as fiction. Her 2005 novel, Beyond Black, was
shortlisted for the Orange Prize. Set in the years around the second millennium, it features a professional medium,
Alison Hart, whose calm and jolly exterior conceals grotesque psychic damage. She trails around with her a troupe
of ‘fiends’, who are invisible but always on the verge of becoming flesh. [citation needed]
The long novel Wolf Hall, about Henry VIII's minister Thomas Cromwell, was published in 2009 to critical
acclaim.[7] The book won that year's Man Booker Prize and, upon winning the award, Mantel said, "I can tell you at
this moment I am happily flying through the air."[8] Judges voted three to two in favour of Wolf Hall for the prize.
Mantel was presented with a trophy and a £50,000 cash prize during an evening ceremony at the London
21
Hilary Mantel
Guildhall.[][9] The panel of judges, led by the broadcaster James Naughtie, described Wolf Hall as an "extraordinary
piece of storytelling".[10] Leading up to the award, the book was backed as the favourite by bookmakers and
accounted for 45% of the sales of all the nominated books.[] It was the first favourite since 2002 to win the award.[]
On receiving the prize, Mantel noted that she would spend the prize money on "sex and drugs and rock' n' roll",
light-heartedly expressing that she would enjoy her sudden success as much as possible, after a previously much
more modest career.[11]
The sequel to Wolf Hall, called Bring Up the Bodies, was published in May 2012 to wide acclaim. It won the 2012
Costa Book of the Year and the 2012 Man Booker Prize.[] Mantel is working on the third novel of the Thomas
Cromwell trilogy, called The Mirror and the Light.[12][13]
She is also working on a short non-fiction book called The Woman Who Died of Robespierre, about the Polish
playwright Stanisława Przybyszewska. Mantel also writes reviews and essays, mainly for The Guardian, the London
Review of Books and the New York Review of Books. The Culture Show programme on BBC Two broadcast a profile
of Mantel on 17 September 2011.[14]
Health
During her twenties, Mantel suffered from a debilitating and painful illness. She was initially diagnosed with a
psychiatric illness, hospitalised, and treated with antipsychotic drugs. These drugs paradoxically produced psychotic
symptoms, and as a consequence, Mantel refrained from seeking help from doctors for some years. Finally, in
Botswana and desperate, she consulted a medical textbook and realised she was probably suffering from a severe
form of endometriosis, a diagnosis confirmed by doctors in London. The condition and necessary surgery left her
unable to have children and continued to disrupt her life. Continued treatment by steroids caused weight gain and
radically changed her appearance.
This aspect of her life has been dealt with insensitively by interviewers in the past, including by Terry Gross on
American radio station NPR's Fresh Air.[15]
She was patron of the Endometriosis SHE Trust [16].
Commentary on media portrayal of royalty
In the context of her novels on Royal consorts in Tudor times, in a speech on media and royal women at the British
Museum, Mantel commented on Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge.[17] Her comments in passing[18] that the Duchess
is forced to present herself publicly as a personality-free “shop window mannequin”, whose sole purpose is to deliver
an heir to the throne[19] received much negative comment. The Leader of the Opposition Ed Miliband defended the
Duchess labelling the comments as 'offensive'. Prime Minister David Cameron defended the Duchess, whom he
referred to as 'Princess Kate', from what the British tabloids saw as an attack, while Jemima Khan [20][21] and Hadley
Freeman[22] defended Mantel from criticism. Near the end of her speech, Mantel said: "It may be that the whole
phenomenon of monarchy is irrational, but that doesn't mean that when we look at it we should behave like
spectators at Bedlam. Cheerful curiosity can easily become cruelty."[17]
22
Hilary Mantel
Awards and honours
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
1987 Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize
1990 Southern Arts Literature Prize for Fludd
1990 Cheltenham Prize for Fludd
1990 Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize for Fludd
1992 Sunday Express Book of the Year for A Place of Greater Safety
1996 Hawthornden Prize for An Experiment in Love
2003 MIND Book of the Year for Giving Up the Ghost (A Memoir)
2006 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Eurasia Region, Best Book), shortlisted for Beyond Black
2006 CBE at the 2006 Birthday Honours
2006 Orange Prize for Fiction shortlisted for Beyond Black
2009 Man Booker Prize for Wolf Hall
2009 National Book Critics Circle Award for Wolf Hall
2010 Orange Prize for Fiction shortlisted for Wolf Hall
2010 Walter Scott Prize for Wolf Hall
2010 Specsavers National Book Awards "UK Author of the Year" for Wolf Hall
2012 Man Booker Prize for Bring Up the Bodies
•
•
•
•
2012 Specsavers National Book Awards "UK Author of the Year" for Bring Up the Bodies[]
2012 Costa Book Awards (Novel) for Bring Up the Bodies[23]
2012 Costa Book Awards (Book of the Year) for Bring Up the Bodies[][24][25]
2013 David Cohen Prize[26]
List of works
Novels
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Every Day is Mother's Day: Chatto & Windus, 1985
Vacant Possession: Chatto & Windus, 1986
Eight Months on Ghazzah Street: Viking, 1988
Fludd: Viking, 1989
A Place of Greater Safety: Viking, 1992
A Change of Climate: Viking, 1994
An Experiment in Love: Viking, 1995
The Giant, O'Brien: Fourth Estate, 1998
Beyond Black: Fourth Estate, 2005
Wolf Hall: Fourth Estate, 2009
Bring Up the Bodies: Fourth Estate, 2012
The Mirror and the Light: in progress
23
Hilary Mantel
Short stories
• Learning to Talk: Fourth Estate, 2003
Memoir
• Giving Up the Ghost: Fourth Estate, 2003
Articles
• "What a man this is, with his crowd of women around him!" [27], London Review of Books, 30 March 2000.
• "Some Girls Want Out" [28], London Review of Books, v. 26 no. 5, pg 14-18, 4 March 2004. Describes extreme
fasting for religious purposes as "holy anorexia", with a comparison with "secular anorexia", tying the two
together as "social hypocrisy".
• "Diary" [29], London Review of Books, 4 November 2010.
References
[5] "Once upon a life" (http:/ / www. guardian. co. uk/ books/ 2010/ feb/ 21/ hilary-mantel-saudi-arabia), The Observer Magazine, 21 February
2010
[16] http:/ / www. shetrust. org. uk
[17] Mantel, Hilary. "Royal Bodies", (http:/ / www. lrb. co. uk/ v35/ n04/ hilary-mantel/ royal-bodies) London Review of Books, 35:4, 21
February 2013, p.3-7
[18] "They also took up a total of four paragraphs in a 30-paragraph speech – less than one-seventh, in other words" according to Hadley
Freeman "Hilary Mantel v the Duchess of Cambridge: a story of lazy journalism and raging hypocrisy", (http:/ / www. guardian. co. uk/
commentisfree/ 2013/ feb/ 19/ hilary-mantel-duchess-cambridge-scandal) The Guardian, 19 February 2013.
[19] Sherwin, Adam. "Hilary Mantel attacks 'bland, plastic, machine-made' Duchess of Cambridge", (http:/ / www. independent. co. uk/
arts-entertainment/ books/ news/ hilary-mantel-attacks-bland-plastic-machinemade-duchess-of-cambridge-8500035. html) The Independent,
19 February 2013. Retrieved 19 February 2013.
[20] Sherwin, Adam. "David Cameron defends Kate over Hilary Mantel’s ‘shop-window mannequin’ remarks", (http:/ / www. independent. co.
uk/ arts-entertainment/ books/ news/ david-cameron-defends-kate-over-hilary-mantels-shopwindow-mannequin-remarks-8501237. html) The
Independent, 19 February 2013.
[21] See also Jessica Elgot "Hilary Mantel And 10 Reasons Why She Might Be Right About Kate Middleton", (http:/ / www. huffingtonpost. co.
uk/ 2013/ 02/ 19/ hilary-mantel-on-kate-middleton-right_n_2715638. html?utm_hp_ref=uk) The Huffington Post, 19 February 2013.
[22] "Hilary Mantel v the Duchess of Cambridge: a story of lazy journalism and raging hypocrisy", (http:/ / www. guardian. co. uk/
commentisfree/ 2013/ feb/ 19/ hilary-mantel-duchess-cambridge-scandal) The Guardian, 19 February 2013.
[27] http:/ / www. lrb. co. uk/ v22/ n07/ mant01_. html
[28] http:/ / www. lrb. co. uk/ v26/ n05/ hilary-mantel/ some-girls-want-out
[29] http:/ / www. lrb. co. uk/ v32/ n21/ hilary-mantel/ diary
External links
• Online Wall Street Journal review (http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB10001424052748703746604574461110318457866.html)
• Interview (http://abc.com.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2393914.htm) with Ramona Koval, The Book
Show, ABC Radio National, 21.10.08
• Profile (http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/articles/050725crbo_books1) in The New Yorker magazine
• Mantel archive (http://www.nybooks.com/authors/40) from The New York Review of Books
• Articles by Hilary Mantel on her publisher's blog, 5th Estate (http://www.fifthestate.co.uk/author/
hilarymantel/)
24
Wolf Hall
25
Wolf Hall
Wolf Hall
Author(s)
Hilary Mantel
Country
United Kingdom
Language
English
Genre(s)
Historical Fiction
Publisher
Fourth Estate (UK)
Publication date
April 30, 2009
Media type
Print (hardback)
Pages
672
ISBN
0-00-723018-4
Dewey Decimal
823/.914 22
LC Classification PR6063.A438 W65 2009
Followed by
Bring Up the Bodies
Wolf Hall (2009) is a multi-award winning historical novel by English author Hilary Mantel, published by Fourth
Estate, named after the Seymour family seat of Wolfhall or Wulfhall in Wiltshire. Set in the period from 1500 to
1535, Wolf Hall is a fictionalized biography documenting the rapid rise to power of Thomas Cromwell in the court
of Henry VIII, through the death of Sir Thomas More. The novel won both the Man Booker Prize and the National
Book Critics Circle Award.[1][2] In 2012, The Observer named it as one of "The 10 best historical novels".[3]
The book is the first in a planned trilogy; the sequel Bring Up the Bodies was published in 2012.[4]
Historical background
Born to a working-class family of no position or name, Cromwell rose to become the right-hand man of Cardinal
Thomas Wolsey, adviser to the King. He survived Wolsey's fall from grace to eventually take his place as the most
powerful of Henry's ministers. In that role, he oversaw Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon and subsequent
marriage to Anne Boleyn, the English church's break with Rome and the dissolution of the monasteries.
Historical and literary accounts in the following centuries have not been kind to Cromwell; in Robert Bolt's
well-known play A Man for All Seasons he is portrayed as the calculating, unprincipled opposite of Thomas More's
honour and rectitude.
Characterisation
Mantel's novel offers an alternative to that characterization, a more intimate and well-rounded portrait of Cromwell
as a pragmatic and talented man attempting to serve king and country amid the political machinations of Henry's
court and the religious upheavals of the Protestant reformation. The narrative fleshes out the historical record of
Cromwell's life to produce a complete and compelling character. It also portrays Thomas More in a negative way, as
a religious fanatic. The novel ends with the execution of Thomas More, bringing Cromwell to the height of his
power and influence.
Wolf Hall
26
Process
Mantel spent five years researching and writing the book; the trickiest part, she said in an interview with the Wall
Street Journal,[5] was trying to match her version of events to the historical record. To avoid contradicting history,
she created a card catalogue, organized alphabetically by character, with each card containing notes indicating where
a particular historical figure was on relevant dates. "You really need to know, where is the Duke of Suffolk at the
moment? You can't have him in London if he's supposed to be somewhere else", she explained. This depth of
research is especially important when all the novel's main characters are historical figures.
Characters
Wolf Hall includes a large cast of fictionalized historical persons. In addition to those already mentioned, prominent
characters include:
•
•
•
•
•
Stephen Gardiner, Master Secretary to King Henry
Princess Mary, the daughter and only surviving child of Henry and Catherine, later Queen Mary I of England.
Mary Boleyn, sister of Anne
Thomas Boleyn, father of Anne and Mary
Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, Anne's uncle
• Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury
• Jane Seymour, who later became the third of Henry's six wives
The title
The title comes from the name of the Seymour family seat at Wolf Hall or Wulfhall in Wiltshire; the title's allusion
to the old Latin saying "Man is wolf to man" serves as a constant reminder of the dangerously opportunistic nature of
the world through which Cromwell navigates.[6] None of the action occurs at Wolf Hall.
Critical reaction
“
... Wolf Hall succeeds on its own terms and then some, both as a non-frothy historical novel and as a display of Mantel's extraordinary talent.
Lyrically yet cleanly and tightly written, solidly imagined yet filled with spooky resonances, and very funny at times, it's not like much else in
contemporary British fiction. A sequel is apparently in the works, and it's not the least of Mantel's achievements that the reader finishes this
[7]
650-page book wanting more. —Christopher Tayler in The Guardian
“
”
...dreadfully badly written... Mantel just wrote and wrote and wrote. I have yet to meet anyone outside the Booker panel who managed to get to
the end of this tedious tome. God forbid there might be a sequel, which I fear is on the horizon. — Susan Bassnett, in Times Higher
[8]
Education
”
“
Over two decades, she has gained a reputation as an elegant anatomiser of malevolence and cruelty. From the French Revolution of A Place of
Greater Safety (1992) to the Middle England of Beyond Black (2005), hers are scrupulously moral - and scrupulously unmoralistic - books that
refuse to shy away from the underside of life, finding even in disaster a kind of bleak and unconsoling humour. It is that supple movement
between laughter and horror that makes this rich pageant of Tudor life her most humane and bewitching novel. — Olivia Laing in The
[9]
Observer
”
“
... as soon as I opened the book I was gripped. I read it almost non-stop. When I did have to put it down, I was full of regret the story was over,
a regret I still feel. This is a wonderful and intelligently imagined retelling of a familiar tale from an unfamiliar angle — one that makes the
[10]
drama unfolding nearly five centuries ago look new again, and shocking again, too. —Vanora Bennett in The Times
”
Wolf Hall
27
Awards and nominations
• Winner - 2009 Man Booker Prize. James Naughtie, the chairman of the Booker prize judges, said the decision to
give Wolf Hall the award was "based on the sheer bigness of the book. The boldness of its narrative, its scene
setting...The extraordinary way that Hilary Mantel has created what one of the judges has said was a
contemporary novel, a modern novel, which happens to be set in the 16th century".[11]
• Winner - 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.
• Winner - 2010 Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction.[12]
• Winner - 2010 The Morning News Tournament of Books.[13]
Adaptations
Stage
In January 2013 the RSC announced that it would stage adaptations by Mike Poulton of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the
Bodies in its Winter season.[14]
Television
In 2012 the BBC announced that it would be adapting Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies for BBC Two, with an
expected broadcast date of late 2013.[15] On March 7, 2013, it was reported that Mark Rylance had been cast as
Thomas Cromwell.[16]
Footnotes
External links
• Wolf Hall iPhone App (http://www.enhanced-editions.com/books/wolf-hall/)
• Hilary Mantel on Wolf Hall (http://www.themanbookerprize.com/perspective/articles/1260), interview by
Man Booker.
• Wolf Hall (http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/mantelh/wolfhall.htm) at complete review, an
aggregation of reviews from papers and magazines.
• (Video) Hilary Mantel on Wolf Hall (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/video/2009/oct/07/
booker-prize-hilary-mantel-wolf-hall), The Guardian
• Rubin, Martin (2009-10-10). "A Man for All Tasks and Times" (http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB10001424052748703746604574461110318457866.html). Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 13 October 2009.
Awards
Preceded by
The White Tiger
Man Booker Prize
recipient
2009
Succeeded by
The Finkler Question
Bring Up the Bodies
28
Bring Up the Bodies
Bring up the Bodies
First edition
Author(s)
Hilary Mantel
Country
United Kingdom
Language
English
Series
Thomas Cromwell trilogy (in course)
Genre(s)
Historical Fiction
Publisher
Fourth Estate (UK)/ Henry Holt and Co. (US)
Publication date
8 May 2012
Media type
Print (hardback)
Pages
432
ISBN
978-0805090031
OCLC Number
773667451
[1]
LC Classification PR6063.A438 B75 2012
Preceded by
Wolf Hall
Followed by
The Mirror and the Light
Bring Up the Bodies is a historical novel by Hilary Mantel and sequel to her award-winning Wolf Hall. It is the
second part of a planned trilogy charting the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, the powerful minister in the court of
King Henry VIII. Bring Up the Bodies won the 2012 Man Booker Prize and the 2012 Costa Book of the Year.
Preceded by Wolf Hall, it is to be followed by The Mirror and the Light.
Plot
Bring Up the Bodies begins where the previous novel finished. The King and Master Secretary Thomas Cromwell
are the guests of the Seymour family at Wolf Hall. The King shares private moments with Jane Seymour, and begins
to fall in love with her. His present queen, Anne Boleyn, has failed to give him a male heir and, as rumours of her
infidelity spread, the King seeks a way to be rid of her, and marry the new object of his affections.
Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell owe their current high status to each other. They become pitted against each
other, as Cromwell seeks to find a legitimate excuse to expel her from the King's court. Cromwell, master politician,
uses Anne's fall from grace as a chance to settle scores with old enemies. The book ends with the death of Anne.
Bring Up the Bodies
29
Publication
Bring Up the Bodies was published in May 2012, by Harper Collins in the United Kingdom and by Henry Holt and
Co. in the United States, to critical acclaim.[][]
Reception
Janet Maslin reviewed the novel positively in The New York Times:
[The book's] ironic ending will be no cliffhanger for anyone even remotely familiar with Henry VIII's trail of
carnage. But in Bring Up the Bodies it works as one. The wonder of Ms. Mantel's retelling is that she makes
these events fresh and terrifying all over again."[]
Adaptations
In January 2013, the RSC announced that it would stage adaptations by Mike Poulton of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the
Bodies in its Winter season.[2]
Awards and honours
•
•
•
•
•
2012 Man Booker Prize, winner
2012 Specsavers National Book Awards "UK Author of the Year"[]
2012 Costa Book Awards (Novel), winner[3]
2012 Costa Book Awards (Book of the Year), winner[][4][5]
2012 Salon What To Read Awards[]
References
[1] http:/ / worldcat. org/ oclc/ 773667451
External links
• Bring up the bodies (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/Titles/47965/
bring-up-the-bodies-hilary-mantel-9780007315093/) (description of the book), UK: Harper Collins.
Awards
Preceded by
The Sense of an Ending
Man Booker Prize
recipient
2012
Succeeded by
not yet announced
Thomas Cromwell
30
Thomas Cromwell
Thomas Cromwell
Portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1532–1533
Born
1485
Putney, Surrey, England
Died
28 July 1540 (c. aged 55)
Tower Hill, London, England
Occupation
Government
Religion
Roman Catholic/Anglican
Spouse(s)
Elizabeth Wickes
Children
Gregory Cromwell, Anne and Grace
Parents
Walter Cromwell
Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex (c. 1485 – 28 July 1540), was an English lawyer and statesman who served as
chief minister to King Henry VIII of England from 1532 to 1540.
Cromwell was one of the strongest advocates of the English Reformation. He helped engineer an annulment of the
King's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, so that Henry could marry his mistress Anne Boleyn. Supremacy over the
Church of England was officially declared by Parliament in 1534, and Cromwell supervised the Church from the
unique posts of vicegerent in spirituals and vicar general.
Cromwell's rise to power made him many enemies, especially among the conservative faction at court. He fell from
Henry's favour after arranging the King's marriage to a German princess, Anne of Cleves. Cromwell hoped that this
match would breathe fresh life into the Reformation in England, but the marriage turned out to be a disaster for
Cromwell and ended in annulment just six months later. Cromwell was subjected to a bill of attainder and executed
for treason and heresy on Tower Hill on 28 July 1540. The King later expressed regret at having lost his chief
minister.
Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658), the Parliamentarian leader who overthrew the monarchy during the English Civil
War, was a great-great-grandson of Thomas Cromwell's sister, Katherine Williams (born circa 1482).
Thomas Cromwell
Early life
Thomas Cromwell was born around 1485 in Putney, Surrey, the son of Walter Cromwell, a blacksmith, fuller, and
cloth merchant, and owner of both a hostelry and a brewery.[4] Thomas's mother, Katherine, was the aunt of Nicholas
Glossop of Wirksworth in Derbyshire. She lived in Putney in the house of a local attorney, John Welbeck, at the time
of her marriage to Walter Cromwell in 1474.[4] Cromwell had two sisters. The younger, Elizabeth, married a farmer,
William Wellyfed. The elder, Katherine, married Morgan Williams, a Welsh lawyer. Katherine and Morgan's son
Richard was employed in his uncle's service and changed his name to Cromwell. Richard's great-grandson was
Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector.[citation needed]
Little is known about Thomas Cromwell's early life. It is believed he was born at the top of Putney Hill, on the edge
of Putney Heath. In 1878, his birthplace was still of note: "The site of Cromwell's birthplace is still pointed out by
tradition, and is in some measure confirmed by the survey of Wimbledon Manor, quoted above, for it describes on
that spot 'an ancient cottage called the smith's shop, lying west of the highway from Richmond to Wandsworth, being
the sign of the Anchor.' The plot of ground here referred to is now covered by the Green Man public house."[1]
Putney Heath was a noted haunt of highwaymen, and only a few brave souls ventured across it at night.
Cromwell made a declaration to Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer that he had been a "ruffian...in his
young days".[4] As a youth, he left his family in Putney and crossed the Channel to the continent. Accounts of his
activities in France, Italy, and the Low Countries are sketchy and contradictory. It is alleged that he first became a
mercenary and marched with the French army to Italy, where he fought in the battle of Garigliano on 28 December
1503. While in Italy, he entered the household of the Florentine merchant banker Francesco Frescobaldi.
Later he visited leading mercantile centres in the Low Countries, living among the English merchants and
developing an important network of contacts while learning several languages. At some point, he returned to Italy.
The records of the English Hospital in Rome indicate that he stayed there in June 1514,[4] while documents in the
Vatican Archives suggest that he was an agent for Archbishop of York, Cardinal Christopher Bainbridge, and
handled English ecclesiastical issues before the Roman Rota.[2] At some time during these years, Cromwell returned
to England, where around 1515 he married Elizabeth Wyckes (1489–1527). She was the widow of Thomas
Williams, a Yeoman of the Guard, and the daughter of a Putney shearman, Henry Wykes, who had served as a
Gentleman Usher to King Henry VII.[4] The couple had a son, Gregory, and two daughters, Anne and Grace. Neither
daughter survived childhood.[4] Notwithstanding his family having grown, he twice (in 1517 and 1518) led an
embassy to Rome to gain from Pope Leo X a Papal Bull of Indulgence, for the town of Boston in Lincolnshire.[3]
By 1520, Cromwell was firmly established in London mercantile and legal circles.[4] In 1523, he obtained a seat in
the House of Commons, though the constituency he represented at that time has not been identified.[4] After
Parliament had been dissolved, Cromwell wrote a letter to a friend jesting about the session's unproductiveness:
I amongst other have indured a parlyament which contenwid by the space of xvii hole wekes wher we
communyd of warre pease Stryffe contencyon debatte murmure grudge Riches poverte penurye trowth
falshode Justyce equyte dicayte [deceit] opprescyon Magnanymyte actyvyte foce [force] attempraunce
[moderation] Treason murder Felonye consyli … [conciliation] and also how a commune welth myght
be ediffyed and a[lso] contenewid within our Realme. Howbeyt in conclusyon we have d[one] as our
predecessors have been wont to doo that ys to say, as well we myght and lefte wher we begann.[4]
In 1524, Cromwell was elected as a member of Gray's Inn and entered the service of Henry VIII's chief minister,
Thomas Cardinal Wolsey.[4] In the mid-1520s, Cromwell assisted in the dissolution of nearly thirty monasteries to
raise funds for Wolsey to found The King's School, Ipswich (1528), and Cardinal College, in Oxford (1529).[4] In
1526, Wolsey appointed Cromwell a member of his council; by 1529, Cromwell was one of Wolsey's most senior
and trusted advisers. However, by the end of October of that year, Wolsey had fallen from power.[4] Cromwell had
made enemies for aiding Wolsey to suppress the monasteries, but was determined not to fall with his master, as he
told George Cavendish, then a Gentleman Usher and later Wolsey's biographer:
31
Thomas Cromwell
I do entend (god wyllyng) this after none, whan my lord hathe dyned to ride to london and so to the
Court, where I wyll other make or marre or [ere, i.e. before] I come agayn, I wyll put my self in the
prese [press] to se what any man is Able to lay to my charge of ontrouthe or mysdemeanor.[4]
Cromwell's efforts to overcome the shadow cast over his career by Wolsey's downfall were successful. By November
1529, he had secured a seat in Parliament as a member for Taunton[4] and was reported to be in favour with the
King.[4] At some point, during the closing weeks of 1530, the King appointed him to the Privy Council.[4]
King's chief minister
By the autumn of 1531, Cromwell had taken control of the supervision of the King's legal and parliamentary affairs,
working closely with Thomas Audley, and had joined the inner circle of the Council. By the following spring, he had
begun to exert influence over elections to the Commons.[4] He was a modest man, not fond of flattery.[4]
Since 1527, Henry VIII had sought to have his marriage to Queen Catherine annulled so he could marry Anne
Boleyn. At the centre of the campaign to secure the divorce was the emerging doctrine of royal supremacy over the
church. The third session of what is now known as the Reformation Parliament had been scheduled for October
1531, but was postponed until 15 January 1532 due to government indecision as to the best way to proceed.
Cromwell now favoured the assertion of royal supremacy, and manipulated the Commons by resurrecting
anti-clerical grievances expressed earlier in the session of 1529. On 18 March 1532 the Commons delivered a
supplication to the King denouncing clerical abuses and the power of the ecclesiastical courts and describing Henry
as "the only head, sovereign lord, protector, and defender" of the church. The clergy resisted at first, but capitulated
when faced with the threat of Parliamentary reprisal. On 14 May 1532, Parliament was prorogued. Two days later,
Sir Thomas More resigned as Lord Chancellor, realizing that the battle to save the marriage was lost. More's
resignation from the Council represented a triumph for Cromwell and the pro-Reformation faction at court.[4]
The King's gratitude to Cromwell was expressed in a grant of the lordship of Romney in Newport in Wales and
appointment to three relatively minor offices: Master of the Jewels on 14 April 1532, Clerk of the Hanaper on 16
July, and Chancellor of the Exchequer on 12 April 1533. None of these offices afforded much income, but the grants
were an indication of royal favour and gave Cromwell a position in three major institutions of government: the royal
household, the Chancery, and the Exchequer.[4]
By January 1533, Anne Boleyn was pregnant and the marriage could no longer be delayed. The date of the wedding
is unclear. It may have taken place when Anne was with the King in Calais in November 1532, but it seems more
likely that it took place at a secret ceremony on 25 January 1533.[5] Parliament was immediately recalled to pass the
necessary legislation. On 26 January 1533, Audley was appointed Lord Chancellor, and Cromwell increased his
control over the Commons through his management of by-elections. The parliamentary session began on 4 February,
and Cromwell introduced a new bill restricting the right to make appeals to Rome. On 30 March, Cranmer was
consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury, and Convocation immediately declared the King's marriage to Katherine
unlawful. In the first week of April 1533, Parliament passed the bill into law as the Act in Restraint of Appeals,
ensuring that any verdict concerning the King's marriage could not be challenged in Rome. On 11 April, Archbishop
Cranmer sent the King a pro forma challenge to the validity of his marriage to Queen Katherine. A formal trial began
on 10 May 1533 in Dunstable, and on 23 May the archbishop pronounced sentence, declaring the marriage illegal.
Five days later he pronounced the King's marriage to Anne to be lawful, and on 1 June, she was crowned queen.[4]
In December, the King authorized Cromwell to discredit the papacy, and the Pope was attacked throughout the
nation in sermons and pamphlets. In 1534, a new Parliament was summoned, again under Cromwell's supervision, to
enact the legislation necessary to formally break England's remaining ties with Rome. Archbishop Cranmer's
sentence took statutory form as the Act of Succession, the Dispensations Act reiterated royal supremacy, and the Act
for the Submission of the Clergy incorporated into law the clergy's surrender in 1532. On 30 March 1534, Audley
gave royal assent to the legislation in the presence of the King.[4]
32
Thomas Cromwell
In April 1534, Henry confirmed Cromwell as his principal secretary and chief minister, a position he had held in all
but name for some time. Cromwell immediately took steps to enforce the legislation just passed by Parliament.
Before the members of both houses returned home on 30 March, they were required to swear an oath accepting the
Act of Succession, and all the King's subjects were now required to swear to the legitimacy of the marriage and, by
implication, to acceptance of the King's new powers and the break from Rome. On 13 April, the London clergy
accepted the oath. On the same day, the commissioners offered it to Sir Thomas More and John Fisher, Bishop of
Rochester, who both refused it. More was taken into custody on the same day, and was moved to the Tower on 17
April. Fisher joined him there four days later. On 18 April, an order was issued that all citizens of London were to
swear. Similar orders were issued throughout the country. When Parliament reconvened in November, Cromwell
brought in the most significant revision of the treason laws since 1352, making it treasonous to speak rebellious
words against the royal family, to deny their titles, or to call the King a heretic, tyrant, infidel, or usurper. The Act of
Supremacy also clarified the King's position as head of the church, and the Act for Payment of First Fruits and
Tenths substantially increased clerical taxes. Cromwell also strengthened his own control over the church. On 21
January 1535, the King appointed him royal vicegerent, or vicar-general, and commissioned him to organize
visitations of all the country's churches, monasteries, and clergy. In this capacity, Cromwell conducted a census in
1535 to enable the government to tax church property more effectively.[4]
The final session of the Reformation Parliament began on 4 February 1536. By 18 March, an Act for the Suppression
of the Lesser Monasteries, those with a gross income of less than £200 per annum, had passed both houses. This
caused a clash with Anne Boleyn, who wanted the proceeds of the dissolution used for charitable purposes, not paid
into the King's coffers. Anne instructed her chaplains to preach against the vicegerent, and on 2 April 1536 her
almoner, John Skip, denounced Cromwell before the entire court as an enemy of the Queen. Anne had so far failed to
produce a male heir, and Cromwell, aware that the King was growing impatient and had become enamoured of the
young Jane Seymour, acted with ruthless determination, accusing Anne of adultery with several courtiers, including
her own brother, Viscount Rochford. The Queen and her brother stood trial on Monday 15 May, while the four
others accused with them were condemned on the Friday beforehand. The men were executed on 17 May, and on the
same day Cranmer declared Henry's marriage to Anne invalid, a ruling that bastardized their daughter, Princess
Elizabeth. Two days later, Anne herself was executed. On 30 May, the King married Jane Seymour. On 8 June, a
new Parliament passed the second Act of Succession, securing the rights of Queen Jane's heirs to the throne.[4]
Cromwell's position was now stronger than ever. He succeeded Anne Boleyn's father, Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of
Wiltshire, as Lord Privy Seal on 2 July 1536, resigning the office of Master of the Rolls, which he had held since 8
October 1534. On 8 July 1536, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Cromwell of Wimbledon.
In July 1536, the first attempt was made to clarify religious doctrine after the break with Rome. Bishop Edward
Foxe, with strong backing from Cromwell and Cranmer, tabled proposals in Convocation, which the King later
endorsed as the Ten Articles, printed in August. Cromwell circulated injunctions for their enforcement that went
beyond the Articles themselves, provoking opposition in September and October in Lincolnshire, and then
throughout the six northern counties. These widespread popular and clerical uprisings, which found support among
the gentry and even the nobility, were collectively known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. Although the rebels'
grievances were wide-ranging, the most significant was the suppression of the monasteries, blamed on the King's
"evil counsellors", principally Cromwell and Cranmer.[4]
The suppression of the risings spurred further Reformation measures. In February 1537, Cromwell convened a
vicegerential synod of bishops and doctors. By July, the synod, co-ordinated by Cranmer and Foxe, had prepared a
draft document, The Institution of a Christian Man, more commonly known as the Bishops' Book. By October, it
was in circulation, although the King had not yet given it his full assent. However Cromwell's success in church
politics was offset by the fact that his political influence had been weakened by the emergence of a privy council, a
body of nobles and office-holders that first came together to suppress the Pilgrimage of Grace. The King confirmed
his support of Cromwell by electing him to the Order of the Garter on 5 August 1537, but Cromwell was nonetheless
33
Thomas Cromwell
forced to accept the existence of an executive body dominated by his conservative opponents.[4]
In January 1538, Cromwell pursued an extensive campaign against what was termed "idolatry" by the followers of
the new religion. Statues, roods, and images were attacked, culminating in September with the dismantling of the
shrine of St Thomas Becket at Canterbury. Early in September, Cromwell also completed a new set of vicegerential
injunctions declaring open war on "pilgrimages, feigned relics, or images, or any such superstitions", and
commanding that "one book of the whole Bible of the largest volume in English" be set up in every church.
Moreover, following the "voluntary" surrender of the remaining smaller monasteries during the previous year, the
larger monasteries were now also "invited" to surrender throughout 1538, a process legitimized in the 1539 session
of Parliament and completed in the following year.[4]
The King was becoming increasingly unhappy about the extent of religious changes, and the conservative faction at
court was gaining strength. Cromwell took the initiative against his enemies. In November 1538, using evidence
acquired from Sir Geoffrey Pole under interrogation in the Tower, he imprisoned the Marquess of Exeter, Sir
Edward Neville, and Sir Nicholas Carew on charges of treason; all were executed in the following months.
On 17 December 1538, the Inquisitor-General of France interdicted the printing of Miles Coverdale's Great Bible.
Cromwell persuaded the French King to release the unfinished books so that printing could continue in England. In
April 1539 the first edition was finally available. The publication of the Great Bible, the first authoritative version in
English, was one of Cromwell's most significant achievements.[4]
The King, however, continued to resisist further Reformation measures. A parliamentary committee was established
to examine doctrine, and on 16 May 1539 the Duke of Norfolk presented six questions for the house to consider,
which were duly passed as the Act of Six Articles shortly before the session ended on 28 June. The Six Articles
reaffirmed a traditional view of the Mass, the sacraments and the priesthood.[4]
Queen Jane had died in 1537, less than two weeks after the birth of her only child, the future Edward VI. In early
October 1539, the King finally accepted Cromwell's suggestion that he marry Anne, the sister of Duke Wilhelm, of
Cleves. On 27 December, Anne arrived at Dover. On New Year's Day 1540, the King met her at Rochester, and was
chagrined to find that she was not the beauty Holbein had depicted in his portrait of her. The wedding ceremony took
place on 6 January at Greenwich, but the marriage was not consummated.[6]
Downfall and execution
On 18 April 1540, Henry granted Cromwell the earldom of Essex and the senior court office of Lord Great
Chamberlain.[4] Despite these signs of royal favour, Cromwell's tenure as the King's chief minister was almost over.
The King's anger at being forced to marry Anne of Cleves was the opportunity Cromwell's conservative opponents,
most notably the Duke of Norfolk, needed to topple him.[7]
At a Council meeting on 10 June 1540, Cromwell was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower. A bill of attainder
containing a long list of indictments, including treason, heresy, corruption, and plotting to marry Lady Mary Tudor,
was introduced into the House of Lords a week later, and was passed on 29 June 1540.[4] All Cromwell's honours
were forfeited. The King deferred the execution until his marriage to Anne of Cleves could be annulled. Hoping for
clemency, Cromwell wrote in support of the annulment in his last personal address to the King.[8]
Site of the ancient scaffold at Tower Hill where Cromwell was executed by decapitation
34
Thomas Cromwell
Plaque at the ancient scaffold site on Tower Hill commemorating Thomas Cromwell and others executed at the site.
Cromwell was condemned to death without trial and beheaded on Tower Hill on 28 July 1540, the day of the King's
marriage to Catherine Howard.[9] After the execution, his head was set on a spike on London Bridge. Edward Halle,
a contemporary chronicler, records that Cromwell made a speech on the scaffold, professing to die, "in the traditional
faith" and then "so paciently suffered the stroke of the axe, by a ragged Boocherly miser whiche very ungoodly
perfourmed the Office". Halle said of Cromwell's downfall:
Many lamented but more rejoiced, and specially such as either had been religious men, or favoured religious
persons; for they banqueted and triumphed together that night, many wishing that that day had been seven
years before; and some fearing lest he should escape, although he were imprisoned, could not be merry. Others
who knew nothing but truth by him both lamented him and heartily prayed for him. But this is true that of
certain of the clergy he was detestably hated, & specially of such as had borne swynge, and by his means was
put from it; for in dead he was a man that in all his doings seemed not to favour any kind of Popery, nor could
not abide the snoffyng pride of some prelates, which undoubtedly, whatsoever else was the cause of his death,
did shorten his life and procured the end that he was brought unto.[10]
Henry came to regret Cromwell's execution, and later accused his ministers of bringing about Cromwell's downfall
by false charges. On 3 March 1541, the French Ambassador, Charles de Marillac, reported in a letter that the King
was now said to be lamenting that "under pretext of some slight offences which he had committed, they had brought
several accusations against him, on the strength of which he had put to death the most faithful servant he ever
had."[11]
Cromwell's life and legacy have aroused enormous controversy. However his effectiveness and creativity as a royal
minister cannot be denied, nor can his loyalty to the King. During Cromwell's years in power, he skillfully managed
Crown finances and extended royal authority. In 1536, he established the Court of Augmentations to handle the
massive windfall to the royal coffers occasioned by the dissolution of the monasteries. Two other important financial
institutions, the Court of Wards and the Court of First Fruits and Tenths, owed their existence to him, although they
were not set up until after his death. He strengthened royal authority in the north of England through reform of the
Council of the North, extended royal power and introduced Protestantism in Ireland, and was the architect of
legislation, the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542, which promoted stability and gained acceptance for the royal
supremacy in Wales. He also introduced important social and economic reforms in England in the 1530s, including
action against enclosures, the promotion of English cloth exports, and the poor relief legislation of 1536.[4]
Descendants
Thomas Cromwell's son Gregory Cromwell, 1st Baron Cromwell, married Elizabeth Seymour, the sister of Queen
Jane Seymour and widow of Sir Anthony Ughtred (or Oughtred). They had five children.[citation needed] His nephew,
Richard Williams, took the name Cromwell because Thomas raised him after his parents' death. Richard was
great-grandfather to Oliver Cromwell.
Hans Holbein portraits
Thomas Cromwell was a patron of Hans Holbein the Younger, as were Sir Thomas More and Anne Boleyn. In New
York's Frick Collection, two portraits by Holbein hang facing each other on the same wall of the Living Hall, one
depicting Thomas Cromwell, the other Thomas More, whose execution he had procured.
35
Thomas Cromwell
Fictional portrayals
Cromwell has been portrayed in a number of plays, feature films, and television miniseries, usually as a villainous
character. More recently, however, Hilary Mantel's two Man Booker prizewinning novels Wolf Hall (2009) and
Bring up the Bodies (2012) have shown him in a more sympathetic light, stressing his family affections, genuine
respect for Cardinal Wolsey, zeal for the Reformation, and support for a limited degree of social reform.
Theatre
• Cromwell is a supporting character in William Shakespeare's play Henry VIII.
• He is the subject of Thomas Lord Cromwell, a 1602 play attributed on the title page to 'W.S.', once thought to be
Shakespeare.
• In the original stage production of Maxwell Anderson's Anne of the Thousand Days, which deals with the
marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Cromwell was portrayed by Wendell K. Phillips. He is depicted here as
totally ruthless and unscrupulous.
• Cromwell is the main antagonist in Robert Bolt's play A Man for All Seasons, in which he is portrayed as
ruthlessly ambitious and jealous of Sir Thomas More's influence with the King. Cromwell was played by Andrew
Keir when the play opened in London, and by Leo McKern on Broadway.
• Cromwell was portrayed by Julius D'Silva in Shakespeare's Globe's production of Anne Boleyn in 2010 and 2011.
• Cromwell was portrayed in a new musical about the life of king Henry the VIII, http://www.
henryviiithemusical.com/
Novels
• Cromwell is the subject of Hilary Mantel's Booker Prize winning novels, Wolf Hall (2009) and Bring Up the
Bodies (2012), which explore his humanity and to some extent rebuts the unflattering portrait in A Man for All
Seasons. Wolf Hall won the 2009 Man Booker Prize. Mantel's second novel of a planned trilogy about Cromwell
and Henry VIII, Bring up the Bodies, was published in May 2012. It quickly made the New York Times bestseller
list.[12] and, like its predecessor, was awarded the Man Booker Prize.
• Cromwell is a leading character in the first two Matthew Shardlake historical crime fiction novels by C. J.
Sansom, Dissolution and Dark Fire.
• He is a major character in The Trusted Servant by Alison Macleod, whose main protagonist begins as Cromwell's
younger protégé.
• He is given minor roles in two of Philippa Gregory's novels, The Other Boleyn Girl (2001) and The Boleyn
Inheritance.
• He is one of the major characters in H.F.M. Prescott's novel The Man on a Donkey, which depicts a power
struggle between Cromwell and Lord Darcy, representing the old nobility.
• He is arguably the dominant character in Ford Madox Ford's novel The Fifth Queen (1906-1908), which presents
a vivid portrait of his intelligence and intimidating personality.
Film
• Franklin Dyall portrayed Cromwell in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933).
• In A Man for All Seasons, he was played by Leo McKern, who had also played the role on Broadway.
• He has also been portrayed by John Colicos in the film Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), by Kenneth Williams
in the classic British comedy Carry On Henry (1971), by Donald Pleasence in Henry VIII and His Six Wives
(1972), and by Iain Mitchell in The Other Boleyn Girl (2008).
36
Thomas Cromwell
Television
• Cromwell has been portrayed by Wolfe Morris in the BBC miniseries The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970), and by
Danny Webb in the Granada Television production Henry VIII (2003). In the television version of The Other
Boleyn Girl (2003), he was played by veteran actor Ron Cook.
• In the television series The Tudors (2007), Cromwell is played by English actor James Frain. Frain played the
character for three seasons; Cromwell's execution brought the character's run to its conclusion.
• In The Twisted Tale Of Bloody Mary (2008), an independent film from TV Choice Productions, Cromwell is
played by Burtie Welland.
• Cromwell will be the focus of a new HBO and BBC Mini-Series based on the novel Wolf Hall by Hilary
Mantel.[13]
Footnotes
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
http:/ / www. british-history. ac. uk/ report. aspx?compid=45294
.
G. E. Elton 'Thomas Cromwell', Headstart Press, Ipswich, 1991, p.2
Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII, vol. X, no. 224
.
;
[11] Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII, vol. XVI, p.284
[13] HBO and BBC to Collaborate for Wolf Hall Mini-Series (http:/ / hbowatch. com/ hbo-bbc-to-collaborate-for-wolf-hall-mini-series/ )
References
• Leithead, Howard (2009). Cromwell, Thomas, Earl of Essex (b. in or before 1485, d. 1540). Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography.
• Brigden, Susan. "Popular Disturbance and the Fall of Thomas Cromwell and the Reformers, 1539-1540,"
Historical Journal Vol. 24, No. 2 (Jun., 1981), pp. 257–278 in JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/stable/2638786)
• Elton, G. R. "The Political Creed of Thomas Cromwell," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Fifth
Series, Vol. 6, (1956), pp. 69–92 in JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/stable/3678841)
• Elton, G. R. "Thomas Cromwell's Decline and Fall," Cambridge Historical Journal Vol. 10, No. 2 (1951),
pp. 150–185 in JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/stable/3021084)
• Elton, Geoffrey. "How Corrupt was Thomas Cromwell?" Historical Journal Vol. 36, No. 4 (Dec., 1993),
pp. 905–908 in JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/stable/2640037)
• Elton, Geoffrey Rudolph (1991). England Under the Tudors (3rd ed. ed.). London: Routledge.
• Elton, Geoffrey Rudolph (1953). The Tudor Revolution in Government: Administrative Changes in the Reign of
Henry VIII. Cambridge University Press.
• Elton, Geoffrey Rudolph (1973). Policy and Police: The Enforcement of the Reformation in the Age of Thomas
Cromwell. Cambridge University Press.
• Elton, Geoffrey Rudolph (1973). Reform and Renewal: Thomas Cromwell and the Common Weal. Cambridge
University Press.
• Elton, Geoffrey Rudolph (1974). "King or Minister? The Man behind the Henrician Reformation". Studies in
Tudor and Stuart Politics and Government (Cambridge University Press) I.
• Elton, Geoffrey Rudolph (1974). "An Early Tudor Poor Law". Studies in Tudor and Stuart Politics and
Government (Cambridge University Press) II.
• Hall, Edward (1542). "The XXXII Yere of Kyng Henry viij". Chronicle (London 1809, Johnson ed.).
• Ives, E.W. (2004). Anne [Anne Boleyn] (c.1500–1536), queen of England, second consort of Henry VIII. Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography.
• Kinney, Arthur (2000). Tudor England: An Encyclopedia. Garland Science.
37
Thomas Cromwell
38
• Logan, F. Donald. "Thomas Cromwell and the Vicegerency in Spirituals: A Revisitation," English Historical
Review Vol. 103, No. 408 (Jul., 1988), pp. 658–667 in JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/stable/572696)
• Warnicke, Retha M. (2008). Katherine [Catherine; née Katherine Howard] (1518x24–1542), Queen of England
and Ireland, fifth consort of Henry VIII. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
• Weir, Alison (1991). The Six Wives of Henry VIII. New York: Grove Weidenfeld.
External links
• A biography of Thomas Cromwell (http://www.englishhistory.net/tudor/citizens/cromwell.html) with details
on his policies
• (http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/Bios/ThomasCromwell(1EEssex).htm) Biography
• A genealogical page (http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/CROMWELL.htm) listing some details of the Cromwell
family back to the 12th century
• Archival material relating to Thomas Cromwell (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra/searches/
subjectView.asp?ID=P7032) listed at the UK National Archives
• Portraits of Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex (http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person.
php?LinkID=mp01490) at the National Portrait Gallery, London
Political offices
Preceded by
Stephen Gardiner
Secretary of State
1533–1536
Succeeded by
Thomas Wriothesley
Preceded by
John Bourchier
Chancellor of the Exchequer
1533–1540
Succeeded by
John Baker
Preceded by
John Taylor
Master of the Rolls
1534–1536
Succeeded by
Christopher Hales
Preceded by
The Earl of Wiltshire
Lord Privy Seal
1536–1540
Succeeded by
The Earl of Southampton
Preceded by
Unknown
Governor of the Isle of
Wight
1538–1540
Title next held by
Preceded by
The 15th Earl of Oxford
Lord Great Chamberlain
1540
Vacant
The Lord St John
Succeeded by
The 16th Earl of Oxford
Legal offices
Preceded by
The Lord Darcy de Darcy
Justice in Eyre
North of the Trent
1537–1540
Succeeded by
The Earl of Rutland
Louise Erdrich
39
Louise Erdrich
Louise Erdrich
Born
Karen Louise Erdrich
June 7, 1954
Little Falls, Minnesota, United States
Occupation
Novelist, short story writer, poet
Genres
Native American literature
Literary movement Postmodernism, Native American Renaissance
Notable work(s)
Love Medicine, Tracks, The Beet Queen, The Bingo Palace, The Round House
Karen Louise Erdrich, known as Louise Erdrich, (Little Falls, Minnesota June 7, 1954)[1] is an American author
of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled member
of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, a band of the Anishinaabe (also known as Ojibwa and
Chippewa).[2]
Erdrich is widely acclaimed as one of the most significant writers of the second wave of the Native American
Renaissance. In 2009, her novel The Plague of Doves was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In November
2012, she received the National Book Award for Fiction for her novel The Round House.[]
She is also the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore in Minneapolis that focuses on Native
American literature and the Native community in the Twin Cities.[3]
Early years
The eldest of seven children, Erdrich was born in Little Falls, Minnesota, the daughter of Ralph Erdrich, a
German-American, and his wife, Rita (née Gourneau), half French-American and half Ojibwe. Both of Erdrich’s
parents taught at a boarding school in Wahpeton, North Dakota set up by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and her
maternal grandfather, Patrick Gourneau, served as tribal chairman for the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa
Indians for many years.[4]
Erdrich attended Dartmouth College from 1972 to 1976 as part of the first coed class there, and earned a BA degree
in English. There she also met her future husband, anthropologist and writer Michael Dorris, then-director of the
newly established Dartmouth College Native American Studies program. Erdrich earned a Master of Fine Arts
degree in creative writing at Johns Hopkins University in 1979. Edrich returned to Dartmouth in 2009 to receive an
honorary Doctorate of Letters and deliver the commencement address to the graduating class of her alma mater.[5]
Work
As a child, Erdrich’s father paid her a nickel for every story she wrote. In 1979, Erdrich wrote “The World’s Greatest
Fisherman”, a short story about June Kashpaw, a divorced Ojibwe woman whose death by hypothermia brought her
relatives home to a fictional North Dakota reservation for her funeral. The story won the Nelson Algren Short Fiction
prize and eventually became the first chapter of her debut novel, Love Medicine.[5]
Love Medicine won the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award.[6] It has also been featured on the National
Advanced Placement Test for Literature.[7] Erdrich followed Love Medicine with The Beet Queen, which continued
her technique of using multiple narrators, yet surprised many critics by expanding the fictional reservation universe
of Love Medicine to include the nearby town of Argus, North Dakota. Native characters are very much kept in the
background in The Beet Queen, while Erdrich focuses on the German-American community. The action of the novel
Louise Erdrich
takes place mostly before World War II. The Beet Queen was subject to a bitter attack from Native novelist Leslie
Marmon Silko, who accused Erdrich of being more concerned with postmodern technique than with the political
struggles of Native peoples.[8] However, Erdrich and Silko appear to have overcome that disagreement and are now
on more friendly terms, possibly because Erdrich has more firmly cemented herself in the Native Community with
her bookstore and printing press.
In 2009, Erdrich’s novel The Plague of Doves was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. The narrative
focuses on the historical lynching of four Native people wrongly accused of murdering a Caucasian family, and the
effect of this injustice on the current generations. Tracks goes back to the early 20th century at the formation of the
reservation and introduces the trickster figure of Nanapush, who owes a clear debt to Nanabozho.[9] Erdrich’s novel
most rooted in Anishinaabe culture (at least until Four Souls), Tracks shows early clashes between traditional ways
and the Roman Catholic Church. The Bingo Palace updates, yet does not resolve, various conflicts from Love
Medicine. Set in the 1980s, it describes the good and bad effects of a casino and a factory on the reservation
community. Finally, Tales of Burning Love finishes the story of Sister Leopolda, a recurring character from all the
previous books, and introduces a new set of white people into the reservation universe. Erdrich’s first novel after her
divorce, The Antelope Wife, was the first to be set outside the continuity of the previous books.[10] She subsequently
returned to the reservation and nearby towns, and has published five novels since 1998 dealing with events in that
fictional area. Among these are The Master Butchers Singing Club, a macabre mystery that again draws on Erdrich's
Native American and German-American heritage, and The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse. Both
have geographic and character connections with The Beet Queen. Together with several of her previous works, these
have drawn comparisons with William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha novels. Erdrich's successive novels created
multiple narratives in the same fictional area and combined the tapestry of local history with current themes and
modern consciousness.[11]
Genre
Usually classified first as a Native American writer, and a contributor to the Native American Renaissance,
reviewers and critics often compare her work to that of William Faulkner and of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The
comparison with Faulkner is drawn from the extensive and tangled family trees of her characters, and also from her
use of a fictional reservation that becomes just as solid and real as Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County. With Garcia
Marquez the comparison rests more on her use of folk magic and ritual drawn from the Native culture she shares
with her characters, as the experience magical realism is drawn from the Hispanic culture Garcia Marquez shares
with his. One could also compare her work to Isabel Allende’s, which has both magical realism and twisted family
trees extending over generations. It is just as apt to say, however, that her work has few true comparisons and that
she has created a genre all her own.
Personal life
Erdrich married Michael Dorris in 1981 and they raised three adopted and three biological children before their
separation in 1995 and Dorris’s suicide in 1997. Erdrich lives in Minnesota, near the three daughters she had with
Dorris (Persia Andromeda, Pallas Antigone, and Aza Marion) and her fourth daughter (Kiizh), born in 2000. Her
eldest daughter helps out at the bookstore, Birchbark Books.
One sister, Heidi, is a poet who also lives in Minnesota and publishes under the name Heid E. Erdrich. Another
sister, Lise Erdrich, has written children's books and collections of fiction and essays. For the past few years, the
three Erdrich sisters have hosted annual writers' workshops on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in North
Dakota.[12]
The award-winning photographer Ronald W. Erdrich is one of her cousins. He lives and works in Abilene, Texas. He
was named "Star Photojournalist of the Year" in 2004 by the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors association.
40
Louise Erdrich
Birchbark Books
Erdrich’s independent bookstore is something of a visitor’s attraction in Minneapolis, as is Garrison Keillor’s
bookstore in St. Paul. Both reveal the strong literary culture of the Twin Cities (Neil Gaiman and Nuruddin Farah
also live in the vicinity). Of the two, however, Erdrich’s bookstore is something a little more than just a place to
browse books. It has more atmosphere than you might expect, from the canoe hanging from the ceiling to the
upcycled Roman Catholic confessional decorated with sweetgrass, from the nooks and crannies for reading in the
store, to the detailed recommendations taped to the shelves. The bookstore also hosts literary readings and other
events, celebrating the release of each of Erdrich’s new works, but also the works and careers of other writers,
particularly local Native writers. Erdrich and her staff consider Brichbark Books to be a “teaching bookstore” [13] and
as such they provide a wealth of resources to school teachers both in person and online. In addition to books the store
sells Native art and traditional medicines, and it is something of a locus for Native literati in the Twin Cities. The
store is also famous for selling Native American jewelry. A small nonprofit publisher founded by Erdrich and her
sister, Wiigwaas Press, is affiliated with the store and books published by Wiigwaas can be bought on the Birchbark
Books website.[14]
List of Works
Novels
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Love Medicine (1984)
The Beet Queen (1986)
Tracks (1988)
The Crown of Columbus [coauthored with Michael Dorris] (1991)
The Bingo Palace (1994)
Tales of Burning Love (1997)
The Antelope Wife (1998)
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse (2001)
The Master Butchers Singing Club (2003)
Four Souls (2004)
The Painted Drum (2005)
The Plague of Doves (Harper, 2008)
Shadow Tag (Harper, 2010)
The Round House (2012)
Story collections
• The Red Convertible: Collected and New Stories 1978-2008 (2009)
Children's literature
•
•
•
•
•
•
Grandmother's Pigeon (1996)
The Birchbark House (1999)
The Range Eternal (2002)
The Game of Silence (2005)
The Porcupine Year (2008)
Chickadee (2012)
41
Louise Erdrich
Poetry
• Jacklight (1984)
• Baptism of Desire (1989)
• Original Fire: Selected and New Poems (2003)
Non-fiction
• Route Two [coauthored with Michael Dorris] (1990)
• The Blue Jay’s Dance: A Birthyear (1995)
• Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country (2003)
As editor or contributor
• The Broken Cord by Michael Dorris (Foreword) (1989)
• The Best American Short Stories 1993 (Editor, with Katrina Kenison) (1993)
Awards
• O. Henry Award, for the short story "Fleur" (published in Esquire, August 1986) (1987)[15]
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Pushcart Prize in Poetry (1983)
Western Literacy Association Award
Guggenheim Fellowship in Creative Arts (1985)[16]
National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, for Love Medicine (1984)[6]
World Fantasy Award, for The Antelope Wife (1999)[17]
Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas (2000).[18]
Associate Poet Laureate of North Dakota, 2005
Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction, for the children's book "The Game of Silence" (2006)[19]
April 2007 honorary doctorate from the University of North Dakota; refused by Erdrich because of her opposition
to the university's North Dakota Fighting Sioux mascot[20]
June 2009, honorary doctorate (Doctor of Letters) from Dartmouth College[21][22]
Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, for Plague of Doves (2009)[23]
National Book Award for Fiction for The Round House (2012)[24][25]
Rough Rider Award (April 19, 2013)
References
[2] (http:/ / voices. cla. umn. edu/ artistpages/ erdrichLouise. php)
[3] Birchbark Books website (http:/ / birchBarkBooks. com/ )
[4] "Faces of America: Louise Erdrich" (http:/ / www. pbs. org/ wnet/ facesofamerica/ profiles/ louise-erdrich/ 10/ ), PBS, Faces of America
series, with Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 2010.
[5] Interview (http:/ / www. theparisreview. org/ interviews/ 6055/ the-art-of-fiction-no-208-louise-erdrich), Paris Review, Art of Fiction #208
[6] Author: Louise Erdrich (http:/ / www. harpercollins. com/ author/ microsite/ about. aspx?authorid=2905)
[7] AP Literature: Titles from Open Response Questions (http:/ / mseffie. com/ AP/ APtitles. html)
[8] The controversy and fallout from this review, and some of its underlying themes, are reviewed in Susan Castillo's "Postmodernism, Native
American Literature, and the Real: The Silko-Erdrich Controversy" in Notes from the Periphery: Marginality in North American Literature
and Culture New York: Peter Lang, 1995. 179-190.
[9] There are many studies of the trickster figure in Erdrich's novels: A recent study that makes the connection between Nanabozho and Nanpush
is "The Trickster and World Maintenance: An Anishinaabe Reading of Louise Erdrich's Tracks" by Lawrence W. Gross (http:/ / onCampus.
richmond. edu/ faculty/ ASAIL/ SAIL2/ 173. html)
[10] Lorena Laura Stookey, Louise Erdrich: A Critical Companion, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999 ISBN 0-313-30612-5, ISBN
978-0-313-30612-9
[11] See, e.g., Powell's Books (book review), Christian Science Monitor, August 2, 2004
[13] http:/ / birchbarkbooks. com/ OurStory
42
Louise Erdrich
[14] (http:/ / birchbarkbooks. com/ OurStory)
[15] O. Henry Winners 1919-2000 (http:/ / www. randomhouse. com/ boldtype/ ohenry/ 0900/ winners1919. html)
[16] (http:/ / www. gf. org/ fellows/ 4232-louise-erdrich)
[18] List of NWCA Lifetime Achievement Awards (http:/ / www. hanksville. org/ storytellers/ awards/ lifetime. html), accessed 6 August 2010.
[19] (http:/ / www. scottodell. com/ pages/ ScottO'DellAwardforHistoricalFiction. aspx)
[20] Author Louise Erdrich rejects UND honor over 'Sioux' nickname | Minnesota Public Radio News (http:/ / minnesota. publicRadio. org/
display/ web/ 2007/ 04/ 20/ erdrich/ )
[21] Dartmouth 2009 Honorary Degree Recipient Louise Erdrich '76 (Doctor of Letters) (http:/ / www. dartmouth. edu/ ~news/ releases/ 2009/
04/ 23c. html)
[22] Native American author Louise Erdrich '76 to give Dartmouth's 2009 Commencement address Sunday, June 14 (http:/ / www. dartmouth.
edu/ ~news/ releases/ 2009/ 04/ 23. html)
[23] Anisfiled-Wolf Book Award Winners: Plague of Doves (http:/ / www. anisfield-wolf. org/ books/ the-plague-of-doves/ ?sortby=year)
[24] National Book Award for Fiction: Louise Erdrich's Roundhouse (http:/ / www. nationalbook. org/ nba2012_f_erdrich. html)
[25] Dartmouth Alumna Louise Erdrich wins National Book Award (http:/ / now. dartmouth. edu/ 2012/ 11/
dartmouth-alumna-louise-erdrich-76-wins-national-book-award/ )
External links
• Publisher's Official website (http://louiseErdrichbooks.com)
• Works by or about Louise Erdrich (http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n83-129937) in libraries (WorldCat
catalog)
•
•
•
•
Birchbark Books website (http://birchBarkBooks.com/)
Louise Erdrich's Birchbark Blog (http://birchbarkbooks.com/_blog/Birchbark_Blog)
Multiple Erdrich Biographies (http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/erdrich/about.htm)
Louise Erdrich (http://www.english.illinois.edu/MAPS/poets/a_f/erdrich/erdrich.htm) at Modern American
Poetry (http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/)
• "The Storyteller" (http://www.jsonline.com/entertainment/arts/29552074.html), Article in JSOnline (http://
www.jsonline.com/)
43
Dave Eggers
44
Dave Eggers
Dave Eggers
Eggers at the 2007 Brooklyn Book Festival
Born
March 12, 1970
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation
Writer, editor, publisher, philanthropist
Nationality
American
Period
1993–present
Literary movement
Postmodern literature, post-postmodern, new sincerity
Notable work(s)
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000), What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng
(2006), Zeitoun (2009), A Hologram for the King
Notable award(s)
National Book Critics Circle Award, Heinz Award, Independent Publisher Book Award, Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Prix
Médicis, Los Angeles Times Book Prize
www.mcsweeneys.net
[1]
Dave Eggers (born March 12, 1970) is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He is known for the best-selling
memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and for his more recent work as a novelist and screenwriter. He
is also the co-founder of the literacy project 826 Valencia, and the founder of ScholarMatch, a program that matches
donors with students needing funds for college tuition. His works have appeared in several magazines, most notably
The New Yorker. His works have received a significant amount of critical acclaim.
Life
Eggers was born in Boston, Massachusetts, one of four siblings. His father was John K. Eggers (1936–1991), an
attorney. His mother, Heidi McSweeney Eggers (1940–1992), was a school teacher. When Eggers was still a child,
the family moved to the upscale suburb of Lake Forest, near Chicago. He attended high school there and was a
classmate of the actor Vince Vaughn. Eggers attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, intending to
get a degree in journalism,[2] but his studies were interrupted by the deaths of both of his parents in 1991–1992—his
father in 1991 from brain and lung cancer, and his mother in January 1992 from stomach cancer. Both were in their
50s.
These events were chronicled in his first book, the fictionalized A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. At the
time, Eggers was 21, and his younger brother, Christopher ("Toph"), was 8 years old. The two eldest siblings, Bill
and Beth, were unable to commit to care for Toph; his older brother had a full-time job and his sister was enrolled in
Dave Eggers
45
law school. As a result, Dave Eggers took the responsibility. He left the University of Illinois and moved to
Berkeley, California, with his girlfriend Kirsten and his brother. They initially moved in with Eggers's sister, Beth,
and her roommate, but eventually found a place in another part of town, which they paid for with money left to them
by their parents. Toph attended a small private school, and Eggers did temp work and freelance graphic design for a
local newspaper. Eventually, with his friend David Moodie, he took over a local free newspaper called Cups. This
gradually evolved into the satirical magazine Might.
Eggers lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and is married to Vendela Vida, also a writer.[3] The couple have two
children.[4]
Eggers's elder brother, Bill, is a researcher who has worked for several conservative think tanks, doing research
promoting privatization.[5] Eggers's sister, Beth, committed suicide in November 2001.[6] Eggers briefly spoke about
his sister's death during a 2002 fan interview for McSweeney's.[7]
He was one of three 2008 TED Prize recipients.[8] His TED Prize wish was for community members to personally
engage with local public schools.[9][10] The same year, he was named one of "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing the
World" by Utne Reader.[11]
In 2005, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters from Brown University. He delivered the baccalaureate
address at the school in 2008.[12]
Literary work
Eggers began writing as a Salon.com editor and founded Might
magazine, while also writing a comic strip called Smarter Feller
(originally Swell) for SF Weekly.[13] His first book was a memoir (with
fictional elements), A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
(2000), which focused on the author's struggle to raise his younger
brother in San Francisco following the deaths of both of their parents.
The book quickly became a bestseller and was a finalist for the Pulitzer
Prize for General Non-Fiction. The memoir was praised for its
originality, idiosyncratic self-referencing, and for several innovative
stylistic elements. Early printings of the 2001 trade-paperback edition
were published with a lengthy postscript entitled, Mistakes We Knew
We Were Making. [citation needed]
Eggers worked with Sudanese refugee Valentino
Achak Deng to tell a fictionalized account of
Achek's life story
In 2002, Eggers published his first novel, You Shall Know Our Velocity, a story about a frustrating attempt to give
away money to deserving people while haphazardly traveling the globe. An expanded and revised version was
released as Sacrament in 2003. A version without the new material in Sacrament was created and retitled You Shall
Know Our Velocity! for a Vintage imprint distribution. He has since published a collection of short stories, How We
Are Hungry, and three politically themed serials for Salon.com.[14]
In November 2005, Eggers published Surviving Justice: America's Wrongfully Convicted and Exonerated, a book of
interviews with former prisoners sentenced to death and later exonerated. The book was compiled with Lola Vollen,
"a physician specializing in the aftermath of large-scale human rights abuses" and "a visiting scholar at the
University of California, Berkeley's Institute of International Studies and a practicing clinician".[15] Lawyer novelist
Scott Turow wrote the introduction to Surviving Justice. Eggers's 2006 novel What Is the What: The Autobiography
of Valentino Achak Deng (McSweeney's) was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award for
Fiction.[16] Eggers also edits the Best American Nonrequired Reading series, an annual anthology of short stories,
essays, journalism, satire, and alternative comics.
Dave Eggers
46
Eggers was one of the original contributors to ESPN The Magazine and helped create its section "The Jump". He also
acted as the first "Answer Guy", a column that still runs (without his involvement) in the publication.[17]
On November 7, 2009, he was presented with the "Courage in Media" Award by the Council on American-Islamic
Relations for his book Zeitoun.[18] The story is of a Syrian immigrant, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, in New Orleans who
was helping neighbors after Hurricane Katrina when he was arrested, imprisoned and suffered abuse. Zeitoun has
been optioned by Jonathan Demme, who is working on a screenplay for an animated film-rendition of the work. To
Demme, it "felt like the first in-depth immersion I’d ever had through literature or film into the Muslim-American
family. ... The moral was that they are like people of any other faith, and I hope our film, if we can get it made, will
also be like that." Demme, quoted in early 2011, expressed confidence that when the script is finished, he will be
able to find financing, perhaps even from a major studio.[19] "It’s a wonderful, gripping story," he said, "and we can
have a very, very competitive commercial picture that won’t cost an enormous amount," since animation provides an
alternative to expensive re-creations of the hurricane. Unfortunately, the aftermath of this story is not pretty.
Eggers published his most recent novel, A Hologram for the King, in July 2012. In October of that year, the novel
was announced as a finalist for the National Book Award.[20]
McSweeney's
Eggers founded McSweeney's, an independent publishing house, named for his mother's maiden name. The
publishing house produces a quarterly literary journal, Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, first published in
1998; a monthly journal, The Believer, which debuted in 2003 and is edited by Eggers's wife, Vendela Vida; and,
beginning in 2005, a quarterly DVD magazine, Wholphin. Other works include The Future Dictionary of America,
Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans, and "Dr. and Mr. Haggis-On-Whey", all children's books of literary
nonsense, which Eggers writes with his younger brother and uses as a pseudonym. [citation needed]
Ahead of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Eggers wrote an essay about the U.S. national team and soccer in the United
States for The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup, which contained essays about each competing team in the
tournament and was published with aid from the journal Granta. According to The San Francisco Chronicle [21],
Eggers was rumored to be a possible candidate to be the new editor of The Paris Review before the Review selected
Lorin Stein.
826 National
In 2002, Eggers and educator Nínive Clements Calegari co-founded
826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center for kids ages
6–18 in San Francisco.[22] It has since grown into seven chapters
across the United States: Los Angeles, New York City, Seattle,
Chicago, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Washington, D.C., and Boston, all
under the auspices of the nonprofit organization 826 National.[23] In
2006, he appeared at a series of fund-raising events, dubbed the
Revenge of the Book–Eaters tour, to support these programs. The
Chicago show, at the Park West theatre, featured Death Cab for Cutie
front man Ben Gibbard. Other performers on the tour included Sufjan
Stevens, Jon Stewart, Davy Rothbart, and David Byrne.[24] In
September 2007, the Heinz Family Foundation awarded Eggers a
$250,000 Heinz Award (given to recognize "extraordinary
achievements by individuals") in the Arts and Humanities.[25] In
accordance with Eggers's wishes, the award money was given to 826
Eggers in October 2008
Dave Eggers
National and The Teacher Salary Project.[26] In April 2010, under the umbrella of 826 National, Eggers launched
ScholarMatch, a nonprofit organization that connects donors with students to make college more affordable.
Musical contributions
• Eggers provided album art for Austin rock group, Paul Banks & The Carousels' album "Yelling at the Sun."
• Eggers designed the artwork for Thrice's album Vheissu.[27]
• Eggers can be heard talking with Spike Jonze during "The Horrible Fanfare/Landslide/Exoskeleton", the final
track on Beck's 2006 album The Information. The third section of the track features Eggers and Jonze responding
to Beck's question, "What would the ultimate record that ever could possibly be made sound like?"[28]
• Eggers contributed lyrics to the song, "The Ghost of Rita Gonzolo", on One Ring Zero's album As Smart as We
Are (2004).
Awards and honors
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it [29].
• 2000 Time Best Book of the Year, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
• 2000 Washington Post Best Book of the Year, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
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2000 San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
2000 Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
2000 New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
2001 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction finalist, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
2001 Addison Metcalfe Award (American Academy of Arts and Letters)
2003 Independent Book Award, You Shall Know Our Velocity
2005 Named one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People
2006 Salon Book Award for What is the What
2007 Heinz Award (Arts and Humanities)
2007 National Book Critics Circle Award (Fiction) finalist, What is the What
2008 TED Prize
2008 IMPAC Literary Award longlist, What is the What
2009 Prix Médicis award, What is the What
2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize (Current Interest), Zeitoun
2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize (Innovator's Award)
2009 Entertainment Weekly "End-of-the-Decade" Best of list, Zeitoun
2010 American Book Award, Zeitoun
2010 Northern California Book Award (Creative Nonfiction) nomination, Zeitoun
2010 Dayton Literary Peace Prize, Zeitoun
2011 IMPAC Literary Award longlist, The Wild Things
2012 National Book Award (Fiction) finalist, A Hologram for the King[30]
2012 A Hologram for the King named in the 10 Best Books of 2012 list by editors of The New York Times Book
Review[31]
2012 A Hologram for the King included in Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2012 list[32]
2012 Commonwealth Club Inforum’s 21st Century Award
2012 Hollywood.com Best Books of 2012 list, A Hologram for the King)
2012 Gunter Grass Foundation’s Albatross award 2012
2012 New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2012 List (Fiction & Poetry), A Hologram for the King
• 2012 New York Times 10 Best Books of 2012 list (Fiction, chosen by the editors of The New York Times Book
Review), A Hologram for the King
47
Dave Eggers
• 2012 PEN Center USA Award of Honor 2012
• 2013 California Book Award (Fiction)finalist, A Hologram for the King[33]
Bibliography
Nonfiction
• A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000)
• Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America's Teachers (co-authored with Daniel
Moulthrop and Nínive Clements Calegari) (2005)
• Surviving Justice: America's Wrongfully Convicted and Exonerated (co-compiled with Lola Vollen; with an
introduction by Scott Turow) (2005)
• Zeitoun (2009)
• Visitants (2013)
Fiction
• You Shall Know Our Velocity (novel) (2002)
• Sacrament (revised and expanded version of You Shall Know Our Velocity) (2003)
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The Unforbidden is Compulsory; or, Optimism (novella) (2004)
How We Are Hungry (short stories) (2004)
Short Short Stories (short stories, part of the Pocket Penguin series) (2005)
What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng (novel) (2006)
How the Water Feels to the Fishes (short stories; part of One Hundred and Forty-Five Stories in a Small Box)
(2007)
• The Wild Things – novel inspired by Where the Wild Things Are (2009)
• A Hologram for the King (2012)
Humor books
• Giraffes? Giraffes! (as Dr. and Mr. Doris Haggis-On-Whey, co-authored with Christopher Eggers) (2003)
• Your Disgusting Head (as Dr. and Mr. Doris Haggis-On-Whey, co-authored with Christopher Eggers) (2004)
• Animals of the Ocean, in Particular the Giant Squid (as Dr. and Mr. Doris Haggis-On-Whey, co-authored with
Christopher Eggers) (2006)
• Cold Fusion (as Dr. and Mr. Doris Haggis-On-Whey, co-authored with Christopher Eggers) (2009)
Screenplays
• Away We Go, with wife Vendela Vida (2009)
• Where the Wild Things Are, with director Spike Jonze (2009)
• Promised Land, screenplay by Matt Damon and John Krasinski, story by Dave Eggers (2012)[34][35]
Other
• Jokes Told in Heaven About Babies (as Lucy Thomas) (2003)
• Salon.com serials: "The Unforbidden Is Compulsory Or, Optimism", "The Fishmonger Returns", and "New
Hampshire Is for Lovers" (2004)
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Dave Eggers
As editor or contributor (non-McSweeney's publications)
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Speaking with the Angel: Original Stories, edited by Nick Hornby (contributor) (2000)
When Penguins Attack, by Tom Tomorrow (introduction) (2000)
The Onion Ad Nauseam: The Complete News Archives, Volume 13 (introduction) (2002)
The O. Henry Prize Stories 2002 (selected by, with Joyce Carol Oates and Colson Whitehead) (2002)
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2002 (editor, with Michael Cart) (2002)
The Tenants of Moonbloom, by Edward Lewis Wallant (reissue of Wallant's 1963 novel with introduction) (2003)
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003 (editor; introduction by Zadie Smith) (2003)
Happy Baby by Stephen Elliott (editor; designed by McSweeney's and published and distributed by
MacAdam/Cage) (2004)
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2004 (editor; introduction by Viggo Mortensen) (2004)
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2005 (editor; introduction by Beck) (2005)
Penguin Classics edition of Forty Stories by Donald Barthelme (introduction) (2005)
The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup, edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey (contributor) (2006)
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2006 (editor; introduction by Matt Groening) (2006)
Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace (introduction to 10th anniversary edition) (2006)
John Currin (contributor; additional text by John Currin, Norman Bryson, and Alison Gingeras) (2006)
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The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007 (editor; introduction by Sufjan Stevens) (2007)
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2008 (editor; introduction by Judy Blume) (2008)
FOUND: Requiem for a Paper Bag (essay contributor) (2009)
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2009 (editor; introduction by Marjane Satrapi) (2009)
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2010 (editor; introduction by David Sedaris) (2010)
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2011 (editor; introduction by Guillermo Del Toro) (2011)
References
[1] http:/ / www. mcsweeneys. net
[11] Visionaries Who Are Changing the World (http:/ / www. utne. com/ 2008-11-13/ 50-Visionaries-Who-Are-Changing-Your-World. aspx)
[20] http:/ / www. nationalbook. org/ nba2012. html#. UHWre_mlpRg
[21] http:/ / www. sfgate. com/ cgi-bin/ article. cgi?f=/ c/ a/ 2010/ 02/ 21/ RVSI1C0TRJ. DTL& type=printable
[22] "A heartwarming work of literary altruism" (http:/ / www. sfgate. com/ cgi-bin/ article. cgi?file=/ c/ a/ 2002/ 08/ 02/ MN49346. DTL) San
Francisco Chronicle, Accessed on 2009-04-07
[25] The Heinz Awards, Dave Eggers profile (http:/ / heinzawards. net/ recipients/ dave-eggers)
[26] An interview to Eggers
[29] http:/ / en. wikipedia. org/ w/ index. php?title=Dave_Eggers& action=edit
[31] http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2012/ 12/ 09/ books/ review/ 10-best-books-of-2012. html?_r=0
[32] http:/ / www. publishersweekly. com/ pw/ best-books/ 2012/ fiction#book/ book-16
[33] http:/ / www. commonwealthclub. org/ events/ special-events/ california-book-awards
[34] http:/ / www. imdb. com/ title/ tt2091473/ fullcredits#writers
External links
• Author page on the McSweeney's website (http://www.mcsweeneys.net/authorpages/eggers/eggers.html)
(features a detailed bibliography)
• 826 National (http://www.826national.org)
• Radio Interview on Bookworm, February 1, 2007 (http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/bw/
bw070201dave_eggers/)
• Interview about 826 National on Public School Insights, Posted May 20, 2008 (http://www.
publicschoolinsights.org/?storyId=20283)
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• TED Prize Wish: Dave Eggers makes his TED Prize wish: Once Upon a School (http://www.ted.com/talks/
view/id/233) at TED in 2008
• The Teacher Salary Project (http://www.theteachersalaryproject.org)
Bernardo Atxaga
Bernardo Atxaga (b. July 27, 1951) (pseudonym of
Joseba Irazu Garmendia) is a Basque writer and
self-translator.
Biography
Atxaga was born in Asteasu, Gipuzkoa, Basque
Country), in 1951. He received a diploma in economics
from the University of Bilbao, and studied philosophy
at the University of Barcelona. He worked as an
economist, bookseller, professor of the Basque
language, a publisher, and a radio scriptwriter until
1980 when he dedicated himself completely to writing.
Bernardo Atxaga, year 2009
His first text was published in 1972 in an anthology of Basque authors. His first short story, Ziutateaz ("About The
City"), was published in 1976. His first collection of poetry, Etiopia ("Ethiopia"), appeared in 1978. He has written
plays, song lyrics, novels and short stories. His book of short stories, Obabakoak ("Individuals and things of
Obaba"), published in 1988 won him much fame and several prizes, such as Spain's National Literature Prize. So far,
the book has been translated into more than 20 languages.
Atxaga generally writes in the Basque language, Euskara, but translates his works into Spanish as well. Following
the example of Obabakoak, several of his other works have been translated into other languages.
Novels
• Obabakoak (1988) (English language edition, translated by Margaret Jull Costa, published in 1992 by
Hutchinson, London)
• Behi euskaldun baten memoriak ("Memoirs of a Basque Cow", Pamiela, 1991)
• Gizona bere bakardadean (Pamiela, 1993; "The Lone Man", English version by Margaret Jull Costa, Harvill
1996)
• Zeru horiek (1996; "The Lone Woman", English version by Margaret Jull Costa, Harvill, 1999)
• Soinujolearen semea (2003; "The Accordionist's Son", English version by Margaret Jull Costa, Harvill Secker,
2007)
• Zazpi etxe Frantzian (2009; "Seven Houses in France", English version by Margaret Jull Costa, Harvill Secker,
2011)
• Borrokaria (2012); "The Fighter", English version by Amaia Gabantxo, Etxepare Basque Institute
Bernardo Atxaga
Short stories
• Bi anai ("Two Brothers", Erein, 1985)
• Bi letter jaso nituen oso denbora gutxian ( "Two letters", Erein, 1985)
• Henry Bengoa inventarium, Sugeak txoriari begiratzen dionean, Zeru horiek ("Henry bengoa inventarium. When
the Snake looks at the Birds, The Lone Woman", Erein, 1995)
• Sara izeneko gizona ("The Man Named Sara", Pamiela, 1996)
Poetry
• Etiopia ("Ethiopia", Pott, 1978),
• Nueva Etiopia ("New Ethiopia", Detursa, 1997)
Children's books
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Chuck Aranberri dentista baten etxean ("Chuck Aranberri At a Dentist", Erein, 1985)
Nikolasaren abenturak, Ramuntxo detektibe ("Adventures of Nicholas, Ramuntxo Detective", Elkar 1979)
Siberiako ipuin eta kantak ("Stories and Songs of Siberia", Erein)
Jimmy Potxolo, Antonino apreta, Asto bat hipodromoan, Txitoen istorio, Flannery eta bere astakiloak (Elkar)
• Xolak badu lehoien berri (Erein, 1995),
• Xola eta basurdeak ("Xola and the Wild Boars", Erein 1996) - won the Basque Children's Literature Prize en
1997
• Mundua eta Markoni ("The World and Markoni", BBK fundazioa, 1995)
Other works
• Ziutateaz (1976)
• Lekuak (2005)
Bibliography
• José Ángel Ascunce: Bernardo Atxaga. Los demonios personales de un escritor. Donostia-San Sebastián:
Saturraran editorial, 2000. ISBN 84-931339-0-6.
External links
• Bernardo Atxaga official website [1]
• Biography from the international literature festival berlin [2]
• Interview with Bernardo Atxaga in The Guardian (20 October 2001) [3]
References
[1] http:/ / www. atxaga. org/
[2] http:/ / www. literaturfestival. com/ bios1_3_6_527. html
[3] http:/ / www. guardian. co. uk/ books/ 2001/ oct/ 20/ fiction. reviews3
51
Mo Yan
52
Mo Yan
Mo Yan
莫言
Mo Yan in 2008
Born
Guan Moye (管谟业)
17 February 1955
Gaomi, Shandong, China
Pen name
Mo Yan
Occupation
Writer, teacher
Language
Chinese
Nationality
Chinese
Education
Master of Literature and Art - Beijing Normal University
(1991)
Graduated - People's Liberation Army Art School (1986)
Period
1981 – present
Notable work(s)
Red Sorghum Clan,
The Republic of Wine,
Notable award(s) Nobel Prize in Literature
2012
Spouse(s)
Du Qinlan (杜勤兰) (1979-present)
Children
Guan Xiaoxiao (管笑笑) (Born in 1981)
Guan Moye (simplified Chinese: 管谟业; traditional Chinese: 管謨業; pinyin: Guǎn Móyè; born 17 February
1955), better known by the pen name Mo Yan (English pronunciation: /moʊ jɛn/, Chinese: 莫言; pinyin: Mò Yán), is a
Chinese novelist and short story writer. He has been referred by Donald Morrison of U.S. news magazine TIME as
"one of the most famous, oft-banned and widely pirated of all Chinese writers",[] and by Jim Leach as the Chinese
answer to Franz Kafka or Joseph Heller.[] He is best known to Western readers for his 1987 novel Red Sorghum
Clan, of which the Red Sorghum and Sorghum Wine volumes were later adapted for the film Red Sorghum. In 2012,
Mo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his work as a writer "who with hallucinatory realism merges folk
Mo Yan
tales, history and the contemporary".[][]
Early life
Mo Yan was born in 1955, in Gaomi County in Shandong province to a family of farmers, in Dalan Township
(which he fictionalised in his novels as "Northeast Township" of Gaomi County). Mo was 11 years old when the
Cultural Revolution was launched, at which time he left school to work as a farmer. At the age of 18, he began work
at a cotton factory. During this period, which coincided with a succession of political campaigns from the Great Leap
Forward to the Cultural Revolution, his access to literature was largely limited to novels in the socialist realist style
under Mao Zedong, which centered largely on the themes of class struggle and conflict.[1]
At the close of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, Mo enlisted in the People's Liberation Army (PLA),[] and began
writing while he was still a soldier. During this post-Revolution era when he emerged as a writer, both the lyrical and
epic works of Chinese literature, as well as translations of foreign authors such as William Faulkner and Gabriel
García Márquez, would make an impact on his works.[] In 1984, he received a literary award from the PLA
Magazine, and the same year began attending the Military Art Academy, where he first adopted the pen name of Mo
Yan.[] He published his first novella, A Transparent Radish, in 1984, and released Red Sorghum in 1986, launching
his career as a nationally recognized novelist.[] In 1991, he obtained a master's degree in Literature from Beijing
Normal University.[]
Pen name
"Mo Yan" — meaning "don't speak" in Chinese — is his pen name.[] In an interview with Jim Leach, chairman of
the National Endowment for the Humanities, he explains that name comes from a warning from his father and
mother not to speak his mind while outside, because of China's revolutionary political situation from the 1950s,
when he grew up.[] The pen name also relates to the subject matter of Mo Yan's writings, which reinterpret Chinese
political and sexual history.[]
Works
Mo Yan began his career as a writer in the reform and opening up period, publishing dozens of short stories and
novels in Chinese. His first novel was Falling Rain on a Spring Night, published in 1981. Several of his novels were
translated into English by Howard Goldblatt, professor of East Asian languages and literatures at the University of
Notre Dame.[]
Mo Yan's Red Sorghum Clan is a non-chronological novel about the generations of a Shandong family between 1923
and 1976. The author deals with upheavals in Chinese history such as the War of Resistance Against Japanese
Aggression, the Communist revolution, and the Cultural Revolution, but in an unconventional way; for example
from the point of view of the invading Japanese soldiers.[] His second novel, The Garlic Ballads, is based on a true
story of when the farmers of Gaomi Township rioted against a government that would not buy its crops. The
Republic of Wine is a satire around gastronomy and alcohol, which uses cannibalism as a metaphor for Chinese
self-destruction, following Lu Xun.[] Big Breasts & Wide Hips deals with female bodies, from a grandmother whose
breasts are shattered by Japanese bullets, to a festival where one of the child characters, Shangguan Jintong, blesses
each woman of his town by stroking her breasts.[] The book was controversial in China because some leftist critics
regarded Big Breasts' perceived negative portrayal of Communist soldiers.[]
Extremely prolific, Mo Yan wrote Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out in only 42 days.[] He composed the more
than 500,000 characters contained in the original manuscript on traditional Chinese paper using only ink and a
writing brush. He prefers writing his novels by hand rather than by typing using a pinyin input method, because the
latter method "limits your vocabulary".[] Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out is the story of a landlord who is
reincarnated in the form of various animals during the Chinese land reform movement.[] The landlord observes and
53
Mo Yan
54
satirizes Communist society, such as when he (as a donkey) forces two mules to share food with him, because "[in]
the age of communism... mine is yours and yours is mine."[]
Influences
Mo Yan's works are predominantly social commentary, and he is strongly influenced by the social realism of Lu Xun
and the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez. In terms of traditional Chinese literature, he is deeply inspired
by the folklore-based classical epic novel Water Margin.[2] He also cites Journey to the West and Dream of the Red
Chamber as formative influences.[]
Mo Yan, who himself reads foreign authors in translation, strongly advocates the reading of world literature.[] At a
speech to open the 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair, he discussed Goethe's idea of "world literature", stating that "literature
can overcome the barriers that separate countries and nations".[]
Style
Mo Yan's works are epic historical novels characterized by hallucinatory realism and containing elements of black
humor.[] A major theme in Mo Yan's works is the constancy of human greed and corruption, despite the influence of
ideology.[] Using dazzling, complex, and often graphically violent images, he sets many of his stories near his
hometown, Northeast Gaomi Township in Shandong province. Mo Yan says he realised that he could make "[my]
family, [the] people I'm familiar with, the villagers..." his characters after reading William Faulkner's The Sound and
the Fury.[] He satirizes the genre of socialist realism by placing workers and bureaucrats into absurd situations.[]
Mo Yan's writing is characterised by the blurring of distinction between "past and present, dead and living, as well as
good and bad".[] Mo Yan appears in his novels as a semi-autobiographical character who retells and modifies the
author's other stories.[] His female characters often fail to observe traditional gender roles, such as the mother in the
Shangguan family in Big Breasts & Wide Hips fails to bear her husband sons, and who is instead an adulterer,
becoming pregnant with girls by a Swedish missionary and a Japanese soldier, among others. Male power is also
portrayed cynically in Big Breasts & Wide Hips, and there is only one male hero in the novel.[]
Nobel Prize in Literature, 2012
On 11 October 2012, the Swedish Academy announced
that Mo Yan had received the Nobel Prize in Literature
for his work "with hallucinatory realism merges folk
tales, history and the contemporary".[] Aged 57 at the
time of the announcement, he was the 109th recipient of
the award and the first ever resident of mainland China to
receive it—Chinese-born Gao Xingjian, a citizen of
France, having been named the 2000 laureate. In his
Award Ceremony Speech, speech, Per Wästberg
explained: "Mo Yan is a poet who tears down
stereotypical propaganda posters, elevating the individual
from an anonymous human mass. Using ridicule and
sarcasm Mo Yan attacks history and its falsifications as
well as deprivation and political hypocrisy." [3]
Swedish Academy head Peter Englund said less formally,
"He has such a damn unique way of writing. If you read
half a page of Mo Yan you immediately recognise it as him".[]
Mo Yan In Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature
2012
Mo Yan
Controversies and criticism
Winning the Nobel Prize occasioned both support and criticism.
The Chinese writer Ma Jian deplored Mo Yan's lack of solidarity and commitment to other Chinese writers and
intellectuals who were punished or detained in violation of their constitutionally protected freedom of expression.[]
Several other Chinese dissidents such as Ye Du and Ai Weiwei also criticized him,[4] as did 2009 Nobel Laureate
Herta Müller who called the decision a "catastrophe".[5] A specific criticism was that Mo hand-copied Mao Zedong's
influential Yan'an Talks on Literature and Art in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the speech, which
described the writer's responsibility to place politics before art, [] and he has attracted criticism for his supposed good
relationship with the Chinese Communist Party.[]
Anna Sun, an assistant professor of Sociology and Asian studies at Kenyon College, criticized Mo's writing as
coarse, predictable, and lacking in aesthetic conviction. "Mo Yan’s language is striking indeed," she writes, but it is
striking because "it is diseased. The disease is caused by the conscious renunciation of China’s cultural past at the
founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949." [1] Charles Laughlin of the University of Virginia, writing in
The New York Times, however, accuses Sun of "piling up aesthetic objections to conceal ideological conflict,"
comparing her characterization of Mo to the official Chinese Writer's Association's characterization of Gao Xingjian
as a mediocre writer when Gao won the Nobel Prize in 2000.[] Perry Link, describing Mo Yan's fiction and politics
in the New York Review of Books, asked "Does this writer deserve the prize?" Link commented that Nobel Chinese
writers, whether “inside the system” or not, "all must choose how they will relate to their country’s authoritarian
government." This "inevitably involves calculations, trade-offs, and the playing of cards in various ways." Link
compared Mo to Liu Xiaobo, winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize, who was jailed for dissidence, whose moral choices
were "highly unusual." It would be wrong, Link concludes, "for spectators like you and me, who enjoy the comfort
of distance, to demand that Mo Yan risk all and be another Liu Xiaobo. But it would be even more wrong to mistake
the clear difference between the two."[6]
Salman Rushdie called Mo Yan a "patsy" for refusing to sign a petition asking for Liu Xiaobo's freedom.[7] Pankaj
Mishra saw an "unexamined assumption" lurking in the "western scorn" for these choices, namely that
"Anglo-American writers" were not criticized for similarly apolitical attitudes.[8]
In his Nobel Lecture, Mo Yan himself commented "At first I thought I was the target of the disputes, but over time
I’ve come to realize that the real target was a person who had nothing to do with me. Like someone watching a play
in a theater, I observed the performances around me. I saw the winner of the prize both garlanded with flowers and
besieged by stone-throwers and mudslingers." He concluded that "For a writer, the best way to speak is by writing.
You will find everything I need to say in my works. Speech is carried off by the wind; the written word can never be
obliterated." [9]
Another source of criticism was the a perceived conflict of interest on the part of Göran Malmqvist, who is one of
the members of the Swedish Academy. Malmqvist had translated Mo Yan's several works to Swedish and published
some on his own publishing house. Yan had also written a laudatory preface to one of Malmqvist's own books, and
been a close friend of Malmqvist's wife for 15 years. The Nobel committee denied that this constituted a conflict of
interest, and said that it would have been absurd for Malmqvist to recuse.[10][11][12]
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Mo Yan
56
List of works
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it [13].
Novels
• Falling Rain on a Spring Night (1981)
• Red Sorghum Clan, including five volumes: "Sorghum Wine", "Sorghum Funeral", "Dog Road", "The Odd
Dead", "Red Sorghum" (1987; English: 1993)
• The Garlic Ballads[] (1988; English: 1995)
• The Republic of Wine: A Novel[] (1992; English: 2000)
• Big Breasts & Wide Hips[] (1996; English: 2005)
• Sandalwood Death (檀香刑 Tanxiang Xing). Translated by Howard Goldblatt. Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 2013. ISBN 9780806143392.
• Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out[] (2006; English: 2008)
• Change (2010) ISBN 9781906497484
• Frog (2011) ISBN 7532136760
• Pow![] (2013) ISBN 9780857420763
Short story collections
• Explosions and Other Stories
• Shifu: You'll Do Anything for a Laugh[] (1999; English: 2002)
Other published works include White Dog Swing, Man and Beast, Soaring, Iron Child, The Cure, Love Story, Shen
Garden and Abandoned Child.
Awards and honours
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1998: Neustadt International Prize for Literature, candidate
2005: Kiriyama Prize, Notable Books, Big Breasts and Wide Hips
2005: Doctor of Letters, Open University of Hong Kong
2006: Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize XVII
2007: Man Asian Literary Prize, nominee, Big Breasts and Wide Hips
2009: Newman Prize for Chinese Literature, winner, Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out
2010: Honorary Fellow, Modern Language Association
2011: Mao Dun Literature Prize, winner, Frog
2012: Nobel Prize in Literature
Adaptations
Several of Mo Yan's works have been adapted for film:
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•
•
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Red Sorghum (1987) (directed by Zhang Yimou)
Happy Times (2000) (directed by Zhang Yimou, adaptation of Shifu: You'll Do Anything for a Laugh)
Nuan (2003) (directed by Huo Jianqi, adaptation of White Dog Swing)
The Sun Has Ears (1995) (directed by Yim Ho, adaptation of Grandma Wearing Red Silk)
Mo Yan
References
[1] Anna Sun. "The Diseased Language of Mo Yan" (http:/ / www. kenyonreview. org/ kr-online-issue/ 2012-fall/ selections/ anna-sun-656342/ ),
The Kenyon Review, Fall 2012.
[2] Howard Yuen Fung Choy, Remapping the Past: Fictions of History in Deng's China, 1979 -1997. Leiden: BRILL, 2008. pp. 51–53. ISBN
9004167048.
[3] "The Nobel Prize in Literature 2012 - Presentation Speech". 26 Feb 2013 (http:/ / www. nobelprize. org/ nobel_prizes/ literature/ laureates/
2012/ presentation-speech. html)
[5] http:/ / www. guardian. co. uk/ books/ 2012/ nov/ 26/ mo-yan-nobel-herta-muller Salon December 6, 2012.
[6] Perry Link, "Does This Writer Deserve the Prize?" (http:/ / www. nybooks. com/ articles/ archives/ 2012/ dec/ 06/ mo-yan-nobel-prize/
?pagination=false& printpage=true) New York Review of Books, (December 6, 2012).
[7] "Rushdie: Mo Yan is a "patsy of the regime" (http:/ / www. salon. com/ 2012/ 12/ 07/ rushdie_mo_yan_is_a_patsy_of_the_regime). Salon
December 6, 2012.
[8] Salman Rushdie should pause before condemning Mo Yan on censorship (http:/ / www. guardian. co. uk/ books/ 2012/ dec/ 13/
mo-yan-salman-rushdie-censorship?INTCMP=SRCH|Why)The Guardian December 13, 2012.
[9] "Mo Yan - Nobel Lecture: Storytellers". (translated by Howard Goldblatt) 26 Feb 2013 (http:/ / www. nobelprize. org/ nobel_prizes/
literature/ laureates/ 2012/ yan-lecture_en. html)
[10] http:/ / ajw. asahi. com/ article/ behind_news/ social_affairs/ AJ201211080116
[11] http:/ / www. thelocal. se/ 44274/ 20121106/ #. UTNP8jC91iY
[12] http:/ / blog. foreignpolicy. com/ posts/ 2012/ 10/ 18/ was_there_a_conflict_of_interest_in_the_nobel_literature_prize
[13] http:/ / en. wikipedia. org/ w/ index. php?title=Mo_Yan& action=edit
Further reading
• A Subversive Voice in China: The Fictional World of Mo Yan. Shelley W. Chan. (Cambria Press, 2011).
• Chinese Writers on Writing featuring Mo Yan. Ed. Arthur Sze. (Trinity University Press, 2010).
External links
• Novelist Mo Yan Takes Aim with 41 Bombs (http://china.org.cn/english/NM-e/68238.htm) (China Daily 27
June 2003)
• VÍDEO prize movie of Mo Yan (http://arteycultura.tv/?p=2161)
• "Granta Audio: Mo Yan" (http://www.granta.com/New-Writing/Granta-Audio-Mo-Yan), Granta, 11 October
2012, John Freeman
• Russian site about Mo Yan (http://moyan.ru/)
• Mo Yan and the Politics of Language (http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/12/query-on-mo-yan-turns-literary/
?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+chinadigitaltimes/bKzO+(China+
Digital+Times+(CDT))&utm_content=Google+Reader|) China Digital Times 2.25.13 Accessed 2.25.13.
Excerpts and links.
• Mo Yan dismisses 'envious' Nobel critics (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/feb/28/
mo-yan-dismisses-nobel-critics) The Guardian 28 February 2013.
• School dropout to Nobel: A consistent beauty of Mo Yan (http://www.facenfacts.com/NewsDetails/38707/
school-dropout-to-nobel:-a-consistent-beauty-of-mo-yan.htm) FacenFacts
57
58
Author(s)
Mo Yan
Translator
Howard Goldblatt
Country
China
Language
Chinese
Genre(s)
Novel
Publisher
(Eng. trans.) Arcade
Publication date
2006
Published in English 19 March 2008
Media type
Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages
552 pp (Eng. trans. edition)
ISBN
ISBN 1559708530 (Eng. trans. edition)
Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out (simplified Chinese: 生死疲劳; traditional Chinese: 生死疲勞; pinyin:
shēngsǐ píláo) is a 2006 novel by Chinese writer Mo Yan. The book is a historical fiction exploring China's
development during the latter half of the 20th century through the eyes of a noble and generous landowner who is
killed and reincarnated as various farm animals in rural China.[1] It has drawn praise from critics, and was the
recipient of the inaugural Newman Prize for Chinese Literature in 2009.[2] An English translation was published in
2008.
Plot
The story's protagonist is Ximen Nao, a benevolent and noble landowner in Gaomi county, Shandong province.[3]
Although known for his kindness to peasants, Nao is targeted during Mao Zedong's land reform movement in 1948
and executed so that his land could be redistributed.
Upon his death, Nao finds himself in the underworld, where Lord Yama tortures him in an attempt to elicit an
admission of guilt. Nao retains that he is innocent, and as punishment, Lord Yama sends him back to earth where he
is reborn as a donkey in his village on January 1, 1950. In subsequent reincarnations, he goes through life as a
donkey, an ox, a pig, a dog, and a monkey, until finally being born again as a man.[1] Through the lens of various
animals, the protagonist experiences the political movements that swept China under Communist Party rule,
including the Great Chinese Famine and Cultural Revolution, all the way through to New Year's Eve in 2000.[4] The
author, Mo Yan, uses self-reference and by the end of the novel introduces himself as one of the main characters.[3]
Reviews
Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out garnered highly favorable reviews, though some critics suggested the narrative
style was at times difficult to follow. Jonathan Spence described it as "a wildly visionary and creative novel,
constantly mocking and rearranging itself and jolting the reader with its own internal commentary. This is politics as
pathology...a vast, cruel and complex story."[3] Steven Moore of the Washington Post writes it is "a grimly
entertaining overview of recent Chinese history...Mo Yan offers insights into communist ideology and predatory
capitalism that we ignore at our peril. This 'lumbering animal of a story,' as he calls it, combines the appeal of a
family saga set against tumultuous events with the technical bravura of innovative fiction."[4]
59
The book's translator, Howard Goldblatt, nominated it for the 2009 Newman Prize for Chinese Literature, writing "it
puts a human (and frequently bestial) face on the revolution, and is replete with the dark humor, metafictional
insertions, and fantasies that Mo Yan’s readers have come to expect and enjoy."[5] Kirkus Book Reviews called the
novel "epic black comedy...This long story never slackens; the author deploys parallel and recollected narratives
expertly, and makes broadly comic use of himself as a meddlesome, career-oriented hack whose versions of
important events are, we are assured, not to be trusted. Mo Yan is a mordant Rabelaisian satirist, and there are
echoes of Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy in this novel's rollicking plenitude."[6]
References
[1] Barnes and Noble, Overview (http:/ / www. barnesandnoble. com/ w/ life-and-death-are-wearing-me-out-mo-yan/ 1012131267), Life and
Death are Wearing Me Out: A Novel.
[2] University of Oklahoma, MO YAN WINS NEWMAN PRIZE FOR CHINESE LITERATURE (http:/ / www. ou. edu/ uschina/ newman/
2009winners. html).
[3] Jonathan Spence, Born Again (http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2008/ 05/ 04/ books/ review/ Spence-t. html?pagewanted=all), New York Times,
Sunday Review of Books, 4 May 2008.
[4] Steven Moore, Animal Farm (http:/ / www. washingtonpost. com/ wp-dyn/ content/ article/ 2008/ 05/ 22/ AR2008052203515. html),
Washington Post, 25 May 2008.
[5] Howard Goldblatt, Statement nominating Mo Yan for the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature (http:/ / www. ou. edu/ uschina/ newman/
Goldblatt. MoYanNominationStatement. Eng. pdf)
[6] Kirkus Reviews, Review:LIFE AND DEATH ARE WEARING ME OUT (https:/ / www. kirkusreviews. com/ book-reviews/ mo-yan/
life-and-death-are-wearing-me-out/ ), 15 February 2008.
Postmodernism
Postmodernism
preceded by Modernism
Postmodernity
•
Hypermodernity
•
Hypermodernism in art
•
Metamodernism
•
Post-anarchism
•
Posthumanism
•
Postmodernist anthropology
•
Post-processual archaeology
•
Postmodern architecture
•
Postmodern art
•
Postmodern Christianity
•
Postmodern dance
•
Postmodern feminism
•
Postmodernist film
•
•
Post-Marxism
•
Post-materialism
•
Postmodern music
•
Postmodern picture book
•
Postmodern philosophy
•
Postmodern psychology
•
Postmodern political science
Postmodernism
60
Postpositivism
•
•
Post-postmodernism
•
Postmodernist school
•
Postmodern social
construction of nature
•
Postmodern theatre
•
Post-structuralism
•
Criticism of postmodernism
Postmodernism is a term which describes the postmodernist movement in the arts, its set of cultural tendencies and
associated cultural movements. It is in general the era that follows Modernism.[1] It frequently serves as an
ambiguous overarching term for skeptical interpretations of culture, literature, art, philosophy, economics,
architecture, fiction, and literary criticism. It is often associated with deconstruction and post-structuralism because
its usage as a term gained significant popularity at the same time as twentieth-century post-structural thought.
Deconstruction
One of the most well-known postmodernist concerns is "deconstruction," a concern for philosophy, literary criticism,
and textual analysis developed by Jacques Derrida. The notion of a "deconstructive" approach implies an analysis
that questions the already evident deconstruction of a text in terms of presuppositions, ideological underpinnings,
hierarchical values, and frames of reference. A deconstructive approach further depends on the techniques of close
reading without reference to cultural, ideological, moral opinions or information derived from an authority over the
text such as the author. At the same time Derrida famously writes: "Il n'y a pas de hors-texte (there is no such thing
as outside-of-the-text)."[2] Derrida implies that the world follows the grammar of a text undergoing its own
deconstruction. Derrida's method frequently involves recognizing and spelling out the different, yet similar
interpretations of the meaning of a given text and the problematic implications of binary oppositions within the
meaning of a text. Derrida's philosophy influenced a postmodern movement called deconstructivism among
architects, characterized by the intentional fragmentation, distortion, and dislocation of architectural elements in
designing a building. Derrida discontinued his involvement with the movement after the publication of his
collaborative project with architect Peter Eisenmann in Chora L Works: Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman [3].[4]
Postmodernism and Structuralism
Structuralism was a philosophical movement developed by French academics in the 1950s, partly in response to
French Existentialism. It has been seen variously as an expression of Modernism, High modernism, or
postmodernism Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words. "Post-structuralists" were thinkers who moved away from the strict
interpretations and applications of structuralist ideas. Many American academics consider post-structuralism to be
part of the broader, less well-defined postmodernist movement, even although many post-structuralists insisted it
was not. Thinkers who have been called structuralists include the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, the linguist
Ferdinand de Saussure, the Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser, and the semiotician Algirdas Greimas. The early
writings of the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and the literary theorist Roland Barthes have also been called
structuralist. Those who began as structuralists but became post-structuralists include Michel Foucault, Roland
Barthes, Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze. Other post-structuralists include Jacques Derrida, Pierre Bourdieu,
Jean-François Lyotard, Julia Kristeva, Hélène Cixous, and Luce Irigaray. The American cultural theorists, critics and
intellectuals they influenced include Judith Butler, John Fiske, Rosalind Krauss, Avital Ronell, and Hayden White.
Post-structuralism is not defined by a set of shared axioms or methodologies, but by an emphasis on how various
aspects of a particular culture, from its most ordinary, everyday material details to its most abstract theories and
beliefs, determine one another. Post-structuralist thinkers reject Reductionism and Epiphenomenalism and the idea
that cause-and-effect relationships are top-down or bottom-up. Like structuralists, they start from the assumption that
Postmodernism
people's identities, values and economic conditions determine each other rather than having intrinsic properties that
can be understood in isolation.[5] Thus the French structuralists considered themselves to be espousing Relativism
and Constructionism. But they nevertheless tended to explore how the subjects of their study might be described,
reductively, as a set of essential relationships, schematics, or mathematical symbols. (An example is Claude
Lévi-Strauss's algebraic formulation of mythological transformation in "The Structural Study of Myth"[6]).
Post-structuralists thinkers went further, questioning the existence of any distinction between the nature of a thing
and its relationship to other things.
Post-structuralism
Post-Structuralists generally reject the notion of formulations of “essential relations” in primitive cultures, languages,
or descriptions of psychological phenomena being forms of Aristotelianism, Rationalism, or Idealism. Another
common thread among thinkers associated with the Post-Structuralist movement is the criticism of the absolutist,
quasi-scientific claims of Structuralist theorists as more reflective of the mechanistic bias[7] inspired by
bureaucratization and industrialization than of the inner-workings of actual primitive cultures, languages or psyches.
Generally, Post-structuralists emphasize the inter-determination and contingency of social and historical phenomena
with each other and with the cultural values and biases of perspective. Such realities were not to be dissected, in the
manner of some Structuralists, as a system of facts that could exist independently from values and paradigms (either
those of the analysts or the subjects themselves), but to be understood as both causes and effects of each other.[8] For
this reason, most Post-structuralists hold a more open-ended view of function within systems than did Structuralists
and were sometimes accused of circularity and ambiguity. Post-structuralists countered that, when closely examined,
all formalized claims describing phenomena, reality, or truth, rely on some form or circular reasoning and
self-referential logic that is often paradoxical in nature. Thus, it was important to uncover the hidden patterns of
circularity, self-reference and paradox within a given set of statements rather than feign objectivity, as such an
investigation might allow new perspectives to have influence and new practices to be sanctioned or adopted. In this
latter respect, Post-structuralists were, as a group, continuing the philosophical project initiated by Martin Heidegger,
who saw themselves as extending the implications of Friedrich Nietzsche's work.
Post-structuralist writing tends to connect observations and references from many, widely varying disciplines into a
synthetic view of knowledge and its relationship to experience, the body, society and economy - a synthesis in which
it sees itself as participating. Structuralists, while also somewhat inter-disciplinary, were more comfortable within
departmental boundaries and often maintained the autonomy of their analytical methods over the objects they
analyzed. Post-structuralists, unlike Structuralists, did not privilege a system of (abstract) "relations" over the
specifics to which such relations were applied, but tended to see the notion of “the relation” or of systemization itself
as part-and-parcel of any stated conclusion rather than a reflection of reality as an independent, self-contained state
or object. If anything, if a part of objective reality, theorization and systemization to Post-structuralists was an
exponent of larger, more nebulous patterns of control in social orders – patterns that could not be encapsulated in
theory without simultaneously conditioning it. For this reason, certain Post-structural thinkers were also criticized by
more Realist, Naturalist or Essentialist thinkers of anti-intellectualism or anti-Philosophy. Post-structuralists, in
contrast to Structuralists, tend to place a great deal of skepticism on the independence of theoretical premises from
collective bias and the influence of power, and reject the notion of a "pure" or "scientific" methodology in social
analysis, semiotics or philosophical speculation. No theory, they said – especially when concerning human society or
psychology – was capable of reducing phenomena to elemental systems or abstract patterns, nor could abstract
systems be dismissed as secondary derivatives of a fundamental nature: systemization, phenomena, and values were
part of each other.[citation needed]
61
Postmodernism
Postmodernism and Post-postmodernism
Recently the notions of metamodernism, Post-postmodernism and the "death of postmodernism" have been
increasingly widely debated: in 2007 Andrew Hoborek noted in his introduction to a special issue of the journal
Twentieth Century Literature titled "After Postmodernism" that "declarations of postmodernism's demise have
become a critical commonplace". A small group of critics has put forth a range of theories that aim to describe
culture and/or society in the alleged aftermath of postmodernism, most notably Raoul Eshelman (performatism),
Gilles Lipovetsky (hypermodernity), Nicolas Bourriaud (Altermodern), and Alan Kirby (digimodernism, formerly
called pseudo-modernism). None of these new theories and labels have so far gained very widespread acceptance.
The exhibition Postmodernism - Style and Subversion 1970-1990 at the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, 24
September 2011 – 15 January 2012) was billed as the first show ever to document postmodernism as a historical
movement.
History of term
The term "Postmodern" was first used around the 1870s. John Watkins Chapman suggested "a Postmodern style of
painting" as a way to move beyond French Impressionism.[9] J. M. Thompson, in his 1914 article in The Hibbert
Journal (a quarterly philosophical review), used it to describe changes in attitudes and beliefs in the critique of
religion: "The raison d'etre of Post-Modernism is to escape from the double-mindedness of Modernism by being
thorough in its criticism by extending it to religion as well as theology, to Catholic feeling as well as to Catholic
tradition."[10]
In 1917, Rudolf Pannwitz used the term to describe a philosophically-oriented culture. His idea of post-modernism
drew from Friedrich Nietzsche's analysis of modernity and its end results of decadence and nihilism. Pannwitz's
post-human would be able to overcome these predicaments of the modern human. Contrary to Nietzsche, Pannwitz
also included nationalist and mythical elements in his use of the term.[11]
In 1921 and 1925, Postmodernism had been used to describe new forms of art and music. In 1942 H. R. Hays
described it as a new literary form. However, as a general theory for a historical movement it was first used in 1939
by Arnold J. Toynbee: "Our own Post-Modern Age has been inaugurated by the general war of 1914-1918."[12]
In 1949 the term was used to describe a dissatisfaction with modern architecture, and led
to the postmodern architecture movement,[13] perhaps also a response to the modernist
architectural movement known as the International Style. Postmodernism in architecture
is marked by the re-emergence of surface ornament, reference to surrounding buildings
in urban architecture, historical reference in decorative forms, and non-orthogonal
angles.
After that, Postmodernism was applied to a whole host of movements, many in art,
music, and literature, that reacted against tendencies in the imperialist phase of
Portland Building, an
capitalism called "modernism," and are typically marked by revival of historical
example of Postmodern
architecture
elements and techniques.[14] Walter Truett Anderson identifies Postmodernism as one of
four typological world views. These four world views are the Postmodern-ironist, which
sees truth as socially constructed; the scientific-rational, in which truth is found through methodical, disciplined
inquiry; the social-traditional, in which truth is found in the heritage of American and Western civilization; and the
neo-romantic, in which truth is found through attaining harmony with nature and/or spiritual exploration of the inner
self.[15]
Postmodernist ideas in philosophy and the analysis of culture and society expanded the importance of critical theory
and has been the point of departure for works of literature, architecture, and design, as well as being visible in
marketing/business and the interpretation of history, law and culture, starting in the late 20th century. These
developments—re-evaluation of the entire Western value system (love, marriage, popular culture, shift from
62
Postmodernism
industrial to service economy) that took place since the 1950s and 1960s, with a peak in the Social Revolution of
1968—are described with the term Postmodernity, Influences on postmodern thought, Paul Lützeler (St. Louis) as
opposed to Postmodernism, a term referring to an opinion or movement. Postmodernism has also been used
interchangeably with the term post-structuralism out of which postmodernism grew, a proper understanding of
postmodernism or doing justice to the postmodernist thought demands an understanding of the poststructuralist
movement and the ideas of its advocates. Post-structuralism resulted similarly to postmodernism by following a time
of structuralism. It is characterized by new ways of thinking through structuralism, contrary to the original form.[16]
"Postmodernist" describes part of a movement; "Postmodern" places it in the period of time since the 1950s, making
it a part of contemporary history.
Influence on art
Architecture
The movement of Postmodernism began with architecture, as a response to
the perceived blandness, hostility, and Utopianism of the Modern movement.
Modern Architecture, as established and developed by people such as Walter
Gropius, Le Corbusier, and Philip Johnson, was focused on the pursuit of a
perceived ideal perfection, and attempted harmony of form and function,[17]
and dismissal of "frivolous ornament."[18][19] Critics of modernism argued
Detail of the postmodern Abteiberg
Museum in Germany.
that the attributes of perfection and minimalism themselves were subjective,
and pointed out anachronisms in modern thought and questioned the benefits
of its philosophy.[20] Definitive postmodern architecture such as the work of Michael Graves and Robert Venturi
rejects the notion of a 'pure' form or 'perfect' architectonic detail, instead conspicuously drawing from all methods,
materials, forms and colors available to architects.
Modernist Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is associated with the phrase "less is more"; in contrast Venturi famously said,
"Less is a bore." Postmodernist architecture was one of the first aesthetic movements to openly challenge Modernism
as antiquated and "totalitarian", favoring personal preferences and variety over objective, ultimate truths or
principles.
It is this atmosphere of criticism, skepticism, and emphasis on difference over and against unity that distinguishes the
postmodernism aesthetic. Among writers defining the terms of this discourse is Charles Jencks, described by
Architectural Design Magazine as "the definer of Post-Modernism for thirty years" and the "internationally
acclaimed critic..., whose name became synonymous with Post-modernism in the 80s".[21]
Urban planning
Postmodernism is a rejection of 'totality', of the notion that planning could be 'comprehensive', widely applied
regardless of context, and rational. In this sense, Postmodernism is a rejection of its predecessor: Modernism. From
the 1920s onwards, the Modern movement sought to design and plan cities which followed the logic of the new
model of industrial mass production; reverting to large-scale solutions, aesthetic standardisation and prefabricated
design solutions (Goodchild 1990). Postmodern also brought a break from the notion that planning and architecture
could result in social reform, which was an integral dimension of the plans of Modernism (Simonsen 1990).
Furthermore, Modernism eroded urban living by its failure to recognise differences and aim towards homogenous
landscapes (Simonsen 1990, 57). Within Modernism, urban planning represented a 20th-century move towards
establishing something stable, structured, and rationalised within what had become a world of chaos, flux and change
(Irving 1993, 475). The role of planners predating Postmodernism was one of the 'qualified professional' who
believed they could find and implement one single 'right way' of planning new urban establishments (Irving 1993).
In fact, after 1945, urban planning became one of the methods through which capitalism could be managed and the
63
Postmodernism
64
interests of developers and corporations could be administered (Irving 1993, 479).
Considering Modernism inclined urban planning to treat buildings and developments as isolated, unrelated parts of
the overall urban ecosystems created fragmented, isolated, and homogeneous urban landscapes (Goodchild, 1990).
One of the greater problems with Modernist-style of planning was the disregard of resident or public opinion, which
resulted in planning being forced upon the majority by a minority consisting of affluent professionals with little to no
knowledge of real 'urban' problems characteristic of post-Second World War urban environments; slums,
overcrowding, deteriorated infrastructure, pollution and disease, among others (Irving 1993). These were precisely
the 'urban ills' Modernism was meant to 'solve', but more often than not, the types of 'comprehensive', 'one size fits
all' approaches to planning made things worse., and residents began to show interest in becoming involved in
decisions which had once been solely entrusted to professionals of the built environment. Advocacy planning and
participatory models of planning emerged in the 1960s to counter these traditional elitist and technocratic approaches
to urban planning (Irving 1993; Hatuka & D'Hooghe 2007). Furthermore, an assessment of the 'ills' of Modernism
among planners during the 1960s, fuelled development of a participatory model that aimed to expand the range of
participants in urban interventions (Hatuka & D'Hooghe 2007, 21).
Jane Jacobs's 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities was a sustained critique of urban planning as
it had developed within Modernism and marked a transition from modernity to postmodernity in thinking about
urban planning (Irving 1993, 479). However, the transition from Modernism to Postmodernism is often said to have
happened at 3:32pm on the 15th of July in 1972, when Pruitt Igoe; a housing development for low-income people in
St. Louis designed by architect Minoru Yamasaki, which had been a prize winning version of Le Corbusier's
'machine for modern living' was deemed uninhabitable and was torn down (Irving 1993, 480). Since then,
Postmodernism has involved theories that embrace and aim to create diversity, and it exhaults uncertainty, flexibility
and change (Hatuka & D'Hooghe 2007). Postmodern planning aims to accept pluralism and heighten awareness of
social differences in order to accept and bring to light the claims of minority and disadvantaged groups (Goodchild
1990). It is important to note that urban planning discourse within Modernity and Postmodernity has developed in
different contexts, even though they both grew within a capitalist culture. Modernity was shaped by a capitalist ethic
of Fordist-Keynesian paradigm of mass, standardized production and consumption, while postmodernity was created
out of a more flexible form of capital accumulation, labor markets and organisations (Irving 1993, 60). Also, there is
a distinction between a postmodernism of 'reaction' and one of 'resistance'. A postmodernism of 'reaction' rejects
Modernism and seeks to return to the lost traditions and history in order to create a new cultural synthesis, while
Postmodernity of 'resistance' seeks to deconstruct Modernism and is a critique of the origins without necessarily
returning to them (Irving 1993, 60). As a result of Postmodernism, planners are much less inclined to lay a firm or
steady claim to there being one single 'right way' of engaging in urban planning and are more open to different styles
and ideas of 'how to plan' (Irving 474).[22][23][24][25]
Literature
Literary postmodernism was officially inaugurated in the United States with
the first issue of boundary 2, subtitled "Journal of Postmodern Literature and
Culture", which appeared in 1972. David Antin, Charles Olson, John Cage,
and the Black Mountain College school of poetry and the arts were integral
figures in the intellectual and artistic exposition of postmodernism at the
time.[26] boundary 2 remains an influential journal in postmodernist circles
today.[27]
Jorge Luis Borges's (1939) short story Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,
is often considered as predicting postmodernism[28] and conceiving the ideal
Orhan Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel
Prize in Literature.
Postmodernism
of the ultimate parody.[29] Samuel Beckett is sometimes seen as an important precursor and influence. Novelists who
are commonly connected with postmodern literature include Vladimir Nabokov, William Gaddis, John Hawkes,
William Burroughs, Giannina Braschi, Kurt Vonnegut, John Barth, Donald Barthelme, E.L. Doctorow, Jerzy
Kosinski, Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon,[30][31] Pynchon's work has also been described as "high modern")[32]
Ishmael Reed, Kathy Acker, Ana Lydia Vega, and Paul Auster.
In 1971, the Arab-American scholar Ihab Hassan published The Dismemberment of Orpheus: Toward a Postmodern
Literature, an early work of literary criticism from a postmodern perspective, in which the author traces the
development of what he calls "literature of silence" through Marquis de Sade, Franz Kafka, Ernest Hemingway,
Beckett, and many others, including developments such as the Theatre of the Absurd and the nouveau roman. In
'Postmodernist Fiction' (1987), Brian McHale details the shift from modernism to postmodernism, arguing that the
former is characterized by an epistemological dominantWikipedia:Please clarify, and that postmodern works have
developed out of modernism and are primarily concerned with questions of ontology. In Constructing
Postmodernism (1992), McHale's second book, he provides readings of postmodern fiction and of some of the
contemporary writers who go under the label of cyberpunk. McHale's "What Was Postmodernism?" (2007),[33]
follows Raymond Federman's lead in now using the past tense when discussing postmodernism.
Music
Postmodern music is either music of the postmodern era, or music that
follows aesthetic and philosophical trends of postmodernism. As the name
suggests, the postmodernist movement formed partly in reaction to the ideals
of the modernist. Because of this, Postmodern music is mostly defined in
opposition to modernist music, and a work can either be modernist, or
postmodern, but not both. Jonathan Kramer posits the idea (following
Umberto Eco and Jean-François Lyotard) that postmodernism (including
musical postmodernism) is less a surface style or historical period (i.e.,
condition) than an attitude.
The postmodern impulse in classical music arose in the 1960s with the advent
of musical minimalism. Composers such as Terry Riley, Krzysztof
Penderecki, György Ligeti, Henryk Górecki, Bradley Joseph, John Adams,
George Crumb, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Michael Nyman, and Lou Harrison
Composer Henryk Górecki.
reacted to the perceived elitism and dissonant sound of atonal academic
modernism by producing music with simple textures and relatively consonant
harmonies, whilst others, most notably John Cage challenged the prevailing Narratives of beauty and objectivity
common to Modernism. Some composers have been openly influenced by popular music and world ethnic musical
traditions.
Postmodern Classical music as well is not a musical style, but rather refers to music of the postmodern era. It bears
the same relationship to postmodernist music that postmodernity bears to postmodernism. Postmodern music, on the
other hand, shares characteristics with postmodernist art—that is, art that comes after and reacts against modernism
(see Modernism in Music). A clarifying example of this phenomenon would be a rock band that sells T-shirts,
ostensibly an adjunct business to their primary musical pursuit, yet the T-Shirts become more popular or are deemed
"cooler" than the band's original musical output.
Though representing a general return to certain notions of music-making that are often considered to be classical or
romantic[citation needed], not all postmodern composers have eschewed the experimentalist or academic tenets of
modernism. The works of Dutch composer Louis Andriessen, for example, exhibit experimentalist preoccupation
that is decidedly anti-romantic. Eclecticism and freedom of expression, in reaction to the rigidity and aesthetic
limitations of modernism, are the hallmarks of the postmodern influence in musical composition.
65
Postmodernism
Influential postmodernist philosophers
Martin Heidegger (1889–1976)
Rejected the philosophical basis of the concepts of "subjectivity" and "objectivity" and asserted that similar
grounding oppositions in logic ultimately refer to one another. Instead of resisting the admission of this
paradox in the search for understanding, Heidegger requires that we embrace it through an active process of
elucidation he called the "Hermeneutic Circle". He stressed the historicity and cultural construction of
concepts while simultaneously advocating the necessity of an atemporal and immanent apprehension of them.
In this vein, he asserted that it was the task of contemporary philosophy to recover the original question of (or
"openness to") Dasein (translated as Being or Being-in-the-World) present in the Presocratic philosophers but
normalized, neutered and standardized since Plato. This was to be done, in part, by tracing the record of
Dasein's sublimation or forgetfulness through the history of philosophy which meant that we were to ask again
what constituted the grounding conditions in ourselves and in the World for the affinity between beings and
between the many usages of the term "being" in philosophy. To do this, however, a non-historical and, to a
degree, self-referential engagement with whatever set of ideas, feelings or practices would permit (both the
non-fixed concept and reality of) such a continuity was required - a continuity permitting the possible
experience, possible existence indeed not only of beings but of all differences as they appeared and tended to
develop. Such a conclusion led Heidegger to depart from the Phenomenology of his teacher Husserl and
prompt instead an (ironically anachronistic) return to the yet-unasked questions of Ontology, a return that in
general did not acknowledge an intrinsic distinction between phenomena and noumena or between things in
themselves (de re) and things as they appear (see qualia): Being-in-the-world, or rather, the openness to the
process of Dasein's/Being's becoming was to bridge the age-old gap between these two. In this latter premise,
Heidegger shares an affinity with the late Romantic philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, another principal
forerunner of Post-structuralist and Postmodernist thought. Influential to thinkers associated with
Postmodernism are Heidegger's critique of the subject-object or sense-knowledge division implicit in
Rationalism, Empiricism and Methodological Naturalism, his repudiation of the idea that facts exist outside or
separately from the process of thinking and speaking them (however, Heidegger is not specifically a
Nominalist), his related admission that the possibilities of philosophical and scientific discourse are wrapped
up in the practices and expectations of a society and that concepts and fundamental constructs are the
expression of a lived, historical exercise rather than simple derivations of external, apriori conditions
independent from historical mind and changing experience (see Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Heinrich von Kleist,
Weltanschauung and Social Constructionism), and his Instrumentalist and Negativist notion that Being (and,
by extension, reality) is an action, method, tendency, possibility and question rather than a discreet, positive,
identifiable state, answer or entity (see also Process Philosophy, Dynamism, Instrumentalism, Pragmatism and
Vitalism).
Jacques Derrida (1930–2004)
Re-examined the fundamentals of writing and its consequences on philosophy in general; sought to undermine
the language of 'presence' or metaphysics in an analytical technique which, beginning as a point of departure
from Heidegger's notion of Destruktion, came to be known as Deconstruction. Derrida utilized, like
Heidegger, references to Greek philosophical notions associated with the Skeptics and the Presocratics, such
as Epoché and Aporia to articulate his notion of implicit circularity between premises and conclusions, origins
and manifestations, but - in a manner analogous in certain respects to Gilles Deleuze - presented a radical
re-reading of canonical philosophical figures such as Plato, Aristotle and Descartes as themselves being
informed by such "destabilizing" notions.
Michel Foucault (1926–1984)
Introduced concepts such as 'discursive regime', or re-invoked those of older philosophers like 'episteme' and
'genealogy' in order to explain the relationship among meaning, power, and social behavior within social
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Postmodernism
orders (see The Order of Things, The Archaeology of Knowledge, Discipline and Punish and The History of
Sexuality). In direct contradiction to what have been typified as Modernist perspectives on epistemology,
Foucault asserted that rational judgment, social practice and what he called 'biopower' are not only inseparable
but co-determinant. While Foucault himself was deeply involved in a number of progressive political causes
and maintained close personal ties with members of the far-Left, he was also controversial with Leftist
thinkers of his day, including those associated with various strains of Marxism, proponents of Left
libertarianism (e.g. Noam Chomsky) and Humanism (e.g. Jürgen Habermas), for his rejection of what he
deemed to be Enlightenment concepts of freedom, liberation, self-determination and human nature. Instead,
Foucault focused on the ways in which such constructs can foster cultural hegemony, violence and exclusion.
In line with his rejection of such 'positive' tenets of Enlightenment-era Humanism, he was active, with Gilles
Deleuze and Félix Guattari, in the Anti-Psychiatry Movement, considering much of institutionalized
psychiatry and, in particular, Freud's concept of repression central to Psychoanalysis (which was still very
influential in France during the 1960s and 70s), to be both harmful and misplaced. Foucault was known for his
controversial aphorisms, such as "language is oppression", meaning that language functions in such a way as
to render nonsensical, false or silent tendencies that might otherwise threaten or undermine the distributions of
power backing a society's conventions - even when such distributions purport to celebrate liberation and
expression or value minority groups and perspectives. His writings have had a major influence on the larger
body of Postmodern academic literature.
Jean-François Lyotard (1924–1998)
Identified in The Postmodern Condition a crisis in the "discourses of the Human Sciences" latent in
Modernism but catapulted to the fore by the advent of the "computerized" or "telematic" era (see Information
Revolution). This crisis, insofar as it pertains to academia, concerns both the motivations and justification
procedures for making research claims: unstated givens or values that have validated the basic efforts of
academic research since the late 18th century might no longer be valid (particularly, in Social Science &
Humanities research, though examples from Mathematics are given by Lyotard as well). As formal conjecture
about real-world issues becomes inextricably linked to automated calculation, information storage and
retrieval, such knowledge becomes increasingly "exteriorised" from its knowers in the form of information.
Knowledge is materialized and made into a commodity exchanged between producers and consumers; it
ceases to be either an idealistic end-in-itself or a tool capable of bringing about liberty or social benefit; it is
stripped of its humanistic and spiritual associations, its connection with education, teaching and human
development, being simply rendered as "data" - omnipresent, material, unending and without any contexts or
pre-requisites.[34] Furthermore, the 'diversity' of claims made by various disciplines begins to lack any
unifying principle or intuition as objects of study become more and more specialized due to the emphasis on
specificity, precision and uniformity of reference that competitive, database-oriented research implies. The
value-premises upholding academic research have been maintained by what Lyotard considers to be
quasi-mythological beliefs about human purpose, human reason and human progress - large, background
constructs he calls "Metanarratives". These Metanarratives still remain in Western society but are now being
undermined by rapid Informatization and the commercialization of the University and its functions. The shift
of authority from the presence and intuition of knowers - from the good-faith of Reason to seek diverse
knowledge integrated for human benefit or truth fidelity - to the automated database and the market had, in
Lyotard's view, the power to unravel the very idea of 'justification' or 'legitimation' and, with it, the rationale
for research altogether - esp. in disciplines pertaining to human life, society and meaning. We are now
controlled not by binding extra-linguistic value paradigms defining notions of collective identity and ultimate
purpose, but rather by our automatic responses to different species of "language games" (a concept Lyotard
imports from JL Austin's theory of Speech Acts). In his vision of a solution to this "vertigo," Lyotard opposes
the assumptions of universality, consensus, and generality that he identified within the thought of Humanistic,
Neo-Kantian philosophers like Jürgen Habermas and proposes a continuation of experimentation and diversity
67
Postmodernism
to be assessed pragmatically in the context of language games rather than via appeal to a resurrected series of
transcendentals and metaphysical unities.
Richard Rorty (1931–2007)
Argues in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature that contemporary Analytic philosophy mistakenly imitates
scientific methods. In addition, he denounces the traditional epistemological perspectives of
Representationalism and Correspondence theory that rely upon the independence of knowers and observers
from phenomena and the passivity of natural phenomena in relation to consciousness. As a proponent of
anti-foundationalism and anti-essentialism within a Pragmatist framework, he echoes Postmodern strains of
Conventionalism and Philosophical Relativism, but opposes much Postmodern thinking with his commitment
to Social Liberalism.
Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007),
In Simulacra and Simulation, introduced the concept that reality or the principle of the "Real" is
short-circuited by the interchangeability of signs in an era whose communicative and semantic acts are
dominated by electronic media and digital technologies. Baudrillard proposes the notion that, in such a state,
where subjects are detached from the outcomes of events (political, literary, artistic, personal, or otherwise),
events no longer hold any particular sway on the subject nor have any identifiable context; they therefore have
the effect of producing widespread indifference, detachment, and passivity in industrialized populations. He
claimed that a constant stream of appearances and references without any direct consequences to viewers or
readers could eventually render the division between appearance and object indiscernible, resulting, ironically,
in the "disappearance" of mankind in what is, in effect, a virtual or holographic state, composed only of
appearances.
Fredric Jameson (born 1934)
Set forth one of the first expansive theoretical treatments of Postmodernism as a historical period, intellectual
trend and social phenomenon in a series of lectures at the Whitney Museum, later expanded as Postmodernism,
or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991). Eclectic in his methodology, Jameson has continued a
sustained examination of the role that Periodization continues to play as a grounding assumption of critical
methodologies in Humanities disciplines. He has contributed extensive effort to explicating the importance of
concepts of Utopianism and Utopia as driving forces in the cultural and intellectual movements of Modernity,
and outlining the political and existential uncertainties that may result from the decline or suspension of this
trend in the theorized state of Postmodernity. Like Susan Sontag, Jameson served to introduce a wide audience
of American readers to key figures of the 20th Century Continental European intellectual Left, particularly
those associated with the Frankfurt School, Structuralism and Post-Structuralism. Thus, his importance as a
'translator' of their ideas to the common vocabularies of a variety of disciplines in the Anglo-American
academic complex is equally as important as his own critical engagement with them.
Douglas Kellner (born 1943)
In "Analysis of the Journey," a journal birthed from postmodernism, Kellner insists that the "assumptions and
procedures of modern theory" must be forgotten. His terms defined in the depth of postmodernism is based on
advancement, innovation, and adaptation. Extensively, Kellner analyzes the terms of this theory in real life
experiences and examples. Kellner used science and technology studies as a major part of his analysis; he
urged that the theory is incomplete without it. The scale was larger than just postmodernism alone, it must be
interpreted through cultural studies where science and technology studies play a huge role. The reality of the
September Eleventh attacks on the United States of America is the catalyst for his explanation. This catalyst is
used as a great representation due to the mere fact of the planned ambush and destruction of "symbols of
globalization", insinuating the World Trade Centers. One of the numerous, yet appropriate definitions of
postmodernism and the qualm aspect aids this attribute to seem perfectly accurate. In response, Kellner
continues to examine the repercussions of understanding the effects of the September Eleventh attacks. He
68
Postmodernism
questions if the attacks are only able to be understood in a limited form of postmodern theory due to the level
of irony.[35] In further studies, he enhances the idea of semiotics in alignment with the theory. Similar to the
act of September 11 and the symbols that were interpreted through this postmodern ideal, he continues to even
describe this as "semiotic systems" that people use to make sense of their lives and the events that occur in
them. Kellner's adamancy that signs are necessary to understand one's culture is what he analyzes from the
evidence that most cultures have used signs in place of existence. Finally, he recognizes that many theorists of
postmodernism are trapped by their own cogitations. He finds strength in theorist Baudrillard and his idea of
Marxism. Kellner acknowledges Marxism's end and lack of importance to his theory.
The conclusion he depicts is simple: postmodernism, as most utilize it today, will decide what experiences and
signs in one's reality will be one's reality as they know it.[36]
Criticisms
Criticisms of postmodernism are intellectually diverse, including the assertions that postmodernism is meaningless
and promotes obscurantism. For example, Noam Chomsky has argued that postmodernism is meaningless because it
adds nothing to analytical or empirical knowledge. He asks why postmodernist intellectuals do not respond like
people in other fields when asked, "what are the principles of their theories, on what evidence are they based, what
do they explain that wasn't already obvious, etc?...If [these requests] can't be met, then I'd suggest recourse to
Hume's advice in similar circumstances: 'to the flames'."[37]
Formal, academic critiques of postmodernism can also be found in works such as Beyond the Hoax and Fashionable
Nonsense.
References
[1] Ruth Reichl, Cook's November 1989; American Heritage Dictionary's definition of "postmodern" (http:/ / www. bartleby. com/ 61/ 26/
P0472600. html)
[2] Derrida (1967), Of Grammatology, Part II, Introduction to the "Age of Rousseau," section 2 "...That Dangerous Supplement...", title, The
Exorbitant Question of Method, pp. 158–59, 163.
[3] http:/ / www. amazon. com/ Chora-Works-Jacques-Derrida-Eisenman/ dp/ 1885254407
[4] Benoît Peeters, Derrida: A Biogaphy, pg. 377-8, translated by Andrew Brown, Polity Press, 2013, ISBN 9780745656151
[5] Lévi-Strauss, Claude. Structural Anthropology. Trans. Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf (First published New York: Basic
Books, 1963; New York: Anchor Books Ed., 1967), 324.
Lévi-Strauss, quoting D'Arcy Westworth Thompson states - "To those who question the possibility of defining the interrelations between
entities whose nature is not completely understood, I shall reply with the following comment by a great naturalist In a very large part of morphology, our essential task lies in the comparison of related forms rather than in the precise definition of each; and
the deformation of a complicated figure may be a phenomenon easy of comprehension, though the figure itself has to be left unanalyzed and
undefined.
[6] Lévi-Strauss, Claude. Anthropologie Structurale. Paris: Éditions Plon, 1958.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. Structural Anthropology. Trans. Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf (New York: Basic Books, 1963), 228
(http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=RmeUknlauJAC& lpg=PP1& ots=NJWcwczLLV& dq=Structural Anthropology Basic Books&
pg=PA228#v=onepage& q=Structural Anthropology Basic Books& f=false).
[7] See the following (http:/ / www. anarchopedia. org/ mechanistic_bias) web reference for a common critique of from an "Anti-positivist"
perspective.
[8] Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. Capitalism and Schizophrenia, vol. II: A Thousand Plateaus. Trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: Univ.
of Minnesota Press, 1987), p. 101. Orig. published as Mille Plateaux, in 1980 by Les Editions de Minuit, Paris.
Deleuze, here echoing the sentiments of Derrida's reflection on Foucault's "The History of Madness" (1961) in his essay "Cogito and the
History of Madness" (1963), makes a very thinly veiled reference to semiological certainty of both Saussure and Lacan (who speaks of "The
Unity of the Father" in his theory of semantic coherence), critiquing the premise of objectivity in their methodology "The scientific model taking language as an object of study is one with the political model by which language is homogenized, centralized, and
standardized, becoming a language of power, a major or dominant language. Linguistics can claim all it wants to be science, nothing but pure
science -- it wouldn't be the first time that the order of pure science was used to secure the requirements of another order...The unity of
language is fundamentally political. There is no mother tongue, only a power takeover by a dominant language that at times advances along a
broad front, and at times swoops down on diverse centers simultaneously...The scientific enterprise of extracting constants and constant
relations is always coupled with the political enterprise of imposing them on speakers and transmitting order-worlds."
69
Postmodernism
[9] The Postmodern Turn, Essays in Postmodern Theory and Culture, Ohio University Press, 1987. p12ff
[10] Thompson, J. M. "Post-Modernism," The Hibbert Journal. Vol XII No. 4, July 1914. p. 733
[11] Pannwitz, Rudolf. Die Krisis der europäischen Kultur, Nürnberg 1917
[12] OED long edition
[13] Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2004
[14] Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 2004
[16] Yilmaz, K 2010, 'Postmodernism and its Challenge to the Discipline of History: Implications for History Education', Educational Philosophy
& Theory, 42, 7, pp. 779-795, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 18 April 2012.
[17] Sullivan, Louis. "The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered,” published Lippincott's Magazine (March 1896).
[18] Loos, Adolf. "Ornament and Crime,” published 1908.
[19] Manfredo Tafuri, 'Architecture and utopia: design and capitalist development', Cambridge: MIT Press, 1976.
[20] Venturi, et al.
[22] Goodchild, B 1990, 'Planning and the Modern'Postmodern Debate', in The Town Planning Review, vol. 61, no. 2, pp. 119–137.
[23] Hatuka, T & D'Hooghe, A 2007, 'After Postmodernism: readdressing the Role of Utopia in Urban Design and Planning', in Places: Forum of
Design for the Public Realm, vol. 19, Issue 2, pp. 20–27/
[24] Irving, A 1993, 'The Modern/Postmodern Divide and Urban Planning', in The University of Toronto Quareterly, vol. 62, no. 4, pp. 474–487.
[25] Simonsen, K 1990, 'Planning on 'Postmodern' Conditions', in Acta Sociologica, vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 51–62.
[26] Anderson, The origins of postmodernity, London: Verso, 1998, Ch.2: "Crystallization".
[27] boundary 2, Duke University Press, Boundary2.dukejournals.org (http:/ / boundary2. dukejournals. org/ )
[28] Elizabeth Bellalouna, Michael L. LaBlanc, Ira Mark Milne (2000) Literature of Developing Nations for Students: L-Z (http:/ / books. google.
es/ books?id=CecJAQAAMAAJ) p.50
[29] Stavans (1997) p.31 (http:/ / books. google. es/ books?id=Ro6a1EyaS2AC& pg=PA31)
[34] Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Les Éditions de Minuit, 1979. English Translation by
Geoffrey Bennington and Brian Massumi. Manchester University Press, 1984. See Chapter 1, The Field: Knowledge in Computerised
Societies. (http:/ / www. marxists. org/ reference/ subject/ philosophy/ works/ fr/ lyotard. htm)//
[35] Lule, Jack. "The Postmodern Adventure (Book)." Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 78.4 (2001): 865-866. Academic Search
Premier. Web. 2 Apr 2012.
[36] Danto, AC 1990, "The Hyper-Intellectual", New Republic, 203, 11/12, pp. 44-48, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 2 April
2012. .
[37] Noam Chomsky on Post-Modernism (http:/ / www. cscs. umich. edu/ ~crshalizi/ chomsky-on-postmodernism. html)
Further reading
• Powell, Jim (1998). "Postmodernism For Beginners" (ISBN 978-1-934389-09-6)
• Alexie, Sherman (2000). "The Toughest Indian in the World" (ISBN 0-8021-3800-4)
• Anderson, Walter Truett. The Truth about the Truth (New Consciousness Reader). New York: Tarcher. (1995)
(ISBN 0-87477-801-8)
• Anderson, Perry. The origins of postmodernity. London: Verso, 1998.
• Ashley, Richard and Walker, R. B. J. (1990) “Speaking the Language of Exile.” International Studies Quarterly v
34, no 3 259-68.
• Bauman, Zygmunt (2000) Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Beck, Ulrich (1986) Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity.
• Benhabib, Seyla (1995) 'Feminism and Postmodernism' in (ed. Nicholson) Feminism Contentions: A
Philosophical Exchange. New York: Routledge.
• Berman, Marshall (1982) All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity (ISBN 0-14-010962-5).
• Bertens, Hans (1995) The Idea of the Postmodern: A History. London: Routledge. (ISBN 0-145-06012-5).
• Best, Steven Best and Douglas Kellner. Postmodern Theory (1991) excerpt and text search (http://www.
amazon.com/dp/0898624185)
• Best, Steven Best and Douglas Kellner. The Postmodern Turn (1997) excerpt and text search (http://www.
amazon.com/dp/1572302216)
• Bielskis, Andrius (2005) Towards a Postmodern Understanding of the Political: From Genealogy to
Hermeneutics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
• Braschi, Giannina (1994), Empire of Dreams, introduction by Alicia Ostriker, Yale University Press, New Haven,
London.
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Postmodernism
• Brass, Tom, Peasants, Populism and Postmodernism (London: Cass, 2000).
• Butler, Judith (1995) 'Contingent Foundations' in (ed. Nicholson) Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical
Exchange. New Yotk: Routledge.
• Callinicos, Alex, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist Critique (Cambridge: Polity, 1999).
• Drabble, M. The Oxford Companion to English Literature, 6 ed., article "Postmodernism".
• Farrell, John. "Paranoia and Postmodernism," the epilogue to Paranoia and Modernity: Cervantes to Rousseau
(Cornell UP, 2006), 309-327.
• Featherstone, M. (1991) Consumer culture and postmodernism, London; Newbury Park, Calif., Sage Publications.
• Giddens, Anthony (1991) Modernity and Self Identity, Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Gosselin, Paul (2012) Flight From the Absolute: Cynical Observations on the Postmodern West. volume I.
Samizdat (http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/publications/Flight_Absolute_pg.htm) (ISBN 978-2-9807774-3-1)
• Goulimari, Pelagia (ed.) (2007) Postmodernism. What Moment? Manchester: Manchester University Press (ISBN
978-0-7190-7308-3)
• Grebowicz, Margaret (ed.), Gender After Lyotard. NY: Suny Press, 2007. (ISBN 978-0-7914-6956-9)
• Greer, Robert C. Mapping Postmodernism. IL: Intervarsity Press, 2003. (ISBN 0-8308-2733-1)
• Groothuis, Douglas. Truth Decay. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2000.
• Harvey, David (1989) The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (ISBN
0-631-16294-1)
• Hicks, Stephen R. C. (2004) Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault
(ISBN 1-59247-646-5)
• Honderich, T., The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, article "Postmodernism".
• Hutcheon, Linda. The Politics of Postmodernism. (2002) online edition] (http://www.questia.com/read/
107450059?title=The Politics of Postmodernism)
• Jameson, Fredric (1991) Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (ISBN 0-8223-1090-2)
• Kimball, Roger (2000). Experiments against Reality: the Fate of Culture in the Postmodern Age. Chicago: I.R.
Dee. viii, 359 p. (ISBN 1-56663-335-4)
• Kirby, Alan (2009) Digimodernism. New York: Continuum.
• Lash, S. (1990) The sociology of postmodernism London, Routledge.
• Lyotard, Jean-François (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (ISBN 0-8166-1173-4)
• --- (1988). The Postmodern Explained: Correspondence 1982-1985. Ed. Julian Pefanis and Morgan Thomas.
(ISBN 0-8166-2211-6)
• --- (1993), "Scriptures: Diffracted Traces." In: Theory, Culture and Society, Vol. 21(1), 2004.
• --- (1995), "Anamnesis: Of the Visible." In: Theory, Culture and Society, Vol. 21(1), 2004.
• McHale,Brian, (1987) 'Postmodernist Fiction. London: Routledge.
• --- (1992), 'Constructing Postmodernism. NY & London: Routledge.
• --- (2008), "1966 Nervous Breakdown, or, When Did Postmodernism Begin?" Modern Language Quarterly 69,
3:391-413.
• --- (2007), "What Was Postmodernism?" electronic book review, (http://www.electronicbookreview.com/
thread/fictionspresent/tense)
• MacIntyre, Alasdair, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (University of Notre Dame Press, 1984, 2nd edn.).
• Magliola, Robert, Derrida on the Mend (Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 1984; 1986; pbk. 2000, ISBN
I-55753-205-2).
• ---, On Deconstructing Life-Worlds: Buddhism, Christianity, Culture (Atlanta: Scholars Press of American
Academy of Religion, 1997; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000; ISBN 0-7885-0295-6, cloth, ISBN
0-7885-0296-4, pbk).
• Manuel, Peter. "Music as Symbol, Music as Simulacrum: Pre-Modern, Modern, and Postmodern Aesthetics in
Subcultural Musics," Popular Music 1/2, 1995, pp. 227–239.
71
Postmodernism
• Murphy, Nancey, Anglo-American Postmodernity: Philosophical Perspectives on Science, Religion, and Ethics
(Westview Press, 1997).
• Natoli, Joseph (1997) A Primer to Postmodernity (ISBN 1-57718-061-5)
• Norris, Christopher (1990) What's Wrong with Postmodernism: Critical Theory and the Ends of Philosophy
(ISBN 0-8018-4137-2)
• Pangle, Thomas L., The Ennobling of Democracy: The Challenge of the Postmodern Age, Baltimore, The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1991 ISBN 0-8018-4635-8
• Park, Jin Y., ed., Buddhisms and Deconstructions (Lanham: Rowland & Littlefield, 2006, ISBN
978-0-7425-3418-6; ISBN 0-7425-3418-9.
• Sim, Stuart. (1999). "The Routledge critical dictionary of postmodern thought" (ISBN 0415923530)
• Sokal, Alan and Jean Bricmont (1998) Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science (ISBN
0-312-20407-8)
• Vattimo, Gianni (1989). The Transparent Society (ISBN 0-8018-4528-9)
• Veith Jr., Gene Edward (1994) Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture
(ISBN 0-89107-768-5)
• Windshuttle, Keith (1996) The Killing of History: How Literary Critics and Social Theorists are Murdering our
Past. New York: The Free Press.
• Woods, Tim, Beginning Postmodernism, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999,(Reprinted 2002)(ISBN
0-7190-5210-6 Hardback,ISBN 0-7190-5211-4 Paperback) .
External links
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on postmodernism (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/
postmodernism/)
• Discourses of Postmodernism. Multilingual Bibliography by Janusz Przychodzen (PDF file) (http://www.umass.
edu/complit/aclanet/SyllPDF/JanuList.pdf)
• Modernity, postmodernism and the tradition of dissent, by Lloyd Spencer (1998) (http://www.tasc.ac.uk/
depart/media/staff/ls/Modules/Theory/PoMoDis.htm)
• Dueling Paradigms: Modernist v. Postmodernist Thought * Characterizing a Fogbank: What Is Postmodernism,
and Why Do I Take Such a Dim View of it? (http://www.critcrim.org/critpapers/milovanovic_postmod.htm)
• Postmodernism and truth (http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/postmod.tru.htm) by philosopher Daniel
Dennett
• Postmodernism is the new black (http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8401159):
How the shape of modern retailing was both predicted and influenced by some unlikely seers (The Economist 19
December 2006)
• Gaining clarity: after postmodernism (http://acheret.co.il/en/?cmd=articles.326), Eretz Acheret (http://
acheret.co.il/en) Magazine
72
Post-postmodernism
73
Post-postmodernism
Post-postmodernism is a term applied to a wide-ranging set of developments in critical theory, philosophy,
architecture, art, literature, and culture which are emerging from and reacting to postmodernism. Another similar
recent term is metamodernism.
Periodization
Most scholars would agree that modernism began in the late 19th century and continued on as the dominant cultural
force in the intellectual circles of Western culture well into the mid-twentieth century.[1] Like all epochs, modernism
encompasses many competing individual directions and is impossible to define as a discrete unity or totality.
However, its chief general characteristics are often thought to include an emphasis on "radical aesthetics, technical
experimentation, spatial or rhythmic, rather than chronological form, [and] self-conscious reflexiveness"[2] as well as
the search for authenticity in human relations, abstraction in art, and utopian striving. These characteristics are
normally lacking in postmodernism or are treated as objects of irony.
Postmodernism
preceded by Modernism
Postmodernity
•
Hypermodernity
•
Hypermodernism in art
•
Metamodernism
•
Post-anarchism
•
Posthumanism
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Postmodernist anthropology
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Post-processual archaeology
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Postmodern architecture
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Postmodern art
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Postmodern Christianity
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Postmodern dance
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Postmodern feminism
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Postmodernist film
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Post-Marxism
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Post-materialism
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Postmodern music
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Postmodern picture book
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Postmodern philosophy
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Postmodern psychology
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Postmodern political science
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Postpositivism
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Post-postmodernism
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Postmodernist school
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Postmodern social
construction of nature
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Postmodern theatre
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Post-structuralism
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Criticism of postmodernism
Post-postmodernism
Postmodernism arose after World War II as a reaction to the perceived failings of modernism, whose radical artistic
projects had come to be associated with totalitarianism[3] or had been assimilated into mainstream culture. The basic
features of what we now call postmodernism can be found as early as the 1940s, most notably in the work of Jorge
Luis Borges.[4] However, most scholars today would agree that postmodernism began to compete with modernism in
the late 1950s and gained ascendancy over it in the 1960s.[5] Since then, postmodernism has been a dominant, though
not undisputed, force in art, literature, film, music, drama, architecture and philosophy. Salient features of
postmodernism are normally thought to include the ironic play with styles, citations and narrative levels,[6] a
metaphysical skepticism or nihilism towards a “grand narrative” of Western culture,[7] a preference for the virtual at
the expense of the real (or more accurately, a fundamental questioning of what 'the real' constitutes)[8] and a “waning
of affect”[9] on the part of the subject, who is caught up in the free interplay of virtual, endlessly reproducible signs
inducing a state of consciousness similar to schizophrenia.[10]
Since the late 1990s there has been a small but growing feeling both in popular culture and in academia that
postmodernism "has gone out of fashion."[11] However, there have been few formal attempts to define and name the
epoch succeeding postmodernism, and none of the proposed designations has yet become part of mainstream usage.
Definitions
Consensus on what makes up an epoch can hardly be achieved while that epoch is still in its early stages. However, a
common positive theme of current attempts to define post-postmodernism is that faith, trust, dialogue, performance
and sincerity can work to transcend postmodern irony. The following definitions, which vary widely in depth, focus
and scope, are listed in the chronological order of their appearance.
In 1995, the landscape architect and urban planner Tom Turner issued a book-length call for a post-postmodern turn
in urban planning.[12] Turner criticizes the postmodern credo of “anything goes” and suggests that “the built
environment professions are witnessing the gradual dawn of a post-Postmodernism that seeks to temper reason with
faith.”[13] In particular, Turner argues for the use of timeless organic and geometrical patterns in urban planning. As
sources of such patterns he cites, among others, the Taoist-influenced work of the American architect Christopher
Alexander, gestalt psychology and the psychoanalyst Carl Jung’s concept of archetypes. Regarding terminology,
Turner urges us to “embrace post-Postmodernism – and pray for a better name.”[14]
In his 1999 book on Russian postmodernism the Russian-American Slavist Mikhail Epstein suggested that
postmodernism “is […] part of a much larger historical formation,” which he calls “postmodernity.”[15] Epstein
believes that postmodernist aesthetics will eventually become entirely conventional and provide the foundation for a
new, non-ironic kind of poetry, which he describes using the prefix "trans-":
In considering the names that might possibly be used to designate the new era following "postmodernism," one
finds that the prefix "trans" stands out in a special way. The last third of the 20th century developed under the
sign of "post," which signalled the demise of such concepts of modernity as "truth" and "objectivity," "soul"
and "subjectivity," "utopia" and "ideality," "primary origin" and "originality," "sincerity" and "sentimentality."
All of these concepts are now being reborn in the form of "trans-subjectivity," "trans-idealism,"
"trans-utopianism," "trans-originality," "trans-lyricism," "trans-sentimentality" etc.[16]
As an example Epstein cites the work of the contemporary Russian poet Timur Kibirov.[17]
The term post-millennialism was introduced in 2000 by the American cultural theorist Eric Gans[18] to describe the
epoch after postmodernism in ethical and socio-political terms. Gans associates postmodernism closely with
“victimary thinking,” which he defines as being based on a non-negotiable ethical opposition between perpetrators
and victims arising out of the experience of Auschwitz and Hiroshima. In Gans’s view, the ethics of postmodernism
is derived from identifying with the peripheral victim and disdaining the utopian center occupied by the perpetrator.
Postmodernism in this sense is marked by a victimary politics that is productive in its opposition to modernist
utopianism and totalitarianism but unproductive in its resentment of capitalism and liberal democracy, which he sees
as the long-term agents of global reconciliation. In contrast to postmodernism, post-millennialism is distinguished by
74
Post-postmodernism
the rejection of victimary thinking and a turn to “non-victimary dialogue”[19] that will “diminish […] the amount of
resentment in the world.”[20] Gans has developed the notion of post-millennialism further in many of his internet
Chronicles of Love and Resentment[21] and the term is allied closely with his theory of Generative Anthropology and
his scenic concept of history.[22]
In 2006 the British scholar Alan Kirby formulated a socio-cultural assessment of post-postmodernism that he calls
“pseudo-modernism.”[] Kirby associates pseudo-modernism with the triteness and shallowness resulting from the
instantaneous, direct, and superficial participation in culture made possible by the internet, mobile phones,
interactive television and similar means: “In pseudo-modernism one phones, clicks, presses, surfs, chooses, moves,
downloads.”[]
Pseudo-modernism’s “typical intellectual states” are furthermore described as being “ignorance, fanaticism and
anxiety” and it is said to produce a “trance-like state” in those participating in it. The net result of this media-induced
shallowness and instantaneous participation in trivial events is a “silent autism” superseding “the neurosis of
modernism and the narcissism of postmodernism.“ Kirby sees no aesthetically valuable works coming out of
“pseudo-modernism.” As examples of its triteness he cites reality TV, interactive news programs, “the drivel found
[…] on some Wikipedia pages,” docu-soaps, and the essayistic cinema of Michael Moore or Morgan Spurlock.[] In a
book published in September 2009 titled Digimodernism: How New Technologies Dismantle the Postmodern and
Reconfigure our Culture Kirby developed further and nuanced his views on culture and textuality in the aftermath of
postmodernism.
In 2010 the cultural theorists Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker introduced the term metamodernism
[23]
as an intervention in the post-postmodernism debate. In their article 'Notes on metamodernism' they assert that
the 2000s are characterized by the emergence of a sensibility that oscillates between, and must be situated beyond,
modern positions and postmodern strategies. As examples of the metamodern sensibility Vermeulen and van den
Akker cite the 'informed naivety', 'pragmatic idealism' and 'moderate fanaticism' of the various cultural responses to,
among others, climate change, the financial crisis, and (geo)political instability.
Aesthetically, metamodernism is exemplified by practices as varied as the architecture of BIG and Herzog and de
Meuron, the cinema of Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze and Wes Anderson, musicians/sound artists such as CocoRosie,
Antony and the Johnsons, Georges Lentz and Devendra Banhart, the artworks of Peter Doig, Olafur Eliasson, Ragnar
Kjartansson, Šejla Kamerić and Paula Doepfner, and the writings of Haruki Murakami, Roberto Bolaño, David
Foster Wallace, and Jonathan Franzen, as they are each typified by a continuous oscillation, a constant repositioning
between attitudes and mindsets that are evocative of the modern and of the postmodern but are ultimately suggestive
of another sensibility that is neither of them; one that negotiates between a yearning for universal truths and
relativism, between a desire for sense and a doubt about the sense of it all, between hope and melancholy, sincerity
and irony, knowingness and naivety, construction and deconstruction.[24]
The prefix 'meta' here refers not to some reflective stance or repeated rumination, but to Plato's metaxy, which
intends a movement between opposite poles as well as beyond.[25]
References
[1] Compare, for example:
: "[modernism] is [...] primarily located in the years 1890-1930 [...]"
: "[modernism] can be defined as a series of international artistic movements in the period 1900-40 [...]."
[3] Cf. Groys, Boris: The Total Art of Stalinism, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.
[4] See Barth, John: “The Literature of Exhaustion.” The Atlantic Monthly, August 1967, pp. 29-34.
[5] Cf., for example, Huyssen, Andreas: After the Great Divide. Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1986, p. 188.
[6] See Hutcheon, Linda: A Poetics of Postmodernism. History, Theory, Fiction. New York: Routledge, 1988, pp. 3-21; McHale, Brian:
Postmodern Fiction, London: Methuen, 1987.
[7] See Lyotard, Jean-François, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press 1984
75
Post-postmodernism
[8] See Baudrillard, Jean: “Simulacra and Simulations.” In: Jean Baudrillard. Selected Writings. Stanford: Stanford University Press 1988, pp.
166-184.
[9] Jameson, Fredric: Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press 1991, p. 16
[10] Jameson, Fredric: Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press 1991, pp. 26-27.
[11] Potter, Garry and Lopez, Jose (eds.): After Postmodernism: An Introduction to Critical Realism. London: The Athlone Press 2001, p. 4.
[12] City as Landscape: A Post Post-modern View of Design and Planning, (Taylor & Francis: London 1995).
[13] City as Landscape: A Post Post-modern View of Design and Planning, (Taylor & Francis: London 1995), p. 9.
[14] City as Landscape: A Post Post-modern View of Design and Planning, (Taylor & Francis: London 1995), p. 10; see also a summary of the
book at (http:/ / www. gardenvisit. com/ history_theory/ library_online_ebooks/ architecture_city_as_landscape)
[15] Epstein, Mikhail; Genis, Alexander; Vladiv-Glover, Slobodanka. Russian Postmodernism. New Perspectives on Post-Soviet Culture.
Berghahn Books: New York, 1999, p. 467.
[16] http:/ / www. focusing. org/ apm_papers/ epstein. html
[17] Epstein, Mikhail; Genis, Alexander; Vladiv-Glover, Slobodanka. Russian Postmodernism. New Perspectives on Post-Soviet Culture.
Berghahn Books: New York, 1999, pp. 457-460
[22] For more on both see Gans, Eric: Originary Thinking: Elements of Generative Anthropology. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press
1993.
[23] Vermeulen, Timotheus and Robin van den Akker. " Notes on metamodernism (http:/ / aestheticsandculture. net/ index. php/ jac/ article/
view/ 5677/ 6304)", Journal of Aesthetics and Culture" 2010.
[24] Genco Gulan. (2004) 'Camerica, Puppy Art' (http:/ / artefact. mi2. hr/ _a04/ lang_en/ theory_gulan_en. htm). Artefact GLOCALOGUE.
2012-06-05.
[25] (http:/ / www. metamodernism. com/ 2010/ 10/ 14/ what-meta-means-and-does-not-mean/ )
External links
• Essay by Alan Kirby on theories of post-postmodernism (http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.
asp?storycode=411731)
• Essay by Mikhail Epstein on The Place of Postmodernism in Postmodernity (http://www.focusing.org/
apm_papers/epstein.html)
• Introduction to Digimodernism by Alan Kirby (http://www.alanfkirby.com/Introduction.pdf)
• Post-postmodern novel by Patrick J. F. Quere (http://www.prlog.org/
10814800-patrick-jf-queres-new-novel-grognard-now-available-at-major-booksellers.html)
• notes on metamodernism (http://aestheticsandculture.net/index.php/jac/article/viewArticle/5677)
76
Magic realism
Magic realism
Magic realism or magical realism is a genre where magic elements are a natural part in an otherwise mundane,
realistic environment.[1] Although it is most commonly used as a literary genre, magic realism also applies to film
and the visual arts.
One example of magic realism occurs when a character in the story continues to be alive beyond the normal length
of life and this is subtly depicted by the character being present throughout many generations. On the surface the
story has no clear magical attributes and everything is conveyed in a real setting, but such a character breaks the
rules of our real world. The author may give precise details of the real world such as the date of birth of a reference
character and the army recruitment age, but such facts help to define an age for the fantastic character of the story
that would turn out to be an abnormal occurrence like someone living for two hundred years.
The term is broadly descriptive rather than critically rigorous: Professor Matthew Strecher defines magic realism as
"what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something too strange to believe."[2] This
critical perspective towards magical realism stems from the Western reader's disassociation with mythology, a root
of magical realism more easily understood by non-Western cultures.[3] Western confusion regarding magical realism
is due to the "conception of the real" created in a magical realist text: rather than explain reality using natural or
physical laws, as in typical Western texts, magical realist texts create a reality "in which the relation between
incidents, characters, and setting could not be based upon or justified by their status within the physical world or
their normal acceptance by bourgeois mentality."[4] Many writers are categorized as "magical realist," which
confuses what the term really means and how wide its definition is.[5]
Etymology
While the term magical realism in its modern sense first appeared in 1955, the German art critic Franz Roh first used
the phrase in 1925, to refer to a painterly style also known as Neue Sachlichkeit (the New Objectivity),[6] an
alternative championed by fellow German museum director Gustav Hartlaub.[7] Roh believed magic realism is
related to, but distinctive from, surrealism, due to magic realism's focus on the material object and the actual
existence of things in the world, as opposed to the more cerebral, psychological and subconscious reality that the
surrealists explored.[8] Magic realism was later used to describe the uncanny realism by American painters such as
Ivan Albright, Paul Cadmus, George Tooker and other artists during the 1940s and 1950s. However, in contrast with
its use in literature, magical realist art does not often include overtly fantastic or magical content, but rather looks at
the mundane, the everyday, through a hyper-realistic and often mysterious lens.[9] The extent to which magical
elements enter in visual art depends on the subcategory, discussed in detail below.
Roh's magic realism's theoretical implications greatly influenced European and Latin American literature. Italian
Massimo Bontempelli, for instance, considered the first magic realist creative writer, sought to present the
"mysterious and fantastic quality of reality." He claimed that literature could be a means to create a collective
consciousness by "opening new mythical and magical perspectives on reality," and used his writings to inspire an
Italian nation governed by Fascism.[8] Venezuelan Arturo Uslar-Pietri was closely associated with Roh's form of
magic realism and knew Bontempelli in Paris. Rather than follow Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier's developing
versions of "the (Latin) American marvelous real," Uslar-Pietri's writings emphasize "the mystery of human living
amongst the reality of life." He believed magic realism was "a continuation of the vanguardia [or Avant-garde]
modernist experimental writings of Latin America."[8]
Literary magic realism originated in Latin America. Writers often traveled between their home country and
European cultural hubs, such as Paris or Berlin, and were influenced by the art movement of the time.[3][10]
Carpentier and Uslar-Pietri, for example, were strongly influenced by European artistic movements, such as
Surrealism, during their stays in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s.[8] One major event that linked painterly and literary
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Magic realism
magic realisms was the translation and publication of Roh's book into Spanish by Spain's Revista de Occidente in
1927, headed by major literary figure José Ortega y Gasset. "Within a year, Magic Realism was being applied to the
prose of European authors in the literary circles of Buenos Aires."[11] Jorge Luis Borges inspired and encouraged
other Latin American writers in the development of magical realism - particularly with his first magical realist
publication, Historia universal de la infamia in 1935.[12] Between 1940 and 1950, magical realism in Latin America
reached its peak, with prominent writers appearing mainly in Argentina.[13]
Literature
Characteristics
The extent to which the characteristics below apply to a given magic realist text varies. Every text is different and
employs a smattering of the qualities listed here. However, they accurately portray what one might expect from a
magic realist text.
Fantastical elements
As recently as 2008, magical realism in literature has been defined as "a kind of modern fiction in which fabulous
and fantastical events are included in a narrative that otherwise maintains the 'reliable' tone of objective realistic
report, designating a tendency of the modern novel to reach beyond the confines of realism and draw upon the
energies of fable, folk tale, and myth while maintaining a strong contemporary social relevance. The fantastic
attributes given to characters in such novels—levitation, flight, telepathy, telekinesis—are among the means that
magic realism adopts in order to encompass the often phantasmagorical political realities of the 20th century."[14]
Plenitude
In an essay entitled "The Baroque and the Marvelous Real" the Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier championed the idea
that the baroque is defined by a lack of emptiness, a departure from structure or rules, and an "extraordinary"
plenitude of disorienting detail (citing Mondrian as its polar opposite). From this angle, Carpentier views the baroque
as a layering of elements, which translates easily into the post-colonial or transcultural Latin American atmosphere
that Carpentier emphasizes in The Kingdom of this World.[15] "America, a continent of symbiosis, mutations...
mestizaje, engenders the baroque,"[16] made explicit by elaborate Aztec temples and associative Nahuatl poetry.
These mixing ethnicities grow together with the American baroque; the space in between is where the "marvelous
real" is seen. Marvelous: not meaning beautiful and pleasant, but extraordinary, strange, excellent. Such a complex
system of layering—encompassed in the Latin American "boom" novel, such as One Hundred Years of
Solitude—has as its aim "translating the scope of America."[17]
Hybridity
Magical realism plot lines characteristically employ hybrid multiple planes of reality that take place in
"inharmonious arenas of such opposites as urban and rural, and Western and indigenous."[][18] For example, as seen
in Julio Cortázar's "La noche boca arriba," an individual experiences two realistic situations simultaneously in the
same place but during two different time periods, centuries apart.[19]
His dreamlike state connects these two realities; this small bit of magic makes these multiple planes of reality
possible.[20] Overall, they establish "a more deep and true reality than conventional realist techniques would
illustrate."[][21]
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Magic realism
Metafiction
This trait centers on the reader's role in literature. With its multiple realities and specific reference to the reader’s
world, it explores the impact fiction has on reality, reality on fiction and the reader’s role in between; as such, it is
well suited for drawing attention to social or political criticism. Furthermore, it is the tool paramount in the execution
of a related and major magic realist phenomenon: textualization. This term defines two conditions—first, where a
fictitious reader enters the story within a story while reading it, making us self-conscious of our status as
readers—and secondly, where the textual world enters into the reader's (our) world. Good sense would negate this
process but ‘magic’ is the flexible topos that allows it.[22]
Authorial reticence
Authorial reticence is the "deliberate withholding of information and explanations about the disconcerting fictitious
world."[23] The narrator does not provide explanations about the accuracy or credibility of events described or views
expressed by characters in the text. Further, the narrator is indifferent, a characteristic enhanced by this absence of
explanation of fantastic events; the story proceeds with "logical precision" as if nothing extraordinary took
place.[24][25]
In this, explaining the supernatural world would immediately reduce its legitimacy relative to the natural world. The
reader would consequently disregard the supernatural as false testimony.
Sense of mystery
Something that most critics agree on is this major theme. Magic realist literature tends to read at an intensified level.
Taking the seminal work of the style, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, the reader must let
go of preexisting ties to conventional exposition, plot advancement, linear time structure, scientific reason, etc., to
strive for a state of heightened awareness of life's connectedness or hidden meanings. Carpentier articulates this
feeling as "to seize the mystery that breathes behind things,"[26] and supports the claim by saying a writer must
heighten his senses to the point of "estado limite" [translated as "limit state" or "extreme"[27]] in order to realize all
levels of reality, most importantly that of mystery.[28]
Collective consciousness
The Mexican critic Luis Leal has said, "Without thinking of the concept of magical realism, each writer gives
expression to a reality he observes in the people. To me, magical realism is an attitude on the part of the characters in
the novel toward the world," or toward nature. He adds, "If you can explain it, then it's not magical realism."[29]
Political critique
Magic realism contains an "implicit criticism of society, particularly the elite."[30] Especially with regard to Latin
America, the style breaks from the inarguable discourse of "privileged centers of literature."[31] This is a mode
primarily about and for "ex-centrics": the geographically, socially and economically marginalized. Therefore, magic
realism's ‘alternative world’ works to correct the reality of established viewpoints (like realism, naturalism,
modernism). Magic realist texts, under this logic, are subversive texts, revolutionary against socially dominant
forces. Alternatively, the socially dominant may implement magical realism to disassociate themselves from their
"power discourse."[32] Theo D’haen calls this change in perspective "decentering."
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Magic realism
Major topics in criticism
Ambiguities in definition
Determining who coined the term magical realism (as opposed to magic realism) is controversial among literary
critics. Maggie Ann Bowers argues that it first emerged in the 1955 essay "Magical Realism in Spanish American
Fiction" by critic Angel Flores. She notes that while Flores names Jorge Luis Borges as the first magical realist
(some critics consider him a predecessor, not actually a magical realist), he fails to acknowledge either Alejo
Carpentier or Arturo Uslar-Pietri for bringing Roh's magic realism to Latin America.[8] However, both Luis Leal and
Irene Guenther, (referencing Pietri and Jean Weisgerber texts, respectively), attest that Pietri was one of the first, if
not the first, to apply the term to Latin American literature.[33][34]
Leal and Guenther both quote Pietri, who described "man as a mystery surrounded by realistic facts. A poetic
prediction or a poetic denial of reality. What for lack of another name could be called a magical realism."[35] It is
worth noting that Pietri, in presenting his term for this literary tendency, always kept its definition open by means of
a language more lyrical and evocative than strictly critical, as in this 1948 statement. When academic critics
attempted to define magical realism with scholarly exactitude, they discovered that it was more powerful than
precise. Critics, frustrated by their inability to pin down the term's meaning, have urged its complete abandonment.
Yet in Arturo Uslar-Pietri's vague, ample usage, magical realism was wildly successful in summarizing for many
readers their perception of much Latin American fiction; this fact suggests that the term has its uses, so long as it is
not expected to function with the precision expected of technical, scholarly terminology."
Guatemalan author William Spindler's article, “Magic realism: a typology,”[36] suggests that there are three kinds of
magic realism, which however are by no means incompatible: European ‘metaphysical’ magic realism, with its sense
of estrangement and the uncanny, exemplified by Kafka’s fiction; ‘ontological’ magical realism, characterized by
‘matter-of-factness’ in relating ‘inexplicable’ events; and ‘anthropological’ magical realism, where a Native
worldview is set side by side with the Western rational worldview.[37] Spindler’s typology of magic realism has been
criticized as “an act of categorization which seeks to define Magic Realism as a culturally specific project, by
identifying for his readers those (non-modern) societies where myth and magic persist and where Magic Realism
might be expected to occur. There are objections to this analysis. Western rationalism models may not actually
describe Western modes of thinking and it is possible to conceive of instances where both orders of knowledge are
simultaneously possible.”[38]
Lo real maravilloso
Alejo Carpentier originated the term lo real maravilloso (roughly the "marvelous reality") in the prologue to his
novel The Kingdom of this World (1949); however, some debate whether he is truly a magical realist writer, or
simply a precursor and source of inspiration. Maggie Bowers claims he is widely acknowledged as the originator of
Latin American magical realism (as both a novelist and critic);[8] she describes Carpentier's conception as a kind of
heightened reality where elements of the miraculous can appear while seeming natural and unforced. She suggests
that by disassociating himself and his writings from Roh's painterly magic realism, Carpentier aimed to show
how—by virtue of Latin America's varied history, geography, demography, politics, myths, and beliefs—improbable
and marvelous things are made possible.[8] Furthermore, Carpentier's meaning is that Latin America is a land filled
with marvels, and that "writing about this land automatically produces a literature of marvelous reality."[39]
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Magic realism
"The marvelous" may be easily confused with magical realism, as both modes
introduce supernatural events without surprising the implied author. In both,
these magical events are expected and accepted as everyday occurrences.
However, the marvelous world is a unidimensional world. The implied author
believes that anything can happen here, as the entire world is filled with
supernatural beings and situations to begin with. Fairy tales are a good
example of marvelous literature. The important idea in defining the
marvelous is that readers understand that this fictional world is different from
the world where they live. The "marvelous" one-dimensional world differs
from the bidimensional world of magical realism, as in the latter, the
supernatural realm blends with the natural, familiar world (arriving at the
combination of two layers of reality: bidimensional).[40] While some use the
terms magical realism and lo real maravilloso interchangeably, the key
difference lies in the focus.[41]
Critic Luis Leal attests that Carpentier was an originating pillar of the magical
Alejo Carpentier
realist style by implicitly referring to the latter's critical works, writing that
"The existence of the marvelous real is what started magical realist literature,
which some critics claim is the truly American literature."[42] It can consequently be drawn that Carpentier's "lo real
maravilloso" is especially distinct from magical realism by the fact that the former applies specifically to
America.[43] On that note, Lee A. Daniel categorizes critics of Carpentier into three groups: those that don't consider
him a magical realist whatsoever (Ángel Flores), those that call him "a mágicorealista writer with no mention of his
"lo real maravilloso" (Gómez Gil, Jean Franco, Carlos Fuentes)," and those that use the two terms interchangeably
(Fernando Alegria, Luis Leal, Emir Rodriguez Monegal).[44]
Latin American exclusivity
Criticism that Latin America is the birthplace and cornerstone of all things magic realist is quite common. Ángel
Flores does not deny that magical realism is an international commodity but articulates that it has a Hispanic
birthplace, writing that, "Magical realism is a continuation of the romantic realist tradition of Spanish language
literature and its European counterparts."[45] Flores is not alone on this front; there is argument between those who
see magical realism as a Latin American invention and those who see it as the global product of a postmodern
world.[46] Irene Guenther concludes, "Conjecture aside, it is in Latin America that [magical realism] was primarily
seized by literary criticism and was, through translation and literary appropriation, transformed."[34] Magic realism
has taken on an internationalization: dozens of non-Hispanic writers are categorized as such, and many believe that it
truly is an international commodity.[47]
Postmodernism
Taking into account that, theoretically, magical realism was born in the 20th century, some have argued that
connecting it to postmodernism is a logical next step. To further connect the two concepts, there are descriptive
commonalities between the two that Belgian critic Theo D'haen addresses in his essay, "Magical Realism and
Postmodernism." While authors such as Günter Grass, Thomas Bernhard, Peter Handke, Italo Calvino, John Fowles,
Angela Carter, John Banville, Michel Tournier, Giannina Braschi, Willem Brakman and Louis Ferron might be
widely considered postmodernist, they can "just as easily be categorized...magic realist."[48] A list has been compiled
of characteristics one might typically attribute to postmodernism, but which also could describe literary magic
realism: "self-reflexiveness, metafiction, eclecticism, redundancy, multiplicity, discontinuity, intertextuality, parody,
the dissolution of character and narrative instance, the erasure of boundaries, and the destabilization of the
reader."[49] To further connect the two, magical realism and postmodernism share the themes of post-colonial
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Magic realism
discourse, in which jumps in time and focus cannot really be explained with scientific but rather with magical
reasoning; textualization (of the reader); and metafiction [more detail: under Themes and Qualities].
Concerning attitude toward audience, the two have, some argue, a lot in common. Magical realist works do not seek
to primarily satisfy a popular audience, but instead, a sophisticated audience that must be attuned to noticing textual
"subtleties."[50] While the postmodern writer condemns escapist literature (like fantasy, crime, ghost fiction), he/she
is inextricably related to it concerning readership. There are two modes in postmodern literature: one, commercially
successful pop fiction, and the other, philosophy, better suited to intellectuals. A singular reading of the first mode
will render a distorted or reductive understanding of the text. The fictitious reader—such as Aureliano from 100
Years of Solitude—is the hostage used to express the writer’s anxiety on this issue of who is reading the work and to
what ends, and of how the writer is forever reliant upon the needs and desires of readers (the market).[51] The magic
realist writer with difficulty must reach a balance between saleability and intellectual integrity. Wendy Faris, talking
about magic realism as a contemporary phenomenon that leaves modernism for postmodernism, says, "Magic realist
fictions do seem more youthful and popular than their modernist predecessors, in that they often (though not always)
cater with unidirectional story lines to our basic desire to hear what happens next. Thus they may be more clearly
designed for the entertainment of readers."[52]
Comparison with related genres
When attempting to define what something is, it is often helpful to define what something is not. It is also important
to note that many literary critics attempt to classify novels and literary works in only one genre, such as "romantic"
or "naturalist," not always taking into account that many works fall into multiple categories.[53] Much discussion is
cited from Maggie Ann Bowers' book Magic(al) Realism, wherein she attempts to delimit the terms magic and
magical realism by examining the relationships with other genres such as realism, surrealism, fantastic literature and
science fiction.
Realism
Realism is an attempt to create a depiction of actual life; a novel does not simply rely on what it presents but how it
presents it. In this way, a realist narrative acts as framework by which the reader constructs a world using the raw
materials of life. Understanding both realism and magical realism within the realm of a narrative mode is key to
understanding both terms. Magical realism "relies upon the presentation of real, imagined or magical elements as if
they were real. It relies upon realism, but only so that it can stretch what is acceptable as real to its limits."[54] As a
simple point of comparison, Roh's differentiation between expressionism and post-expressionism as described in
German Art in the 20th Century, may be applied to magic realism and realism. Realism pertains to the terms
"history," "mimetic," "familiarization," "empiricism/logic," "narration," "closure-ridden/reductive naturalism," and
"rationalization/cause and effect."[55] On the other hand, magic realism encompasses the terms "myth/legend,"
"fantastic/supplementation," "defamiliarization," "mysticism/magic," "meta-narration," "open-ended/expansive
romanticism," and "imagination/negative capability."[56]
Surrealism
Surrealism is often confused with magical realism as they both explore illogical or non-realist aspects of humanity
and existence. There is a strong historical connection between Franz Roh's concept of magic realism and surrealism,
as well as the resulting influence on Carpentier's marvelous reality; however, important differences remain.
Surrealism "is most distanced from magical realism [in that] the aspects that it explores are associated not with
material reality but with the imagination and the mind, and in particular it attempts to express the 'inner life' and
psychology of humans through art." It seeks to express the sub-conscious, unconscious, the repressed and
inexpressible. Magical realism, on the other hand, rarely presents the extraordinary in the form of a dream or a
psychological experience. "To do so," Bowers writes, "takes the magic of recognizable material reality and places it
into the little understood world of the imagination. The ordinariness of magical realism's magic relies on its accepted
82
Magic realism
and unquestioned position in tangible and material reality."[57]
Fantasy
Prominent English-language fantasy writers have said that "magic realism" is only another name for fantasy fiction.
Gene Wolfe said, "magic realism is fantasy written by people who speak Spanish,"[58] and Terry Pratchett said magic
realism "is like a polite way of saying you write fantasy."[59]
However, Amaryll Beatrice Chanady distinguishes magical realist literature from fantasy literature ("the fantastic")
based on differences between three shared dimensions: the use of antinomy (the simultaneous presence of two
conflicting codes), the inclusion of events that cannot be integrated into a logical framework, and the use of authorial
reticence. In fantasy, the presence of the supernatural code is perceived as problematic, something that draws special
attention—where in magical realism, the presence of the supernatural is accepted. In fantasy, authorial reticence
creates a disturbing effect on the reader, it works to integrate the supernatural into the natural framework in magical
realism. This integration is made possible in magical realism as the author presents the supernatural as being equally
valid to the natural. There is no hierarchy between the two codes.[60] The ghost of Melquíades in Márquez's One
Hundred Years of Solitude or the baby ghost in Toni Morrison's Beloved who visit or haunt the inhabitants of their
previous residence are both presented by the narrator as ordinary occurrences; the reader, therefore, accepts the
marvelous as normal and common.[61]
To Dr. Clark Zlotchew, the differentiating factor between the fantastic and magical realism is that in fantastic
literature, such as Kafka's story "The Metamorphosis," there is a hesitation experienced by the protagonist, implied
author or reader in deciding whether to attribute natural or supernatural causes to an unsettling event, or between
rational or irrational explanations.[62] Fantastic literature has also been defined as a piece of narrative in which there
is a constant faltering between belief and non-belief in the supernatural or extraordinary event.
In Leal's view, magical realism has a tropical (or llano [plains] or desert) context,[63] but he says that the fiction of
Julio Cortázar contains only "the fantastic," not magical realism.[64] In Leal's view, "In fantastic literature—in
Borges, for example—the writer creates new worlds, perhaps new planets. By contrast, writers like García Márquez,
who use magical realism, don't create new worlds, but suggest the magical in our world."[65] Even Cortázar's short
story "Casa Tomada," about a brother and sister whose house is taken over by someone or something mysterious, for
Leal is an example of the fantastic and not magical realism.[64]
Science fiction
While science fiction and magical realism both bend the notion of what is real, toy with human imagination, and are
forms of (often fantastical) fiction, they differ greatly. Bower's cites Aldous Huxley's Brave New World as a novel
that exemplifies the science fiction novel's requirement of a "rational, physical explanation for any unusual
occurrences." Huxley portrays a world where the population is highly controlled with mood enhancing drugs, which
are controlled by the government. In this world, there is no link between copulation and reproduction. Humans are
produced in giant test tubes, where chemical alterations during gestation determine their fates. Bowers argues that,
"The science fiction narrative's distinct difference from magical realism is that it is set in a world different from any
known reality and its realism resides in the fact that we can recognize it as a possibility for our future. Unlike
magical realism, it does not have a realistic setting that is recognizable in relation to any past or present reality."[66]
83
Magic realism
84
Major authors and works
Although critics and writers debate which authors or works fall within the magical realism genre, the following
authors represent the narrative mode. Franz Kafka, writing The Metamorphosis in 1912, might be considered one of
the seminal influences on the genre.[67] Within the Latin American world, the most iconic of magical realist novelist
is Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez, whose novel One Hundred Years of Solitude was an instant worldwide
success.
García Márquez confessed: "my most important problem was destroying the
line of demarcation that separates what seems real from what seems
fantastic."[68] Isabel Allende was the first Latin American woman writer
recognized outside the continent. Her most well-known novel, The House of
the Spirits, is arguably similar to García Márquez's style of magical realist
writing. Another notable novelist is Laura Esquivel, whose Like Water for
Chocolate tells the story of the domestic life of women living on the margins
of their families and society. The novel's protagonist, Tita, is kept from
happiness and marriage by her mother. "Her unrequited love and ostracism
from the family lead her to harness her extraordinary powers of imbuing her
emotions to the food she makes. In turn, people who eat her food enact her
emotions for her. For example, after eating a wedding cake Tita made while
suffering from a forbidden love, the guests all suffer from a wave of longing.
Plaque of Gabriel García Márquez, Paris
In the English speaking world, major authors include British Indian writer
Salman Rushdie, African American novelists Toni Morrison and Gloria Naylor, Latinos, as Ana Castillo, Rudolfo
Anaya, and Helena Maria Viramontes, Native American authors Louise Erdrich and Sherman Alexie; English author
Louis de Bernières and English feminist writer Angela Carter. Perhaps the best known is Rushdie, whose "language
form of magical realism straddles both the surrealist tradition of magic realism as it developed in Europe and the
mythic tradition of magical realism as it developed in Latin America."[8] Morrison's most notable work, Beloved,
tells the story of a mother who, haunted by the ghost of her child, learns to cope with memories of her traumatic
childhood as an abused slave and the burden of nurturing children into a harsh and brutal society.[8]
In Norway, the writers Erik Fosnes Hansen, Jan Kjærstad as well as the young novelist, Rune Salvesen, have marked
themselves as premier writers of magical realism, something which has ben seen as very un-Norwegian.
For a detailed list of authors and works considered magical realist please see Magic realism novels.
Visual art
Historical development
The painterly style began evolving as early as the first decade of the 20th century,[69] but 1925 was when magischer
realismus and neue sachlichkeit were officially recognized as major trends. This was the year that Franz Roh
published his book on the subject, Nach Expressionismus: Magischer Realismus: Probleme der neuesten
europäischen Malerei (translated as After Expressionism: Magical Realism: Problems of the Newest European
Painting) and Gustav Hartlaub curated the seminal exhibition on the theme, entitled simply Neue Sachlichkeit
(translated as New Objectivity), at the Kunsthalle Mannheim in Mannheim, Germany.[70] Irene Guenthe refers most
frequently to the New Objectivity, rather than magical realism; which is attributed to that New objectivity is practical
based, referential (to real practicing artists), while the magical realism is theoretical or critic's rhetoric. Eventually
under Massimo Bontempelli guidance, the term magic realism was fully embraced by the German as well as in
Italian practicing communities.[71]
Magic realism
New Objectivity saw an utter rejection of the preceding impressionist and expressionist movements, and Hartlaub
curated his exhibition under the guideline: only those, "who have remained true or have returned to a positive,
palpable reality,"[72] in order to reveal the truth of the times,"[73] would be included. The style was roughly divided
into two subcategories: conservative, (neo-)classicist painting, and generally left-wing, politically motivated
Verists.[73] The following quote by Hartlaub distinguishes the two, though mostly with reference to Germany;
however, one might apply the logic to all relevant European countries. "In the new art, he saw"[73]
a right, a left wing. One, conservative towards Classicism, taking roots in timelessness, wanting to
sanctify again the healthy, physically plastic in pure drawing after nature...after so much eccentricity and
chaos [a reference to the repercussions of World War I]... The other, the left, glaringly contemporary, far
less artistically faithful, rather born of the negation of art, seeking to expose the chaos, the true face of
our time, with an addiction to primitive fact-finding and nervous baring of the self... There is nothing
left but to affirm it [the new art], especially since it seems strong enough to raise new artistic
willpower.[74]
Both sides were seen all over Europe during the 1920s and 1930s, ranging from the Netherlands to Austria, France to
Russia, with Germany and Italy as centers of growth.[75] Indeed, Italian Giorgio de Chirico, producing works in the
late 1910s under the style arte metafisica (translated as Metaphysical art), is seen as a precursor and as having an
"influence...greater than any other painter on the artists of New Objectivity."[76][77]
Further afield, American painters were later (in the 1940s and 1950s, mostly) coined magical realists; a link between
these artists and the Neue Sachlichkeit of the 1920s was explicitly made in the New York Museum of Modern Art
exhibition, tellingly titled "American Realists and Magic Realists."[78] French magical realist Pierre Roy, who
worked and showed successfully in the US, is cited as having "helped spread Franz Roh's formulations" to the
United States.[79]
Magic realism that excludes the overtly fantastic
When art critic Franz Roh applied the term magic realism to visual art in 1925, he was designating a style of visual
art that brings extreme realism to the depiction of mundane subject matter, revealing an "interior" mystery, rather
than imposing external, overtly magical features onto this everyday reality. Roh explains,
We are offered a new style that is thoroughly of this world that celebrates the mundane. This new world
of objects is still alien to the current idea of Realism. It employs various techniques that endow all things
with a deeper meaning and reveal mysteries that always threaten the secure tranquility of simple and
ingenuous things.... it is a question of representing before our eyes, in an intuitive way, the fact, the
interior figure, of the exterior world.[80]
In painting, magical realism is a term often interchanged with post-expressionism, as Ríos also shows, for the very
title of Roh's 1925 essay was "Magical Realism:Post-Expressionism."[80] Indeed, as Dr. Lois Parkinson Zamora of
the University of Houston writes, "Roh, in his 1925 essay, described a group of painters whom we now categorize
generally as Post-Expressionists." [81]
85
Magic realism
86
Roh used this term to describe painting that signaled a return to
realism after expressionism's extravagances, which sought to
redesign objects to reveal the spirits of those objects. Magical
realism, according to Roh, instead faithfully portrays the exterior
of an object, and in doing so the spirit, or magic, of the object
reveals itself. One could relate this exterior magic all the way back
to the 15th century. Flemish painter Van Eyck (1395–1441)
highlights the complexity of a natural landscape by creating
illusions of continuous and unseen areas that recede into the
background, leaving it to the viewer's imagination to fill in those
gaps in the image: for instance, in a rolling landscape with river
and hills. The magic is contained in the viewer's interpretation of
those mysterious unseen or hidden parts of the image.[82] Other
important aspects of magical realist painting, according to Roh,
include:
• A return to ordinary subjects as opposed to fantastical ones.
Alexander Kanoldt, Still Life II 1922
• A juxtaposition of forward movement with a sense of distance,
as opposed to Expressionism's tendency to foreshorten the subject.
• A use of miniature details even in expansive paintings, such as large landscapes.
The pictorial ideals of Roh's original magic realism attracted new generations of artists through the latter years of the
20th century and beyond. In a 1991 New York Times review, critic Vivien Raynor remarked that "John Stuart Ingle
proves that Magic Realism lives" in his "virtuoso" still life watercolors.[83] Ingle's approach, as described in his own
words, reflects the early inspiration of the magic realism movement as described by Roh; that is, the aim is not to add
magical elements to a realistic painting, but to pursue a radically faithful rendering of reality; the "magic" effect on
the viewer comes from the intensity of that effort: "I don't want to make arbitrary changes in what I see to paint the
picture, I want to paint what is given. The whole idea is to take something that's given and explore that reality as
intensely as I can."[84][85]
Later development: magic realism that incorporates the fantastic
While Ingle represents a "magic
realism" that harks back to Roh's ideas,
the term "magic realism" in mid-20th
century visual art tends to refer to work
that incorporates overtly fantastic
elements, somewhat in the manner of
its literary counterpart.
Occupying an intermediate place in
this line of development, the work of
several European and American
painters whose most important work
Paul Cadmus, The Fleet's In! 1934
dates from the 1930s through to the
1950s,
including
Bettina
Shaw-Lawrence, Paul Cadmus, Ivan Albright, Philip Evergood, George Tooker, Ricco, even Andrew Wyeth, is
designated as "magic realist." This work departs sharply from Roh's definition, in that it (according to
artcyclopedia.com) "is anchored in everyday reality, but has overtones of fantasy or wonder."[86] In the work of
Magic realism
Cadmus, for example, the surreal atmosphere is sometimes achieved via stylized distortions or exaggerations that are
not realistic.
Recent "magic realism" has gone beyond mere "overtones" of the fantastic or surreal to depict a frankly magical
reality, with an increasingly tenuous anchoring in "everyday reality." Artists associated with this kind of magic
realism include Marcela Donoso[87][88][89][90][91] and Gregory Gillespie.[92][93][94]
Artists such as Peter Doig, Richard T. Scott and Will Teather have become associated with the term in the early 21st
century.
Painters
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Felice Casorati
Antonio Donghi
Marcela Donoso
Gian Paolo Dulbecco
Jared French
Edward Hopper
Gayane Khachaturian
Ricco
• Carel Willink
Film
Magical realism is not an officially recognized film category; it is a literary film genre. It is presented matter of
factly and occurs without explanation.[95] Critics have recognized magical realism features in many films by
applying the magical realism characteristics. Many films have magical realist narrative and events that contrast
between real and magical elements, or different modes of production. This device explores the reality of what
exists.[96] Fredrick Jameson, "On Magic Realism in Film" advances a hypothesis that magical realism in film is a
formal mode that is constitutionally depended on a type of historical raw material in which disjunction is structurally
present.[97] Like Water for Chocolate begins and ends with the first person narrative to establishing the magical
realism storytelling frame. Telling a story from a child point of view, the historical gaps and holes perspective, and
with cinematic color heightening the presence, are magical realist tools in films.[98] Other films that convey elements
of magic realism are Amélie, The Green Mile, Undertow and a number of films by Woody Allen, including Alice,
The Purple Rose of Cairo, and Midnight in Paris.
New media
In electronic literature, early author Michael Joyce's Afternoon, a story deploys the ambiguity and dubious narrator
characteristic of high modernism, along with some suspense and romance elements, in a story whose meaning could
change dramatically depending on the path taken through its lexias on each reading. More recently, Pamela Sacred
perpetuated the genre through La Voie de l'ange, a continuation of The Diary of Anne Frank written in French by a
fictional character from her Venetian Cell hypertext saga.
87
Magic realism
References
[1] Faris, Wendy B. and Lois Parkinson Zamora, Introduction to Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community, pp. 5
[2] Matthew C. Strecher, Magical Realism and the Search for Identity in the Fiction of Murakami Haruki, Journal of Japanese Studies, Volume
25, Number 2 (Summer 1999), pp. 263-298, at 267.
[3] Faris, Wendy B. and Lois Parkinson Zamora, Introduction to Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community, pp. 3-4
[4] Angel Flores, qtd. in , p. 142
[5] Guenther, Irene, "Magic Realism in the Weimar Republic" tackles German roots of the term, and how art is related to literature
[6] Franz Roh: Nach-Expressionismus. Magischer Realismus. Probleme der neuesten europäischen Malerei. Klinkhardt & Biermann, Leipzig
1925.
[7] Guenther, Irene, "Magic Realism in the Weimar Republic" from MR: Theory, History, Community, pp. 33
[8] Bowers, Maggie A. Magic(al) Realism. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.
[9] Guenther, Irene, "Magic Realism in the Weimar Republic" from MR: Theory, History, Community
[10] Carpentier, Alejo: "The Baroque and the Marvelous Real (1975)" from MR: Theory, History, Community
[11] Guenther, Irene, "Magic realism in the Weimar Republic" from MR: Theory, History, Community, pp. 61, wherein Guenther further backs
up this statement
[12] Flores, Angel. "Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction." Hispania 38.2 (1955): 187-192. Web. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/335812>.
[14] The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, 3rd ed., 2008
[15] Carpentier, Alejo, El Reino de este Mundo
[16] Carpentier, Alejo, "The baroque and the marvelous real" from MR: Theory History, Community
[17] Carpentier, Alejo, "The baroque and the marvelous real" from Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community, pp.107
[18] Daniel, Lee A. "Realismo Magico: True Realism with a Pinch of Magic." The South Central Bulletin. 42.4 (1982): 129-130. Web.
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/3188273>.
[22] Thiem, Jon, "The Textualization of the Reader in Magical Realist Fiction" from MR: Theory, History, Community
[23] Chanady, Amaryll Beatrice. Magical Realism and the Fantastic: Resolved versus Unresolved Antinomy. New York: Garland Publishing
Inc., 1985. pg. 16
[25] Chanady, Amaryll Beatrice. Magical Realism and the Fantastic: Resolved versus Unresolved Antinomy. New York: Garland Publishing
Inc., 1995. pg. 30
[26] Carpentier, Alejo, "The baroque and the marvelous real," from MR: Theory, History, Community
[27] http:/ / en. wikipedia. org/ w/ index. php?title=Magic_realism& action=editstate
[28] Carpentier, Alejo, "On the Marvelous Real in America," the Introduction to his novel, The Kingdom of this World
[29] García, Leal, p. 127–128
[31] D'haen, Theo, "Magical realism and postmodernism: decentering privileged centers" from MR: Theory, History, Community
[32] D'haen, Theo, "Magical realism and postmodernism: decentering privileged centers" from MR: Theory, History, Community, pp. 195
[33] Leal, Luis, "Magical Realism in Spanish America" from MR: Theory, History, Community, pp. 120
[35] Pietri, Arturo Uslar, Letras y hombres de Venezuela. Mexico City, Fondo de Cultura Economica: 1949. pp. 161-61
[36] Spindler, W. ‘Magic realism: a typology’, Forum for Modern Language Studies. (1993) Vol. xxxix No. 1
[37] http:/ / www. dspace. cam. ac. uk/ bitstream/ 1810/ 225960/ 3/ French,%20M. ,%20Jackson,%20S. %20Jokisuu,%20E.
%20(2010)%20'Diverse%20Engagement%20-%20Drawing%20in%20the%20Margins'%20online%20edition-3. pdf
[38] Liam Connell , “Discarding Magic Realism: Modernism, Anthropology, and Critical Practice,” in ARIEL, Vol. 29, No. 2, April, 1998, pp.
95-110.
[39] Zlotchew, Dr. Clark. Varieties of Magical Realism. New Jersey: Academic Press ENE, 2007.
[40] Zlotchew, Dr. Clark. Varieties of Magical Realism. New Jersey: Academic Press ENE, 2007. p. 15
[42] Leal, Luis, "Magical Realism in Spanish America" from MR: Theory, History, Community, pp. 122
[43] Juan Barroso VIII, Daniel, Lee A. "Realismo Magico: True Realism with a Pinch of Magic." The South Central Bulletin. 42.4 (1982):
129-130. Web. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3188273>.
[45] Flores, Angel, "Magical Realism in Spanish America" from MR: Theory, History, Community
88
Magic realism
[46] Faris, Wendy B. and Lois Parkinson Zamora, Introduction to MR: Theory, History, Community
[47] Faris, Wendy B. and Lois Parkinson Zamora, Introduction to MR: Theory, History, Community, pp. 4 and 8
[48] D'haen, Theo L., "Magical realism and postmodernism" from MR: Theory, History, Community, pp. 193
[49] D'haen, Theo L., "Magical realism and postmodernism" from MR: Theory, History, Community, pp. 192-3 [D'haen references many texts
that attest to these qualities]
[51] Thiem, Jon, "The textualization of the reader in magical realist fiction" from MR: Theory, History, Community
[52] Wendy Faris, "Scheherezade's Children: Magical Realism and Postmodern Fiction," from MR: Theory, History, Community, pp. 163
[54] Bowers, Maggie A. Magic(al) Realism, pp. 22. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.
[55] Simpkins, Scott. "Magical Strategies: The Supplement of Realism." Twentieth Century Literature 34.2 (1988): 140-154. Web.
[56] Simpkins, Scott. "Magical Strategies: The Supplement of Realism." Twentieth Century Literature 34.2 (1988): 140-154. Web.
[57] Bowers, Maggie A. Magic(al) Realism, pp. 22-24. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.
[60] Chanady, Amaryll Beatrice, Magical realism and the fantastic: Resolved versus unresolved antinomy. New York: Garland Publishing Inc.,
1985. pp. 30-31
[63] García, Leal, p. 90
[64] García, Leal, p. 93.
[65] García, Leal, p. 89.
[67] Gabriel García Márquez and Magic Realism (http:/ / www. danagioia. net/ essays/ emarquez. htm)
[68] Interview in Revista Primera Plana - Año V Buenos Aires, 20–26 June 1967 Nº 234, pages 52-55. I have not been able to get my hands on
the original material but it is quoted in (http:/ / www. illapel. net/ nzr_soledad. doc) as "Mi problema más importante era destruir la línea de
demarcación que separa lo que parece real de lo que parece fantástico. Porque en el mundo que trataba de evocar esa barrera no existía. Pero
necesitaba un tono convincente, que por su propio prestigio volviera verosímiles las cosas que menos lo parecían, y que lo hicieran sin
perturbar la unidad del relato" and this agrees well (minor textual variants) with the other quotations I have found in (http:/ / www.
territoriodigital. com/ nota. aspx?c=1048856235940364): "El problema más importante era destruir la línea de demarcación que separa lo que
parece real de lo que parece fantástico porque en el mundo que trataba de evocar, esa barrera no existía. Pero necesitaba un tono inocente, que
por su prestigio volviera verosímiles las cosas que menos lo parecían, y que lo hiciera sin perturbar la unidad del relato. También el lenguaje
era una dificultad de fondo, pues la verdad no parece verdad simplemente porque lo sea, sino por la forma en que se diga." Other quotations on
the Internet can be found in (http:/ / weblog. maimonides. edu/ gerontologia2007/ 2007/ 03/ los_80_anos_de_un_mago_de_las. html) and
(http:/ / jardinkiryesco. blogspot. com/ 2009/ 01/ el-coronel-no-tiene-quien-le-escriba. html). All of these quotations reinforce the rough
English translation of the first sentence given in the main text of this article. For those who wish to seek the original interview, the front cover
and table of contents are reproduced at (http:/ / www. magicasruinas. com. ar/ tapas/ piehist634. htm)
[69] "Austrian Alfred Kubin spent a lifetime wrestling with the uncanny,...[and] in 1909 [he] published Die andere Seite (The Other Side), a
novel illustrated with fifty-two drawings. In it, Kubin set out to explore the 'other side' of the visible world—the corruption, the evil, the rot, as
well as the power and mystery. The border between reality and dream remains consistently nebulous... in certain ways an important precursor
[to Magic Realism],...[he] exerted significant influence on subsequent German and Austrian literature." Guenther, Irene, "Magic realism in the
Weimar Republic" from MR: Theory, History, Community, pp. 57.
[72] Hartlaub, Gustav, "Werbendes Rundschreiben"
[73] Guenther, Irene, "Magic realism in the Weimar Republic" from MR: Theory, History, Community, pp. 41
[74] Westheim, Paul, "Ein neuer Naturalismus?? Eine Rundfrage des Kunstblatts" in Das Kunstblatt 9 (1922)
[75] Guenther, Irene, "Magic realism in the Weimar Republic" from MR: Theory, History, Community, pp. 41-45
[77] Further, see Wieland Schmied, "Neue Sachlichkeit and German Realism of the Twenties" in Louise Lincoln, ed., German Realism of the
Twenties: The Artist as Social Critic. Minneapolis: Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1980, pp.42
[78] Dorothy C. Miller and Alfred Barr, eds., American Realists and Magic Realists. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1943
[80] (http:/ / www. public. asu. edu/ ~aarios/ resourcebank/ definitions/ )
[81] http:/ / www. uh. edu/ ~englmi/ ObjectsAndSeeing_intro. html
[82] Crawford, Katherine. "Recognizing Van Eyck: Magical Realism in Landscape Painting." Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin. 91. 386/387
(1998): 7-23. Web. http:/ / www. jstor. org/ stable/ 3795460
[84] (http:/ / www. askart. com/ AskART/ artists/ biography. aspx?searchtype=BIO& artist=71244)
[85] (http:/ / www. johnsandford. org/ other1. html)
89
Magic realism
[86] (http:/ / www. artcyclopedia. com/ history/ magic-realism. html)
[87] Elga Perez-Laborde:"Marcela Donoso," jornal do Brasilia, 10/10/1999
[88] Elga Perez-Laborde:"Prologo,"Iconografía de Mitos y Leyendas, Marcela Donoso, ISBN 956-291-592-1 12/2002
[89] "with an impressive chromatic delivery, images come immersed in such a magic realism full of symbols," El Mercurio - Chile, 06/22/1998
[90] Dr. Antonio Fernandez, Director of the Art Museum of Universidad de Concepción:"I was impressed by her original iconographic creativity,
that in a way very close to magic realism, achieves to emphasize with precision the subjects specific to each folkloric tradition, local or
regional," Chile, 29/12/1997
[91] http:/ / www. marceladonoso. cl
[93] (http:/ / www. artcyclopedia. com/ artists/ gillespie_gregory. html)
External links
• Ten Dreams Galleries - A comprehensive discussion of the historical development of Magic Realism in painting
(http://www.tendreams.org/magic-art.htm)
• The Magic Realism Time Capsule (http://www.monograffi.com/magic.htm)
• Video montage of George Tooker's "The Subway," which recreates the mood via pictorial editing and sound
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hM-3jVYVecg) on YouTube
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Postmodern literature Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=555223074 Contributors: 2607:F140:400:2178:FD1B:96B9:339E:6098, Abaca, Abdul O'Shaughnessy, Aeusoes1,
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Literature for the 21st Century

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