Hello once again. I hope everyone is getting along well with the 'new normal' which hopefully will only be 'normal' for just a very short time longer. One advantage, if there are any advantages to being confined to one's home, which I have discovered is a sharp uptick in my thinking, thought process and writing. This can probably be attributed to the fact that I live alone and, consequentially have no one to converse with, beyond of course the TV. This has led to finishing up the editing on my friend KJ McPike's forthcoming release, the third in her excellent Souls Unearthed/Astralis series; continuing work on my own series, Planet Alt-Sete-Nine: Princess Haylee, and what I present to you here, part three of our look at Modernism, Postmodernism and what I have dubbed New Millennialism, the newest wave in modern literature. You can catch up by clicking the links: Part One and Part Two. Today we take a quick look at Postmodernism. Enjoy and feel free to comment.
Postmodernism
After
fifty plus years of literary reflections on how it is and how we’d
like it to be, writers and other thinkers decided to take a peek behind the
modernist’s mirror. In doing so, they inadvertently, or purposely, warped the generally
accepted visions and assumptions of traditional rationality. A stream of consciousness
view of what if was born, challenging universally held and socially
conditioned notions of objectivity. Post modernistic thinking embraced movements
as varied as literature, art, music, science, and feminism, led by philosophers
such as Jean-Francois Lyotard, Jacques Derrida, and Fredric Jamerson.
Notable examples of postmodernism include the art of
Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Tracy Emin, and Jeff Koons, and the architectural
works of Charles Moore, Michael Graves, and Philip Johnson. Noted architect Frank
Lloyd Wright, who worked during the modernism period, is often considered an early
influence of the postmodern period.
Perhaps
the best way to purposely explain and showcase the postmodern movement is to
recall the periods. The ‘50s: the beat generation, rock n roll and a movement
away from traditional values. The ‘60s: Summer of Love, Woodstock, the Beatles,
civil rights, anti-war demonstrations. The ‘70s: women’s lib, revolutions in
black music and culture. The ‘80s: technology and the ‘me’ generation. All the
above can be attributed as both influences and products of the
postmodern movement.
On the
literary scene, Kurt Vonnegut stands out as possibly the poster child of
postmodernism. A satirist and outspoken voice of counterculture in the US,
Vonnegut’s works, including Slaughterhouse Five (1969) and Breakfast
Of Champions (1973) read like textbooks on themes and techniques of postmodern
literature.
Other
outstanding examples of postmodernism:
Vladimir
Nabokov Lolita (1955)
Chuck
Palahniuk Fight
Club (1996)
Philip K
Dick The
Man In The High Castle (1962)
Shelley Jackson Half Life (2006)
Stephen
King Hearts
In Atlantis (1999)
Jorge Luis
Borges Labyrinths (1962/64/70/83)
Tim
Robbins Even
Cowgirls Get The Blues (1976)
Haruki
Murakami Hard-Boiled
Wonderland And The
End
Of The World (1985)
Joan
Didion Democracy (1984)
One of the
largest and most popular outgrowths of postmodernism is the advent of dystopian
literature: the destruction and re-ordering of society. Excellent early examples include George Orwell’s 1984 (1949) and Aldous
Huxley’s Brave New World (1958). The genre has become a popular touch stone of 21st
century films.
Keep watch here for updates on the release of KJ's as well as my own latest books, and of course part four of this series when we delve into exactly what is New Millennialism.
Peace,
BJ
