GENERAL ESSAY - BOOK REVIEWS - GROUP 1

'Kafka on the Shore' by Haruki Murakami - Postmodernism

Aarthi T - 2113312005001

Postmodernism as a philosophical basis for art and literature has a few defining characteristics. Postmodernists deny the existence of a single objective reality or truth. Reality is viewed as much more subjective, and as a sort of "cultural construct." The idea is that reality does not exist objectively, as something mirrored in human perception, but that reality is shaped by the way the human mind attempts to and is conditioned to understand it. As such, postmodernists reject the ideas of the Enlightenment that place faith in science and technology. 

Postmodernists view language as something that is ever-shifting and has a range of nuance and meaning, as opposed to something used to reflect or describe reality. By the same token, postmodernism rejects the idea that the world can be explained by scientific theories or thought, insisting that this creates "totalized" systems of thought that silence any other ideas or ways of thinking.

Postmodernism grew out of the early-20th-century modernist movement, which sought to break away from the traditional ways of creating art and viewing the world in order to create entirely new forms of expression. While modernism was very much a reaction to the devastation of World War I, postmodernism similarly developed in the aftermath of World War II, though it gained much of its momentum in the latter part of the 20th century. 

Postmodern literature reflects an interest in investigating or deconstructing the nature of different realities. Postmodernist works have a tendency toward fragmentation, concentration on atmosphere and feeling as opposed to clear reality, interest in "verbal playfulness," and frequent nonlinear narrative. 

In Japan, writers like Haruki Murakami and Yasuo Tanaka began to make a name for themselves in the world of postmodern literature during the 1980s and 90s. Postmodernism in Japanese literature seeks to find a meeting place between being grounded in Japanese culture and incorporating the international culture that has also become such a vital part of contemporary Japan. As many influential postwar writers such as Yukio Mishima, Yasunari Kawabata, and Kobo Abe passed from the scene, a wave of postmodern writers like Haruki Murakami emerged with new ideas about the path of Japanese literature. 

Somehow, Crystal (1980), a novel by Yasuo Tanaka, is considered by many Japanese critics to be the definitive example of the Japanese postmodernist novel. It deals with postmodern ideas of identity in a modern consumer-driven society, examining this idea in a nonlogical way in a reality created by the characters' feelings and the atmosphere of the scenes.

  The intertextualities in Kafka on the Shore make the novel a prime example of postmodernism in literature in which individual works are not isolated creations but are interwoven with the fabric of other texts. Kafka on the Shore interweaves between two parallel plots to tell the story of Kafka Tamura, a 15-year-old boy who runs away from home to escape an Oedipal curse and Nakata, an elderly Japanese man who has an strange ability to speak to cats due to a childhood accident and who spends his days locating and returning lost cats to their owners. Although the two characters seem to be on their own journeys, their paths inevitably intertwine towards the end of the novel for an intriguing and hyper-surrealist ending.

Murakami uses the blend of popular culture, magic realism, mundane events and potent sexuality to build a fantastical world where his characters experience love, loss, melancholy and joy. Kafka’s journey represents both the freedom of escapism and the overwhelming sense of sadness from his solitude, he is no ordinary 15-year-old boy and his experiences are punctured by the discovery of love, loss, longing, and uncertainty of himself. His relationship with both the librarian Oshima and the elusive Miss Saeki dominate his journey. 

On the other hand, Nakata is an elderly man in the twilight years of his life who seemingly lived a life without purpose or self-determination. Due to his inability to read or write, he is shunned by his family and society but his special ability to talk to cats leads him on an adventure involving murder, unusual things falling from the sky, and obtaining a stone to open the pathway to an alternate reality. Kafka on the Shore explores our intrinsic link to fate and the consequences of loss from dislocation. He is able to infuse some deeply thought-provoking and paradoxical commentary in subplots that appear to be trivial and nonsensical, for example, “memories warm you up from the inside, but they also tear you apart”.

'We Should All Be Feminists' - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Feminism

Abitha S - 2113312005002

Feminism is an interdisciplinary approach to issues of equality and equity based on gender, gender expression, gender identity, sex, and sexuality as understood through social theories and political activism.A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) by Mary Wollstonecraft, is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy.  The book ‘We Should All Be Feminists’ can be read as a primary source to understand feminism. While the author shares her experiences of facing gender-based discrimination and those of her friends and family in Nigeria, the issues presented in the book are still universal , people across the world can relate to them. The two aspects of the books that  focused on the stereotypical idea of feminism and the word feminist; and the process of normalisation Adichie  analyses how the idea of feminism and the word feminist are loaded with stereotypes. One of which is how feminism is often considered as western concept — an idea that tries to hypnotize females to exert power over males. One has to understand that feminism is about the social, economic and political equality of the sexes. It demands an annihilation of the gender hierarchy and not women’s rule over men, that is often misinterpreted. Feminism demands an annihilation of the gender hierarchy and not women’s rule over men as is often misinterpreted. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie focuses on in this personal essay is the usage of the term ‘feminism’. Some people oppose the idea of feminism by calling themselves ‘humanist’.  “Feminism is, part of human rights in general – but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender”. The term feminism helps us to identify that for centuries, a specific group, i.e., women were being othered and oppressed. The word feminist invariably is weighed down with negative interpretations. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie shared a incident when she was called a feminist in her childhood by her male best friend. “It was not a compliment. I could tell from his tone – the same tone with which a person would say, ‘You’re a supporter of terrorism.’” The assumption here is that, Adichie states, feminists are the women who hate men, the idea of marriage, their culture and jokes.

The fact remains, however, that feminists question the patriarchal culture and rituals attached to marriage. Feminists believe in the freedom of choice – which can be extended to marriage, to have children or not, to wear makeup or not, etc. Feminists believe in the freedom of choice to get married or not, to have children or not, and to wear makeup or not. Adichie lives her principles and her story every day through the way she dresses up, carries herself and tells her stories She encourages us to dream of a world that is just and that has men and women who are happier because they are true to themselves. thus we should all be feminists deeply explores the idea of feminism and other aspects of world feminists.

 Post-colonial revisionist study on the novel, “The wide sargasso sea” by Jean Rhys - Postcolonialism

Anandha Bairavi D - 2113312005003

The appalling encounter of an lonely creole woman and an unnamed English man in a barren marriage incites the same pitiful misfortunes of the colonised and the imperialist, brilliantly portioned by the novelist Jean Rhys. As a British novelist from the Dominican origin, she invokes the voices of the ‘Other’ in the novel when her deliberate effort to portray the novel’s protagonist Antoinette as financially, emotionally, psychologically and sexually assaulted by the sexist, classist, racist character later known to be Mr. Rochester. The author undertakes the role of a post-colonial critic wherefore she identifies the forgotten voices and brings them to life by developing new perspectives. This well-known critic calls the novel as “Blistering master piece”; ‘ a racial and sexual exploitation of women, a response and prequel to Jane Eyre- a classic Victorian novel by charlotte Bronte’.

After the evolvement of post-modernism, as in literary and non-literary aspects, there was an vast dispelling of meta-narratives, a creative entity that emphasized on building up as many perspectives. Allowing such tradition gave way to post-colonialism which help the important dogma  to disrupt, disassemble or deconstruct the kind of logic, and the ideologies of the west. The second wave post-colonial writers were as well keen for “the specific purpose of bringing out the voices of the periphery to the mainstream” as convened by Bill Ashcroft. 

Franz fanon, was the first psychiatrist from Martinique who took the first step to find the voice, identity and reclamation of the past. Edward said later wrote about ‘Eurocentric universalism’ that brings out the western world view as the predominant one. Homi baba, Gayathri Spivak are other such critics who helped to develop this post-colonial exercise in academic fields. Peter Barry , the literary icon in anthologizing academic theories, features particular traits of an post-colonial text which are, majorly to set ‘the cultural differences in literary text and diversity, to celebrate hybridity and cultural hybridity and cultural polyvalency’. He adds to that they develop a perspective to voice out the other and states them as sources of energy and potential change. It rejects Eurocentric universalism as well. This revisionist text that subverted the universal idea of inferior woman gas-lighted by the aggressive male character, the text that shows the native ‘coloured’ people with adapted stereotypes and particular distaste towards them- essentially removes the existing notions and renews them with new-found resistance against these repression and condemns the ‘othering’.

Though this work is taken as a creative reprimand to the naturalised racism, classism in the novel, according to Gayathri Spivak in “Three women’s text and a critique of imperialism”, the critic states that Jean Rhys has herself marginalised the black community by not giving them individual differences but as a masses of unreliable mob prone to suppression and sexual abuse.

Said highlights in his monumental text, ‘orientalism’, that the occident( centre) saw the orient as a ‘sort of surrogate and underground ‘self’ who mystical, seductive and exotic. This resembles the same lens with which, Rochester viewed Antoinette. He criticize her as ‘drunken lying lunatic who’s gone her mother’s ways’. This madness explicates the barbaric notion of the orient about the East. Rochester also calls the island as ‘Green menace’ which lies apart from his understanding .The British literary critic accounts that there is an evident case of ‘classist hegemony’ and ‘Victorian paternalism’. Paternalism can be explained as attitude or practise, understood as an infringement on personal freedom and the autonomy of a person with a  beneficent or protective intent. These domination of the natives or the third world, forcibly supressed is parodied in the novel by critically portraying the two characters, Rochester and Antoinette. 

Antoinette gradual mental decline reaches its destiny towards death. She is drowned in isolation, deteriorated through the uprootedness when she is forced to move away from her homeland to England which she recalls as ‘cold and not belonging’. She says ‘she climbs up the stairs, at the top’, where her incline towards total destruction is foreshadowed. Her identity constantly devoured by the gaslighting of her sadist oppressor remarks the hybridised society where the inferior culture is overthrown, trivialised, criticized by the hegemonic oppressor. The derangement od her mind and soul sinking is hinted through the title which says ‘the wide sargasso sea’, the sea that contains sargassum seaweed which traps the passer-by ships and drowns them in their blue water. It is also interesting to note that the sargasso sea is surrounded by four currents and has no land boundaries, this constructs the identity crisis of Antoinette who finds it hard to belong to any of society either black or white as she is a creole. And the four currents from the ocean gyre or strong winds resembling the internal instinctual overbearing emotions that pushes her into that deadly dream which made her to light up the house of Rochester in Thornfield and seeks her liberation from isolation.

'Circe' by Madeline Miller and Female Rage as a Tool of Feminist Revisionism - Feminism

Anulekha M - 2113312005005

‘Circe’ is the New York Times bestselling author Madeline Miller’s sophomore novel and a retelling of Circe - a witch who appears repeatedly in multiple greek myths turning Odysseus’ men into pigs in Homer’s Odyssey and Scylla into a monster in Ovid’s Metamorphoses among many others. However, in the original myths, Circe is always a passive secondary character with no depth or complexity or reasoning explaining her penchant for monstrous transformations. Miller expands the idea of this woman and presents her as a fully formed person. In miller’s version, her destructiveness and callous use of power for selfish gain is complicated by her representation as a naive, trusting, kind nymph in the beginning and her eventual character arc turning her into the angry, fiercely protective, intensely powerful witch or “pharmakis” (Miller 70) that we all know.

To analyse the anger so representative of Circe and its broader feminist connotations, the anger must have implications wider than the individual self. This is accurate in the case of this novel. The identity of Circe as a ‘nymph’ in the hierarchical structure of the immortal Gods of the Titans proves to be the first case that can explain the reasons for her eventual anger. “When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist. They called me nymph, assuming I would be like my mother and aunts and thousand cousins. Least of the lesser goddesses, our powers were so modest they could scarcely ensure our eternities.” (Miller 5) “That word, nymph, paced out the length and breadth of our futures. In our language, it means not just goddess, but bride.” (Miller 5). Immediately at birth, Circe’s status as a nymph puts her in a place of active sexual exploitation as it is widely perceived that a nymph is powerless and whose chief identity is of a ‘bride’, effectively belonging to a man in every sense of the word. This creates a false consciousness in the nymphs that there is a possibility of staying safe and feeling accepted and belonging in a traditionally patriarchal system, and for it to happen, they should exploit their femininity to seduce men into taking them as wives. This is embodied in Circe’s mother Perse (Miller 6), her sister Pasiphae (Miller 32) and the nymph Scylla (Miller 55). Circe, however, possesses characteristics that make her unable to conform to the feminine standards of her society. This includes mainly her human sounding voice that is so different from what is considered normal among the immortals. “Her eyes are yellow as piss. Her voice is screechy as an owl. She is called Hawk, but she should be called Goat for her ugliness.” (Miller 11). Her physical and physiological differences that positions her outside of the accepted notions of femininity makes her ‘Abject’.

‘Abjection’ is a theory developed by Bulgarian-French Philosopher and literary critic Julia Kristeva in her work ‘Powers of Horror’. According to Kristeva, ‘Abjection’ is the human reaction to a potential destruction of meaning caused by the distinction between the self and the other or the subject and the object (Kristeva 2). With respect to Circe, however, the Abject also takes the connotation of threatening the order of the system. “It is thus not lack of cleanliness or health that causes abjection but what disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules. The in-between, the ambiguous, the composite” (Kristeva 4). In this case, Circe existing outside the patriarchal definition of femininity threatens the destruction of order and control of the said system, thus making her abject. Miller also said in an interview with New York Times that “Circe as a character is the embodiment of male anxiety about female power,” Ms. Miller said... “Of course she has to be vanquished.”” (nytimes.com) indicating that the abject nature is intentional. Circe’s abject status is also proven when her father, Helios, gives the reason for her exile: “...except for Circe. You were all here when she confessed that she sought her powers openly. She had been warned to stay away, yet she disobeyed.” My grandmother’s face, cold in her ivory-carved chair. “She defied my commands and contradicted my authority. She has turned her poisons against her own kind and committed other treacheries as well.” The white sear of his gaze landed on me. “She is a disgrace to our name. An ingrate to the care we have shown her. It is agreed with Zeus that for this she must be punished. She is exiled to a deserted island where she can do no more harm. She leaves tomorrow.”” Her banishment is not necessarily for turning Scylla into a monster but for seeking power intentionally and disobeying the command of her father and a God, thereby breaking a law. Kristeva expands the idea of Abjection by saying that it can also indicate the fragility of law: “Any crime, because it draws attention to the fragility of the law, is abject, but premeditated crime, cunning murder, hypocritical revenge are even more so because they heighten the display of such fragility. He who denies morality is not abject; there can be grandeur in amorality and even in crime that flaunts its disrespect for the law-rebellious, liberating, and suicidal crime. Abjection, on the other hand, is immoral, sinister, scheming, and shady: a terror that disassembles, a hatred that smiles, a passion that uses the body for barter instead of inflaming it, a debtor who sells you up, a friend who stabs you...” (Kristeva 4)

Circe’s anger stems primarily from her abject status and the resulting abuse, exploitation and alienation from everyone around her including her family and the mortal man she loves, Glaucos (Miller 57). The first instance of her expression of rage is at the helplessness she feels when she is unable to use the pharmaka to transform Glaucos which then becomes the fuel for her first magical transformation of him from a mortal fisherman to a Sea God. “I had failed. Aeëtes had been wrong, there were no herbs of power, and Glaucos would be lost to me forever, his sweet, perishing beauty withered into earth. Overhead, my father slipped along his track. Those soft, foolish flowers bobbed around us on their stems. I hated them. I seized a handful and ripped it up by the roots. I tore the petals. I broke the stems to pieces. The damp shreds stuck to my hands, and the sap bled across my skin. The scent rose raw and wild, acetic as old wine. I tore up another handful, my hands sticky and hot. In my ears was a dark humming, like a hive. It is hard to describe what happened next. A knowledge woke in the depths of my blood. It whispered: that the strength of those flowers lay in their sap, which could transform any creature to its truest self.” (Miller 51) It is when she is disillusioned about her own powerlessness and lets herself feel her true emotions of rage that exist outside of the socially accepted ones, that she is, ironically, able to experience her power for the first time. “Circe is able to use nature to alter Glaucos, making him into an immortal by channelling her anger at her own body’s initial failure to do so, both literally and figuratively in the metaphor of the flowers. She is unsuccessful when she just assumes the body of the flowers, and her body in turn, will be able to grant her desires, but when she leans in and feels her fury, knowledge of how to use her magic ignites in mind and she is able to make her body respond, generating new power. The knowledge comes from inside of her own self, innate and feminine, this certainty of how to use these herbs not for magic generally, but specifically to transform. Out of her body’s visceral reaction to not being powerful enough, her own power actually becomes manifested.” (Laseter 12)

Disillusionment is another common precursor to the inception of Circe’s rage. In a conversation with Hermes, her lover and reluctant confidant in the novel, about Gods sending their unruly daughters to Circe’s exiled island Aiaia, she is disillusioned about the existence or lack thereof of ‘good people’ within a corrupt system. ““Please,” I said. “I do not want them here, truly. I am not being funny.” “No,” he said, “you are not. You are being very dull. Use your imagination, they must be good for something. Take them to your bed.” “That is absurd,” I said. “They would run screaming.” “Nymphs always do,” he said. “But I’ll tell you a secret: they are terrible at getting away.” At a feast on Olympus such a jest would have been followed by a roar of laughter. Hermes waited now, grinning like a goat. But all I felt was a white, cold rage. “I am finished with you,” I said. “I have been finished a long time. Let me not see you again.”” (Miller 186) In this instance, her rage is fueled by the realisation that even if Hermes treats her fairly, it is not because of a supposed respect for her personhood but as a novelty of being with an exiled nymph. When in reality, his perception of nymphs in general is still extremely objectifying and misogynistic. He is willing to treat Circe with respect and kindness insofar as she continues to remain challenging and entertaining to him. This reiterates the uneven power imbalance between a man and a woman, a nymph and an Olympian regardless of the power she possesses and the relationship they have. There are two important instances of rage that define Circe as a character and redefines it, revisioning the original Greek myth. The first instance is that of Circe transforming Scylla into a monster. In the original myth from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Circe turns Scylla into a monster as a consequence of Glaucos rejecting her advances. This is almost the exact same premise in Miller’s version. However, it shifts the relationship and dynamics of Circe and Scylla from passive and unrelated to active and ripe with historical unresolved tension with Scylla bullying Circe along with Pasiphae. It is also interesting how Circe, in retrospect, wants Glaucos to want Scylla despite her current appearance (Miller 62). “But naming her monster admits to a sense of power as a woman, as someone who can disrupt Circe’s desires for her own motivations. This is a far more complex picture of Scylla and of Circe than Ovid paints.

For Ovid, Scylla exists just to say yes or no to Glaucos - Circe and Scylla do not interact in any real way. Scylla cannot be transformed into a monster in her same body because she exists only as an object of desire, not anyone with real motivations of her own. She has to be made into a monster, thereby developing the theme of transformation. In Miller’s rendition, this is a personal slight and makes Scylla a villain to Circe directly, not just as the one Glaucos happened upon but as one who did intentionally seduce him away from Circe.” (Laseter 29) Complicating Circe's morality and her monstrous intentions shapes her into a fully formed character as it adds to her layered personhood. In this particular instance, it also helped her come to the realisation of the corrupting nature of power in the patriarchal system that rewards men’s perception of women as objects who exist only for their pleasure and to improve their social mobility. This in retrospect, fills her with guilt, another complex emotion that shapes her decisions henceforth but also lets her reevaluate her rashness and the futility behind punishing Scylla who acted the way she did only to assimilate in the patriarchal system instead of directing her anger towards the system itself. This is a crucial part of the anger explored in this novel. Even during moments when Circe is hypercritical of the flaws and exploitation of the system, she never transcends it or lets her anger destruct the system itself. Her anger only ever lets her regain her voice and agency within the said system. This is fully explored in the part which Circe is well known for: turning men into pigs. In Odyssey, this instance is framed as just another obstacle for Odysseus to cross to get back to his homeland. We are not given any look into the motivations behind Circe turning men into swines. Miller gives it the necessary depth by making it an act fueled by the rage resulting from the most common, uniquely feminine trauma: rape.

Circe is raped by sailors she hosted after assuming that they are harmless. She ruminates about her assault like this: “I remember what I thought, bare against the grinding stone: I am only a nymph after all, for nothing is more common among us than this.” (Miller 193) This underestimation of men’s position of power in a fundamentally patriarchal society led to them sexually exploiting her without remorse. This disillusioned her to the reality of her existence being threatened regardless of her power, ability, social status or isolation. This made her pursue an almost manic transformation of her rapists (and all other potential rapists) who perceive a woman as an object solely existing for their pleasure into what can be argued as their truest form. “Miller gives her rationale, justifies the way Circe tricks men and ends their lives, making the argument that the world is actually a better place when Circe transforms them into their piggish realities” (Laseter 50). Swine, historically, has the connotations of blind hunger and lust. This also aligns with the essence of transformation that is consistent with what we have seen of Circe’s magic. “She reveals the all consuming anger she has towards men and the oppressive patriarchal systems that perpetuate masculine assumptions of ownership of female bodies. Her magic, instead of being liberating and centred around her, stays centred around men’s actions” (Laseter 50) This version of representing the ‘abject woman’ with monstrous qualities to explore the oppressive nature of the patriarchal system by letting the female characters exist in the boundaries of what is socially acceptable - freely committing bodily transformations, in this case, is a very common trope used in horror movies as a feminist exploration of the monster. ‘The Monstrous Feminine’, a theory developed and explored by Barbara Creed in her essay “Horror and the monstrous feminine: an Imaginary Abjection” posits the female characters in horror movies in an abject status with their abjection being both the source of fear for the patriarchy and a subversion of the rigid expectations of femininity. She says: “But the feminine is not a monstrous sign per se; rather, it is constructed as such within a patriarchal discourse that reveals a great deal about male desires and fears but tells us nothing about feminine desire in relation to the horrific.” (Creed 65).

Circe can also be analysed with this theoretical framework as her abjection germinated her anger and her isolation which are used in the novel to revise the Greek myth and turn her into a fully realised feminist portrayal. It can be argued that Circe as a character but most importantly, the narrative of the novel embracing her anger is the main feminist act of revisionism. Female rage as a reactionary emotion to the violence committed to them creates agency and gives voice to the silenced, thereby giving power to an emotion that is usually vilified and demonised by the patriarchy. This exploration of mythical monstrous women embracing rage as a naturalised and reified part of their self is popularly known as ‘The Medusa Trope’. “Embracing the Medusa trope… includes expressing one’s rage, identifying oneself as angry, refusing to give up one’s anger in order to appease misogynists or silence racists, and being a danger to oppression by refusing to give in to its demands and perceptions of women. In this view, a person acknowledges and calls out moral wrongdoing enacted on women while refusing to be vilified by such wrongdoing. In embracing the Medusa trope, women and girls can also recognize their power to resist domination and therefore embrace the danger they pose to it.” (Cherry 229) Like how Rich concludes, the act of conscious revisionism fully charged with rage is “the work cut out” for female authors (Rich 25). This is the first step in analysing, deconstructing and criticising the rules, roles and conventions created by the patriarchal literary history for a feminist take on them thereby creating a space for the female literary tradition to evolve beyond the anger and victimisation at some point. Miller’s Circe is an angry retelling. The rage explored and embraced by the narrative therefore, successfully acts as a tool of feminist revisionism.

Works Cited

Creed, Barbara. “Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine: An Imaginary Abjection.” Screen, vol. 27, no. 1, Oxford UP (OUP), Jan. 1986, pp. 44–71. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/27.1.44. Laseter, Sydney. Limited to the Body: Madeline Miller’s Circe as a Feminist Revisionist Myth. Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2020. Linderman, Deborah, et al. 

“Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection.” SubStance, vol. 13, no. 3/4, Project Muse, 1984, p. 140. https://doi.org/10.2307/3684782. 

Miller, Madeline. Circe. Little, Brown, 2020. 

Nytimes.com 6Apr.2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/04/06/books/madeline-miller-circe-novel.html. 

Rich, Adrienne. “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision.” College English, vol. 34, no. 1, JSTOR, Oct. 1972, p. 18. https://doi.org/10.2307/375215. 

Shew, Melissa, and Kimberly Garchar. Philosophy for Girls: An Invitation to the Life of Thought. 1st ed., Oxford UP, 2020.

'POSTMODERNISM' by Christopher Butler - Postmodernism

Anushiya Mary Y - 2113312005006

postmodernist literature and many of the authors that Butler mentions specifically, he never even tells us what postmodern literature is apart from contrasting it to a ridiculous definition on realism where the author portrays the world as it really is. Butler even states that liberal realism is the most useful form of literature, whatever that is.

2. I'm also not a huge fan of postmodernist art, but it has been useful in helping us question and try to come to grips with exactly what art is. You would think that Butler would mention that a time or two. Also, his main criticism is that postmodernist art is always in danger of re-enforcing the thing it is criticizing, which is a danger of all art as far as I can tell, and especially satire.

3. He spends more time on Foucault than anybody, never mentioning that Foucault rejected the label postmodernist. So basically the guy he spends the most time on said he wasn't a postmodernist, the authors he mentions he admits aren't completely postmodernists and then he harps about Derrida who was a post-structuralist, which is its own thing.

4. I have never met a person I consider to be a true relativist. Yet, the argument against postmodernists is always that they are relativists. As far as I can tell, the people that are labeled postmodernists never claim that truth is relative or that there is no objective reality, only express skepticism that the systems that people currently claim deliver this to us actually do so. What is funny about this is that a second later we usually hear how postmodernists are attacking the objective nature of the systems white men love best by bringing gender and race into everything.

5. Speaking of which, if you don't think history is merely a narrative designed to portray events in a certain light based on the values of the current society, then I don't know what to say. Just look at how Native Americans were portrayed, the myths about them, and how these myths are now being questioned. Sure, laypeople often distort history the most but historians and scientists have gotten in on the act quite a bit.

6. Speaking of criticisms of science, critics of postmodernists love to demonize them for daring to criticize science. Trouble is, they either hold up the worst examples of things so-called postmodernists have claimed, or do a Noam Chomsky and claim that postmodernists are obviously wrong because they cannot prove things by the standards of the systems they are criticizing in the first place. (The flaw in this logic should be obvious, but Chomsky is oblivious to it, as are most people.)

Paul Feyerbend is the best so-called postmodernist critic of science, and he questions the idea that science is a single method, that it portrays an objective reality, that its assumptions should be taken as proven because of science's success, that scientific revolutions proceed rationally, etc. etc. and gives detailed arguments to back them up. Number of times he or any of his arguments are mentioned in this book

Postmodernism was born after the Second World War and became fashionable in the 1960’s when many of its proponents, Derrida, Foucault, Beckett et al, were at their height. However, its maxims have permeated society and still enter the conversation be it in literature, politics, gender, race, history, architecture, music or art.

Postmodernism seems to have emerged as an antidote to mainstream Anglo-American liberal philosophical thought that was deemed to be accessible to all in an “ordinary language” with maximum clarity. The postmodernist attitude was therefore one of suspicion which bordered on paranoia and, despite its Marxist affiliations and political aspirations, was never intended to fit into anything like this kind of consensual and cooperative framework. It is therefore anti-grand narrative, anti-history, anti-colonial, and anti-empirical science. A typical postmodernist conclusion: universal truth is impossible, and relativism is our fate.

I was particularly interested to note that some of the most difficult books of literature I have read, or attempted to read, were by postmodernist writers, notably Beckett (see my review of his Molloy Trilogy that took me years to finish), Pynchon (whom I abandoned halfway),Nabokov, Fowles and Auster, the latter three authors whose books I did finish reading, but concluded that they preferred to dwell in states of altered reality or madness. In fact, Butler posits that “The postmodernist novel doesn’t try to create a sustained realist illusion: it displays itself as open to all those illusory tricks of stereotype and narrative manipulation, and to multiple interpretation in all its contradiction and inconsistency, which are central to postmodernist thought.”

This short book, termed “a very short introduction” – thank God, for it got into various arguments and viewpoints that seemed to circle back to the key points that I am trying to extract in this review — covers other areas of human endeavour where postmodernism has left its footprint: painting, music, architecture and language. However, the dominant characteristic is postmodernism’s anarchic stance and desire to turn the established order on its head and leave us open to many interpretations of the truth. Postmodernism, being mainly on the side of the subordinated and marginalized, has been a boon for feminists, race and gender activists, prisoners, and the criminally insane. Many of the pro-marginalized movements born in the last 50 years could be seen as manifestations and extensions of postmodernist thought.

The author displays his bias when he says:  “Postmodernists are by and large pessimists, many of them haunted by lost Marxist revolutionary hopes and the belief that the art they inspire is often negative rather than constructive.”

However, Butler leaves the door open to freedom of choice when he concludes, “But it is important to remember that in the arts, too, alternative traditions persist – and for two main reasons – firstly, because modernist traditions continue, and there are many artists who have learned something from postmodernism without being devoted followers of it.” I myself conclude that I never succumbed to postmodernism although I came of age during this period; my work is more in the realist mode.