Five Postmodernists I Don't Like

Ptim Callan: I have been an avid fan. And student of postmodern fiction and postmodern writing since I was a teenager. And obviously, I really love this genre, this school, and so much of what goes on with it, a broad range of postmodern writers and works and techniques and you know, schools or subschools within postmodernism, and yet at the same time. I have come up with a list of five prominent, well-known postmodernists. Things that if you know any postmodernists and you're gonna list them, these folks are likely to be on your list, more likely than the average to be on your list. And yet, at the end of the day, they they they leave me underwhelmed. And these are all writers that I've tried to like and gotten back at multiple times and continue to be left kind of flat every time I find myself struggling to get through the book, tempted to put the book down and pick up something else. And and let's just admit it, these are writers that I don't like as much as on paper you would think I would. So I want to talk about them today. Now I know that the you may feel differently about these writers, and I'm happy to be proven wrong. I'm happy for anyone who watches this video to explain to me why you don't agree, or explain what's great about this writer, or point at perhaps the the really wonderful thing that I might have missed. And I'll read those comments and I'll take them to heart and I will try hard to write these like these authors, and maybe I'll come back later and say, you convinced me, you showed me what I needed to know, and I feel differently. About this author than I did. But today, at this moment, based on my own exploration, these are five postmodern authors that I don't like as much as you would think I should. And the first on the list is Kathy Acker. Now, there's a lot to like about Kathy Acker. Kathy Acker very much was a pioneer. She was a woman writing hardcore postmodernism. In an era, the seventies, the eighties, when that was very much a boys' club. And she was achieving success. She published many books. She was widely read. She had a lot of critical success in a time where, gosh, she was damn near the only woman. She and Christine Brook Rose are the two I can think of who were doing anything like that at that time. And not only that, she also was a very early and prominent voice for gender issues and queer issues. So in Kathy Acker's work, you see a lot of gender fluidity, you see a lot of you know treatment of homosexuality and a lot of just what people would call feminism and feminist viewpoints. And you know, again, back in the 1970s, feminism. Was on the political spearhead, right? What they would have called like a gay viewpoint or gay issues at the time was on the spearhead. And so, in that sense, she's very important. She was a glassbreaker and she was an advocate for important dialogue and conversations we had to have. And all of that, you look at that and you say, ⁓ I should love Kathy Acker. She was a very technical postmodernist. She did this thing where she reinvented a lot of examples. Existing stories. So Great Expectation is a postmodern deconstructed retelling of Great Expectations. Don Quixote is a postmodern deconstructed retelling of Don Quixote. Pussy, King of the Pirates, is a retelling of Treasure Island, right? So you look at this. She's taking these well-known venerable, you know, ⁓ novels, all these things that we all read in school, and she's reinventing them in a postmodern way. Gosh, Tim Callan should love all of this. And yet when I sit and I like I try to actually like her books, I I just don't. And You know, I've thought about why, and I think the problem is that I at least have a great deal of trouble connecting with Kathy Acker's writing emotionally. I don't feel like she's giving us characters that feel like real people. I think she's giving us characters that are stock at best. They're outlines, their silhouettes, their ⁓ pieces on a chessboard that she's using to do something else. Now there are a lot of really technical writers who do who do have this kind of thing, but if you think about an Italo Calvino or an Abakov or David Foster Wallace, John Barth, Robert Coover Whole bunch of other people. Will William Gas, ⁓ I could go on and on. Ron Sukinick, Ray Faderman, ⁓ Gil Sorrentino. All of these writers, there's a whole raft of very technical postmodern writers from the sixties, seventies, eighties, Don Bartholomey, who are very technical and yet They're also giving us characters we can connect to, and they're dealing with a human ⁓ condition or a human story that I can connect to. I can't do that with Kathy Acker's writing. So it comes across to me as being absent emotional content of being sterile. Now, this is ironic, right? Because she is, again, by many accounts, a very sensationalist writer and was deemed to be a very sensationalist writer in her day. Just look at the titles of her works: Blood and Guts in High School, Empire of the Senseless, My Mother, Demonology, Pussy, King of the Pirates. These are very sensational titles. And yet again, when I when I get into her writing, I just it feels technical and academic and cold. Now, get mad at me, get angry at me, tell me I'm a jerk in the in the comments. That's great. But also, tell me why you don't agree. Point me at the writing from Kathy Acker that's going to make me feel different about her. I want to like Kathy Acker. I would love to like Kathy Acker. I committed a lot of my time over the years in my life to try to like Kathy Acker. But at the end of the day, I I just failed at that. I couldn't do it. So that's the first one on the list. The second one on the list is in a lot of ways going to be a very similar story here. Is William S. Burroughs. Like Conceptually, William S. Burroughs is just so great, right? He's this wild man of literature, and these books that he writes are wild. Naked Lunch and The Ticket That Exploded and Nova Express. Like these things are all over the place. There are no boundaries of what he's prepared to imagine and articulate and talk about. And then you combine that, that combined with the man, this kind of very ⁓ what do I want to say, understated, sort of quiet man, always in the suit with the hat and the tie, right? Always looking just so like a business person, just so prim and proper, who is the writer of this crazy stuff, who is the recovered heroin addict, who is giving you this from just like straight from the oblongata, you know, discussion of what it means to be a heroin addict, and especially in the in the time when he was, which I'm pretty sure was like the early 70s, late 60s. Wow, again, on paper, I should love this guy. The challenge I have with William S. Burrows' writing is it's it's it's so J I don't know if uncontrolled is the right word, but it's just so swingy and wild and random. There's no there's no structure at all. There's nothing to hang on to. You don't have any idea what the next paragraph is gonna give you. And as a consequence, it's hard to kind of sink into it and get immersed in it and really Really, really emotionally connect with his writing. And then I'll have the same comment I had, which is I don't feel like the characters are rounded characters. I feel like the characters are convenient pieces that he is moving around on a board. And so if I can't connect with the characters and I can't connect with the story because he can't even figure out the story. It just becomes a series of kind of shock scenes, shock scene after shock scene after shock scene. And in the beginning it's great and it's shocking, but then once you kind of reset your expectations, once your adrenaline is burned and you've used up your adrenaline. And and and the and the and just the the the the ⁓ my god factor and the the the that once once you've gotten past all of that and that washes over you and goes away, what are you left with? Right? And that's the thing I have with William S. Burroughs. I mean, I'm just having this thought right now, and I'm just gonna go down a little sideline, but you know, if we think about the novel Dune, which does have its own postmodern qualities, and we should probably return to that, you know, there's this concept in the novel Dune of where the Bene Jesseret control their fear by just kind of ⁓ letting it wash over them and through them, and then as it washes past them, it just doesn't have any effect on them. I think the emotionality and the crazy ⁓ my god quality of William S. Burroughs for me does the same thing. You're just reading this page after page after page. It's just another crazy thing and another crazy thing and another crazy thing. And you know, how many times does your typewriter have to turn into a Beatle until you just don't get excited about typewriters turning into Beatles anymore? Right, and that's the thing that I I I hit with William S. Burroughs is he's just trying to be just kind like as as wild as he possibly can. And I again I know what he's trying to do, and I know a lot of this is trying to take this kind of my experience as a drug addict and recast it in a way where they can he can put someone else in his emotional state. It doesn't work for me. Now again. Ahead, get all head up and give me comments and explain to me why I'm wrong about William S. Burroughs and tell me what to read and tell me how to feel differently. And I'll read these comments, I'll embrace them. I will look at the things you tell me to look at. I want to like William S. Burroughs. I have invested. you know, plenty of hours over the years trying to like William S. Burroughs. And at the end of the day, I just continue not to like William S. Burroughs. The third one on the list. Now this may be surprising because this is one of my ten titans of postmodernism. The third one on the list is Thomas Pynchon. And I need to clarify, actually, all three of the last three on the lists have at least one work that I absolutely adore. And my issue with these three is that there's something that I think is so great, and then there's a lot of other stuff that I just can't connect to. Thomas Pynchon is a great best example. Gravity's Rainbow. An amazing, important, mind-blowing book. I have I own a copy of Gravity's Rainbow. I have it here. I love this book. This book changed the way that I think about writing. And this book changed the way that the world thinks about writing. This is an incredibly important book, and it's also a great book. And that's not the only one. The Crying of Lot 49, nice, slim little clo crying of Lot 49, is a fantastic book. And introduces the concept of conspiracy literature in a way that we didn't really have it before. And conspiracy literature became important. And conspiracies are a very important part of postmodernism. And we will do a whole episode on that later. And what I call the world beneath, right? In the crying of lot 49, there's the world we think is the world, but then Then, if you look very carefully, you can peel it back, and there's another fantastic world right under it. So the world beneath, which is huge in postmodernism and huge in science fiction in general, this was an enormous part of making that happen. Thomas Pynchon, without Thomas Pynchon, writing looks just radically different today. Here's the thing about Thomas Pynchon. These are the only two books that I actually like. I keep trying to like Thomas Pynchon. I buy the next thousand-page behemoth, and I struggle through it, and I don't see where it's going, and it doesn't really give me any payoffs, and there's a whole bunch of plotting. This thing happened, and then that thing happened, and we go down this side road, and we go down that side road, and it doesn't come together. It's not driving toward anything. Again, I'm not Not really connecting with it emotionally. You know, sometimes with a giant novel, with a mega novel, the journey is the reward. In the case of Gravity's Rainbow, absolutely the journey is the reward. Yes, it's got a great ending. And it's got great moments, but you're reading Gravity's Rainbow for the journey. And I can't read these other gigantic half million word novels of his for the journey, because I don't find the journey rewarding. And That's my problem with Thomas Pynchon. And again, I want to like Thomas Pynchon a lot. Among other things, he's written a lot of books, and they're really raw long. So if I just could write like him, there would be a lot to like. But I have failed. Every time I attempt, I fail. So again, get mad at me. Tell me why I should like Thomas Pynchon more. The only caveat I'm going to get there is you don't have to convince me to like Gravity's Rainbow. You don't have to convince me to like the crying of a lot for. I already like those. ⁓ convinced me to like the other stuff, right? V left me flat, slow learner left me flat. God, I'm trying to remember even of the names of of of some of the posts the latest. Mason and Dixon left me flat. ⁓ like like like like I've I I can't I've blocked out the names of these books. Cause they just left so little impression on me. Except that they took too many hours of my time that I could have spent on something that would have been more rewarding. So, Thomas Pynchon, he's one of the ten titans of postmodernism, but everything after Gravity's Rainbow, I don't know. I don't see the point. Next on my list, Chuck Palinoc. So, some of Chuck Palinock I absolutely love. Fight Club, I view as a canonical text. This book Haunted. In my mind is probably the best thing he's written. It's a short story collection with a frame around it. It's a retelling of the Decameron with a much Darker and more extreme version of it, right? But as as Chuck Palnock is wont to do, all of the stories are tight and they have a point and they're interested and they're directing it. The frame story works well, it integrates in with the other stories well, it has a good ending. Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous book. Chuck Palinock at his best and you know, him showing us why he is a a professional author and a famous author and and you know, I hope a a a wealthy man. but Lots of other books and I keep picking up and gonna try. And there's other things I liked. I liked Lullaby a lot. I liked Survivor a lot. ⁓ I'm trying to remember the name of the one ⁓ about the ⁓ the the spy, the teenage girl from North Korea who's a spy. That one I liked a lot. But the other ones just they read like a parody of Chuck Palinok. I'm gonna just cram all the most extreme sensationalist things I can into this one book. And it's just gonna be episode after after episode after episode of extreme sensationalist things. And it's kind of like my criticism of William S. Burroughs, which is, you know, there's only so many other times that I can be shocked and scandalized by the latest thing he has to say before all of that just uses up my capacity for shock. And scandal, and then what am I left with? And in the really good books, Fight Club, Survivor, we get direction, lullaby. There's a point, and it's going somewhere, you can connect with the characters, and you know, and it and it and it marches down to a good end with some really interesting ideas along the way. too many of the books, I don't have that. I feel like maybe Chuck Palinok started with a concept that is very Chuck Palinok, right? It's kind of nihilistic and media savvy and sort of exploring the way that modern society desensitizes us. And so, you know, I could you can look at the at the at the at the the the plug, right? The lead line and go, ⁓ yeah, that's that sounds like a Chuck Palinock book to me. But then it just doesn't doesn't have insight it doesn't have useful emotion connection it it feels very programmatic like someone kind of going through the motions so I struggle with Chuck Palanok and I keep going back to him because I hope this one's going to be different because I remember the really good ones which are really good and I want to capture that again and so often he just disappoints me Last on the list, Umberto Eco. ⁓ get mad at me about this one. Absolutely, I agree. Again, on paper, I should love Umberto Eco. The amazing scholar who is going to go back and Find all of this erudite old information. He's gonna dig it out and put it together in this story that takes the world we have now and reinvents it in a new way. And he's gonna present you with things you thought you knew, but he's gonna show those things to you in a very different way. Right? He's like the intelligent Dan Brown. We should love Umberto Eco. And I do love the name of the Rose. I love this book so much. Such an amazingly good book. We will come back and talk about the Name of the Rose for sure. But after that. Yes, it's very scholarly, and I'm inclined to think that it's all very well researched. It comes across that way. You know, I don't have the time to go double check his sources, but I'm willing to take it on faith that they're right and that he's done doing a great job of grounding this thing in real history and real scholarship. And I know that takes a lot of work and it's impressive and all of that. But again, I find these books to be a slog. Like Foucault's Pendulum should be one of my favorite books, this vast conspiracy. Like, ⁓ that I should love that book. But I just it's just a chore to get through. Part of it is maybe they're too long. Perhaps if they were more abbreviated and got to the point faster. Maybe that could get me there. But I just I struggle with Umberto Eco. And again, I like I'm almost ashamed saying this, right? Like, how can you not like Hberto Eco? Well, I I like the idea of Umberto Eco. I like what Umberto Eco should be. I think the world is better because Umberto Eco is in it. I readily admit that he's clearly much smarter than I am. I'm just finding that reading his books. They are tough to connect to. They're not page turners, with the exception of the name of the rose. Which is, they're not page turners, and they don't really get me excited and jazzed. And I hate to say it at the end of the day, I don't remember them. They're not that memorable. And if I go back and I say, what happened in I mean, Jesus, I can't even remember the names of them, but like the Queen Loa book, whatever that name is. I can't even remember what happened. 'Cause you know, there's a lot of this kind of obscure opacity and opacity can be great. I love opacity, but it's opacity to an end, to a purpose. And I have trouble with that end in the case of a Berto Eco. And again, I know. Right now, someone who's watching this is furious at me and is also thinking that I'm a moron. That's great. Tell me why you feel that way. Tell me what you love about Umberto Eco. I want to like Umberto Eco. Probably more than anyone else on this list. I want to like Umberto Eco. I just have so much trouble liking Umberto Eco. So please feel free to help me with that. Tell them what you like about him. I may do another one of these as I think of more postmodern authors that probably don't measure up to what I had hoped for them. This is the list I've got right now. I hope this isn't a hot take one. I hope it doesn't make people angry at me, but I'm just putting it out there. Five postmodern authors that I don't like as much as I would have hoped. Thank you.