Postmodernism has become widely recognized as a movement consisting of an epic scope, innovative techniques and wide ranges of psychological and intellectual impact. The beginning of postmodernism is uncertain, but for the sake of continuity, James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake has been chosen as the chronological starting point for this list. Books have been decided upon by overall excellence rather than impact.
A triple-whammy from the master abstract minimalist, whose technique of viewing objectively the subjective world was taken to its zenith in this trilogy of meta-fictional neurosis, in which characters lives and situations seem to splice together until it becomes apparent they were the fictions of one person all along. A formidable work of Joycean density.
A labyrinth of ergodic structure, Danielewski’s novel has become a recent cult classic and by simply opening its pages its conspicuous that there’s no other book like it: encoded typography, color-word associations and the meticulous inclusion of mythological and metaphysical references turn this roaring institution of a novel into a rorschach test on a Minsa scale.
Though Slaughterhouse Five may be his best-known work, this is the one that should be included in the pantheon of solipsistic narration. Often overlooked as self-indulgent and uneven, Breakfast is a personalized account of the phrase “perfect paranoia is perfect awareness.” Pontiac salesman Dwayne Hoover becomes obsessed with the work of sci-fi writer Kilgore Trout, eventually spiraling into acute eruptions of anxiety when he believes that he is the sole human combating a world of reificated humanoids. Black satire at the peak of its powers.
The works of Borges are impossible to describe without a depth of analysis, since he has the power to include in five pages a universe of infinite captivation. Even today, many of the short stories in this collection are open to interpretation.
The Gonzo journalist epic is included here for its superior attempts to splice fact and fiction through surrealist imagery to construct the greatest drug and political satire of its epoch.
No other book of its kind is as gruesome, funny, polemical or disturbing as the story of Wall Street yuppie Patrick Bateman as he calmly iterates the details of his homicidal life, all in an apathetic tone that combines magical realism with minimalism in a way no other book can. Its swift change from comedy to horror happens in such breakneck speed that its stream of consciousness takes on a new level of apprehension.
The most paradoxic war novel ever written, Heller’s novel is widely recognized as one of the greatest novels ever written, its structure centering on irony and repetition that would grow irritating in lesser hands. Cemented Heller’s mastery in the literary world.
To faithfully describe this novel is to end in failure: a pastiche of paranoia, pop culture, sex and politics that turns narration on its head with subtle metaphorical discipline, as the lives of several people center around the parabolic venture of the rocket “0000.” Comparisons of the novel and its symbols to Ulysses and Moby-Dick do not do justice to its singularity.
So much has already been written about this book’s impact that to go further would seem superfluous. Arguably the novel that put postmodernism on its contemporary path, filtering paranoia, drugs and influences from erotica to detective fiction to science fiction comprises one of the most influential and unforgettable works in modern literature. [JFrater: This is one of my all-time favorite books - if you haven't read it - do it!]
The recently-departed Wallace left behind the most intriguing, in-depth, comedic, sorrowful, apprehensive and overall sagaciously maximalistic read in the postmodern canon. The parallelism between the Enfield Tennis Academy and the Ennet Drug and Alcohol Recovery House using alternating esoteric and colloquial words (and his trademark endnotes) creates the most epic and exhausting novel of modern times.
Honorary Mentions: Finnegans Wake, Fight Club, The Unfortunates, A Clockwork Orange, Lolita, Godel Escher Bach
Contributor: F. McClure
Fear and Loathing is so great. Hunter was a genius, no matter how many times some idiot who has no idea who he really is says ‘he was just a drug writer’.
i agree with fear and loathing, should check out the rest
Adam,does bloddy (sic) describe novels, or lists?
Isocentric guns on the list, g – maybe a top ten Teutonic Novels written during Bismarck’s time would be apt, too, yo
Ergotic, Solipsistic…. Minsa?
Nice thread, i will be reading some of these!
Personally, I don’t enjoy “postmodern” hype; usually the people who put it out are very strange indeed. I did enjoy the movie F&L Las V., but it did not cause me to do any “soul-searching” or anything like that.
I would much prefer non-fiction.
Great stuff, might have to check a few of these out. Naked Lunch is a pretty messed up read though, definitely not one for the bedtime readers
!
And love the inclusion of American Psycho & Fear and Loathing.
1. Put down the thesaurus.
2. Learn to spell.
That is all.
You're a douche
I already have too many books on my “To Read” list, and I try to read a book for at least 2 hours a day. Stop with the book lists until I get caught up!
@9 MadMonkey
I agree, most listverse readers won’t be able to understand a lot of the words used by the OP.
American Psycho is great-it had a significant psychological impact on me. Disturbing, yet fascinating.
Over-rated novels read: 1
Movies based on Steven King stories read: 1
Post-apocalyptic novels read: 1
Post-modern novels read: 0
And I still haven’t started on the epic poems and Shakespeare plays from last year, yet. At least this list adds 0 to my “to do” list. In his later years, people said that he hadn’t written anything as good as Catch-22 since. His reply was that no-one had written anything as good as Catch-22 since.
“Shibumi”, by Trevanian, is a great post-modern book. While not postmodern in the same way the above are, it explores all of the themes of post-modernism (multi-culturalism, anarchy, etc.). When I studied post-modernism in college, Shibumi is the book we read. Go find it: you won’t be disappointed. (It’s my favorite book, with Atlas Shrugged second, so I recommend it especially to you, jfrater.)
I have read and enjoyed most of the books on this list, but to say Catch 22 is considered one of the greatest novels ever written is a major stretch. Don’t get me wrong, I love it as much as the next guy, but still…
Excellent list. Currently reading Naked Lunch – words cannot describe the awesome!
Catch-22 and all of Vonnegut’s works are among my favorites. I was tempted to check out the rest, until I saw #1. I hated Infinite Jest, too long, too many endnotes, and too much bad humor.
I really like anything by Samuel Beckett, I would reccommend any of his works.
astraya: I’m really far behind too, but I’m young I have time to catch up. I think.
I agree on brekafast of chamions, fear and loathing, as well as american psycho, and now I’m tempted to read more on this list
and upon rereading i see a clockwork orange(one of my alltime favorite books) in honerable mentions
I’m still pondering if being “a labyrinth of ergodic structure” is a good thing. I’m currently tending towards not.
There is (used to be?) a column in Private Eye magazine for amusing use of convoluted language used by newspaper book and art critics. This list reminded me a little of that.
“a rorschach test on a Minsa scale.” Correct me if I’m wrong but shouldn’t it be Mensa? And Rorschach should be capitalized, named after it’s creator Hermann Rorschach.
I’ve sadly never read any of these. i attempted 22, but put it down and never went back. I did enjoy the American Psycho movie, so i imagine the book shall be better. Gonna pick it up.
Oh man. American Psycho is one of my favourite books. Hilarious, disturbing, and written in a fantastic way. I loved how Bateman always described everything people wore, it was such an interesting character trait. I really liked most of the movie too (especially the “Hip to Be Square” scene, I don’t think I’ve ever laughed that hard watching a movie) except for the last, oh, twenty minutes or so. Haven’t read anything else on this list, although Catch-22 has been shoved down my throat for so long I’m tempted to read it now.
Yeah, I loved when he was talking about Huey Lewis and the album Sports while preparing to kill. Good touch. Is this in the book?
Good list F.M.C. I have read 3 of them – if I get more time I will try and read more.
“Catch-22″ is the only one on the list I’ve read and it was top-notch-I will read some of the others listed.
Great list, I’ve been wanting to read some of these books for awhile now…had no idea of what post-modernism is, and still don’t, so can someone explain to me what it is?
Holy crap! I needed a dictionary just to read the list! I’m afraid I’ll have to get an English degree just to read the books and a whole bucketful of other degrees to even attempt to understand them. Niche list, for sure. (And, yes I mean niche, not nice.)
Great list love these kind of books. Anyone read the Dice Man? thats great but does it count? and what about Trainspotting? and any Ballard? Can these be defined as Postmodern?
enough book lists for a while!!!!!
I never knew I liked postmodern literature so much.
House of Leaves is an AMAZING book. good job adding it to the list!
Well, this kinda screws up my long-delayed list of Great Works of MODERNIST Literature…
But I must point out, in any event—Samuel Beckett is not a postmodern, he’s a modernist, through and through. And so are all of his works.
I wouldn’t have included Borges in this list either–to me, he too is a modernist. Heller and Burroughs don’t really belong either, though a better case can be made for the two of them than Borges and Beckett.
Basically, I think the list suffers from a poor definition of what POSTmodern listerature IS. Modernism is easier to define, I’ll grant you—but this list unveils the problem with postmodernism in general–nobody can really agree upon what it is. It has certain characteristics (varying depending upon the art form–painting, architecture, literature, etc.) but it’s clearest characteristic is whatever is NOT modernist, but comes AFTER modernism. And I’ve never felt that was good enough.
Most theoreticians would actually say that “postmodernism” is NOT simply what comes “after” modernism, though the prefix “post” would naturally have you believe so. Many theoreticians (like J.F. Lytoard) stress this particular point and claim that postmodernism is more of a “radicalization” of modernism than and actual “new era or wave”.
Indeed, postmodernist fiction is vaguely defined in most theoretical books on the subject, and there is no clear-cut definition of the term (some theoreticians have actually argued against using the term altogether).
To most scholars of literature the defining differences between modernist and postmodernist fiction are: (1) modernist works have an air of nostalgia (a longing after a sense of meaning, which has been lost), while postmodernist fiction is more ironic and (semi)nihilist in its portrayal of ‘meaninglessness’ (its credo seems to be: ‘it’s all meaningless anyway, so let’s just have a laugh’); (2) postmodernist fiction, like modernist fiction, uses intertextuality, free form and genre hybridity, but is often less ‘heavy’ than modernist fiction.
The points above are hardly waterproof, but there is no such thing as a waterproof definition of postmodernism. I too would call Beckett a modernist, though, but literary scholars and theoreticians are actually not in agreement when it comes to Beckett, and Borges is defined by some as a postmodernist, others as a modernist writer.
My favorite PoMo authors are: Paul Auster (if he can be defined as such), John Barth, Bret Easton Ellis, Chuck Palahniuk and Svend-Åge Madsen (yes, I am from Denmark, so please excuse my spelling).
Catch-22 is my favorite book of all time. Have read it once a year for the past seven years or so and I am thrilled every time.
Some really good choices. I’ve never understood the appeal of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” I always found it to be much weaker than the other works by Hunter S. Thompson. “The Rum Diary” and “The Curse of Lono” personally I find superior.
can someone define postmodern…
i never really got it.
however, Catch-22 and American Psycho were amazing, as well as the movie of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
an Happy First Day of Spring Traning to all the fans of god’s greatest game out there.
*and
re 37
Post modernism was a term originally used to descirbe art in the 19th century. It was used first in reference to literature in the post WW1 era. Now it mostly refers to literature from the 60′s.
It’s a very inexact term and I feel it makes little sense. your would think “Modern” art of literature would be what is beign produces now.
Kind of weird to see so many grammatical errors in a list about literature. Granted, I understand that some people dislike the Oxford comma, for what I consider paltry reasons… but there’s no debate about its versus it’s.
I have read most of these books, but House of Leaves is my favorite. If you like Stephen King this will blow your mind!
Very nice and interesting list. It’s too bad that many readers of the list won’t realize that both Postmodernism, and the plots of the books themselves, are extremely complicated to define and describe. Hence the “fancy-looking words” (and criticisms thereof).
I knew and heard a lot about several of these books, but I still find it hard to understand what exactly are they actually about! I guess the only way to truly understand the spirit and greatness of these behemoths is to read them… darn!
“Reificated”
Is not a word… I looked it up on dictionary.com so what are you trying to make it mean?
Finally! A book list I can agree with on the most part.
Kurt Vonnegut: I have read all of his writing – he was pure genius.
William S. Burroughs: I have read most of his writing – another pure genius.
Thomas Pynchon: Gravity’s Rainbow is certainly marvelous, and Pynchon has the capacity to be a wonderful writer. He also writes the occasional clunker. Nevertheless, Gravity’s Rainbow deserves it’s place on this list.
Joseph Heller: Catch 22 is wonderfully absurd; sad, insane, and funny. For some reason, as much as I loved it I never read any more Heller.
Samuel Beckett: Read just about everything he wrote, and would reread some on a bi-annual basis.
Hunter S. Thompson: Love some/hate some. L.V. is a love some.
David Foster Wallace: Have not read Infinite Jest, just some earlier stuff. Not a big fan.
Jorges Luis Borges: What brilliance! He overwhelms me with his passionate descriptions, his value of the nuance.
Bret Easton Ellis: I’m ashamed he’s on the same list as the rest of these authors.
Great list. Only missing one author. Jack Kerouac.
MadMonkey wouldn’t complain if those words were at his level. Instead of telling people to put down a thesaurus, why don’t you take the stick out of your ass and appreciate the content of the list, not the structure of letters by which it was presented…
I am notoriously bad at categorizing what I like (or don’t like, for that matter), so the fact that I have read and loved most of the books on this list (and in the honorable mentions) helps me define a favored genre, I guess. Thank you. On the other hand, I lump these sorts of books in with the works of Kafka, and I know that’s a different genre altogether. It’s a handicap, but at least I’m still out there reading. Too fast sometimes.
Spange, (21),
“There is (used to be?) a column in Private Eye magazine for amusing use of convoluted language used by newspaper book and art critics. This list reminded me a little of that.”
Spange. Purely in reply to your post. Indeed. ‘Pseud’s Corner’ it is/was called, as memory serves, though not sure whether the apostrophe was placed for singular or plural.
I haven’t been back to the UK for over a year-and-a-half, so hope it’s still going strong. I.e. ‘Private Eye’, let alone ‘Pseud’s Corner’ and all my other favourite dips into it. If so it’ll keep me quiet for a bit (apart from nose-snorting laughter) on the next scheduled visit in 2011!
There’s a Chilean equivalent of sorts called ‘The Clinic’ (after The London Clinic, where Pinochet was treated and detained). But for the most part it’s disappointingly crude and unsubtle by comparison. The cover illustration is the best part, and you can see that on news stands, so we soon stopped buying it.
Notable (glaring) omissions: Don Delillo (White Noise, Underworld), Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything is Illuminated, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) and arguably it doesn’t get more post-modern than Finnegan’s Wake.
Look out kiddos, House of Leaves will melt you brain. (In a (semi) postive way.)
I can’t purchase/read these fast enough! Dear Lord! We need a LOLCat list for some balance.
Some of these comments are wonderful. jajdude “Isocentric guns on the list, g – maybe a top ten Teutonic Novels written during Bismarck’s time would be apt, too, yo”
Someone’s trying to show off their fancy student loan bought vocabulary.
What’s up with all these *****ty literature lists lately? Seriously can we get back to something interesting?
I mentioned “House of Leaves” in the overrated comments section. Again, have to give credit for how complex the format of the book was, but the last hundred pages or so really ruined the book for me. The character development was great, giving tons of back story, and the hallway sections were amazing at building tension (imagine reading in the middle of a severe thunderstorm; listening to some hard, haunting post-rock with your house shaking from the storm. Throw in the labyrinth section with the electricity going off in my massive apartment complex. Middle of summer, pretty much all my fellow college students home for summer, the complex is empty and silent, opening my front door to a pitch black hallway, making my apartment darker just for having opened the door. I was tripping balls.) Still, despite of how badass of a 3D reading experience I had, the last hundred pages or so drip with pretentiousness and indie angst. Just, damn.
erin: look up “reify” and “reification” to see what he meant.
I absoultely love this site and I’m addicted to it, but I gotta say that the lists lately have been really crappy and boring…bring back the mysteries and gore!!
NO! … What ive been able to piece together about jfrater really makes me admire him. Theres just one thing that seriously bugs me, Naked Lunch.
I like to think of myself as a pretty *****ytical and even somewhat literary person. Naked Lunch is the only book in my life that I have gotten so fed up with I quit reading it two thirds of the way through. Anyone who claims to like, let alone understand that book has to be lying, god knows why. I have read House of Leaves and I really love Slaughterhouse-Five as well as the work of Borges, but Naked Lunch is an incomprehensible piece of crap with no story written by someone who was out of their mind, its just cool to like it. Or maybe I’m just not perceptive enough to understand it….anyone else feel the same way?
Randall, if postmodernism can be defined as transgressing the angst and ennui of modernism then I think that Burroughs most certainly belongs on this list. He goes beyond Ezra Pound’s modernist criteria and the psycho*****ytic school of criticism that sprung up after Freud started publishing, and comes back with something distinct, unique and wildly unsettling. The way I see it is that this can be simplified in terms of motive; classical literature generally aimed to resolve and encapsulate issues for the reader, Keats’ influence meant that issues no longer needed closure to be resolved, while modernism was about raising questions, leaving the reader to resolve these issues in isolation. Postmodernism took this a step further by throwing the author’s part in this process into the light, forcing readers to confront issues which in general could not be resolved and implying that no resolution was indeed necessary. I cannot think of any modernist literature which achieves any kind of greatness without a discernible narrative as Naked Lunch does… but now I’m rambling.
To everyone who’s whining about the vocabulary on this page – English, mother*****er, do you speak it? Nobody here has to make up for your lack of education, so can it.