Have You ever Wondered . . .?

Hello Gentle Reader

“An Introduction,”

When (and there is also an “If,” in there too; though a much more subliminal if, to say the least, but the “if,” is still there. This therefore does not mean that the “if,” is at all excluded from the entire concept; it’s just not plainly stated – well it is now) one looks through the past blogs – mainly the book reviews, there comes a point where the stumble upon some recognizable patterns, in them. If a Gentle Reader be it yourself, be it someone else; in other words and in a much more simpler way of stating it, anyone – went through the blog, to the year two thousand and nine; there is a blog titled “The Waves Have Crashed,” this is an earlier attempt at a book review, and in the infant or foetal stages of this blog, this particular blog is about a famous author and one of her more famous but challenging and complex novels – depending on how wishes to look at the term novel that is as well. Anyhow Virginia Woolf and her novels are interesting novels. They were written in the early years of the twentieth century. Virginia Woolf herself experienced the First World War – the Great War; and saw its depressive and tragic effects on the world. Those effects, and images, and feelings along with the absolute horror and atrocious realization of what World War II, brought, can still be felt today, if one looks close enough and goes digging through certain areas. From the later nineteen twenties (though Virginia Woolf had been writing professionally since the beginning of the twentieth century, and her first novel “The Voyage Out,” was published in nineteen-fifteen. Her first real departure from the nineteenth century realistic tradition came in the year of nineteen-twenty two, with the novel “Jacob’s Room.” This novel is where Virginia Woolf started to become more and more comfortable with what she was doing. Her experimental style, and linguistic innovation, and also her proficient expansion of writing with her use and development of what is now known as “stream-of-consciousness,” writing, which is a major part of what was and still is, known as Modernist Literature. In nineteen-twenty five, nineteen-twenty seven, as well as in nineteen-thirty one, Virginia Woolf came out with her most mature works, and what some would say are her masterpieces of fiction. “The Waves,” was written in nineteen-thirty one, and true to the modernist style, proves to destroy and break down the barriers of fiction, and the common literary concept that literature can only be objective, and focus on the external world and how it influences the character and their choices. Virginia Woolf is considered a Modernist author. Other Modernist authors that readers may recognize who are consider world class writers: James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Marcel Proust, Yasunari Kawabata the Nobel Laureate in Literature of nineteen-sixty eight; T.S. Eliot Nobel Laureate in Literature of nineteen-forty eight; as well as Knut Hamsun Nobel Laureate in Literature of nineteen-twenty. These authors are considered modernist authors. The rebellious children or youth, who backlashed against the concept of the realistic fiction of the nineteenth century, and the Romanticism of the Victorian Era, and decided to fight back full force, with their own brand of literature, that broke all the rules of literature and writing– literally.

While realist tradition of fiction, had worked on simply describing the realities of their characters, the tradition of Modernist fiction was more interested in the inner workings and consciousness of the characters or their studies. The world was subjective to the inner workings of the individual’s perceptions. Even the traditions of the novels, and the tradition of poetry was switched. Novels could become poetic rather than documenting which can be seen in the case of Virginia Woolf’s “The Waves,” which can be adequately described as a experimental novel or better yet as a prose poem. While poetry can document events, and not always be poetic – but the major part of poetry was its distance from poetry being impersonal and objective, and more focused on the personal and making them intellectual statements, of the human significance in the world and for the cliché measure saying the universe.

Even non-fiction was not always far from the grasps of modernist writers. For example Virginia Woolf wrote a biography titled “Flush,” which is about Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and is often classified as a biography; however, the twist of the matter is, the entire subject matter is told from the point of view of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s cocker spaniel Flush.

However after a while modernism ran out of steam. It lost its lushness; it lost that lustre, which it once had. It became somewhat more self-indulgent, of the writers themselves, rather than the writers trying to please both the reader and themselves as the writer and author. After the tragic suicide of Virginia Woolf and the death of James Joyce – both large players in the shaping of modernist and in my opinion the unofficial spokespersons for the modernist movement, modernism was declared, in some way or another finished and dead.

Here though is something Gentle Reader you might find rather helpful for what we are about to discuss. The common traits and thematic characteristics of the Modernist literary movement are:

Fragmentation – in plot, characters, theme, images, and overall storyline. Thus, for instance, many modernist works are not in the typical linear sequence.
Loss is a huge theme in modernist works.
The “truth” is questionable, as a common theme, and thus, you cannot always trust the narrator to tell the truth, whereas in traditional literature it is the narrator’s job to make the reader understand what’s going on. Also, there may be more than one narrator, showing the diversity of truth.
The destruction of the family unit.
Characters may be given little or no physical description, and one or more characters is usually an "outcast."
Authority figures are often untrustworthy, reflecting the question of truth.
Movement away from religion.
The reversal of traditional roles (Example: women doing something typically “male” and/or vice versa. Or the changing of customary racial roles).
Ambiguous ending; such works often leave a lot of questions with the reader; they don’t tie everything up for you.
Often setting is more than just the setting (i.e. more meaning to it than just where the story takes place), or, maybe there is no setting at all.
The use of improper grammar to reflect dialect.
More sexuality and the use of intertextuality are often found.
More use of the first person narrative, reflecting the lack of universal truth, i.e. there are only individual truths.

(thank-you to: http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/943010-Understanding-Modernism--Postmodernism for this helpful bit of information)

After the end of World War II though another literary movement had begun to take its roots. Like ink swirling around in a pool of water, chaotic flimsy and aimless, this no literary movement was ignored for a long time. However it came to be known as Post-modernism, and was started to be studied seriously as a literary form or movement in the nineteen-eighties.

Now this Gentle Reader is where you’ll be wondering, what the hell is the difference between Modernism and Post-modernism. This question has been baffling people – at least people who give as much a damn about the literary world, and its more confusing moments and parts, then the average reader, or the common reader; since Modernism and Post-modernism, became siblings and somewhat interesting allies, in their fight against the traditional view of how literature should have been, and is still being viewed in that way by some. However though siblings in their fight against the traditional objective ideology of some people (whoever they maybe) and the concept or ideal or philosophy that everything has order, and there is always singular truths, and the somewhat disregard of the individual. However, these two literary movements are quite different also.

One can go back to James Joyce in this scenario, as well. But not entirely James Joyce either. This section we shall call:

“The Student versus The Teacher,”

Samuel Beckett is a Nobel Laureate in Literature. He took the prize in the year of nineteen-sixty nine. Primarily considered a playwright more than anything else, Samuel Beckett, also wrote novels, short stories, and even wrote poetry. However it is Samuel Beckett’s writing of the absurd – adequately described as “Theatre of the Absurd,” with his famous play “Waiting for Godot,” that readers, and viewers will see that Samuel Beckett’s minimalist style, and his humorous look at the meaninglessness and suffering of human beings in general. While James Joyce, was a man who knew, and showed everything and always added on to what he was doing (I mean “Ulysses,” is certainly no summer read!) the student Samuel Beckett realized this and had his revelation embraced his stupidity and ignorance, of his own condition, and attributed it towards his characters. Their minimalist lives. Their comical suffering. Their futile attempts that in the end only ended up to being nothing. In the end Samuel Becket only said the following on the matter:

“I realized that Joyce had gone as far as one could in the direction of knowing more, [being] in control of one’s material. He was always adding to it; you only have to look at his proofs to see that. I realized that my own way was in impoverishment, in lack of knowledge and in taking away, in subtracting rather than in adding.”

(Thank-you to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Beckett#Fame:_novels_and_the_theatre )

This is what makes Samuel Beckett and interesting author though. It is hard to consider Samuel Beckett a modernist for his humour and comical portrayal of the suffering, of his characters. However, at the same time, some consider Samuel Beckett’s career too early to have started to consider him a postmodernist author. It is then that Samuel Beckett is looked at it in the following manner: as one of the last modernists and one of the first postmodernists.

Though Samuel Beckett was not the only one to play with the form of the play in a modernist and postmodernist sense. Nobel Laureate in nineteen-thirty four Luigi Pirandello, whose play “Six characters in Search of an Author,” is considered a precursor to the works of the Theatre of the Absurd, of both Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco. However, because Luigi Pirandello is considered a modernist author, it could be fair to suspect that his works, were more or less, more serious in their portrayal then that of Samuel Beckett or Eugene Ionesco.

“The Two Generations,”

If one wanted to split hairs or rather just be detailed or specific in the differences between Modernism and Post-Modernism, one could look at two generations. The Lost Generation of the nineteen twenties, and The Beat Generation of the nineteen fifties. Take a look at the writers of these two generations. The Lost Generation: T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemmingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald; while The Beat Generation had: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs. The authors of The Lost Generation were modernist authors, the novels of Ernest Hemmingway, the poetry of T.S. Elliot, and the Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald. These authors had a much more serious tone in their works. They had seen what the Great War had done, and felt lost and disenfranchised suddenly in the world. While The Beat Generation was much different. Look at the works of Jack Kerouac, the poetry of T.S. Elliot, and the hybrid fiction of William S. Burroughs, and you’ll see a much different approach to their views of the post-World War II world. A lot more playfulness (however playfulness and irony can also be attributed to Modernism) an embracement of the chaos left in the world – rather than the Modernist hopeless feeling of despair at the chaos of the world. There is also of course the sex, the drugs, and the experimentation (both literary and sexual) in their work; but in all there is a great of psychedelic acceptance of the world at face value; but there is still a fragmentation of the world as well.

“The Latin Boom’s Rural Fantasy’s versus McOndo’s Urban Reality.”

Another place to look is at last year Nobel Laureate in Literature of two thousand and ten Mario Vargas Llosa novels. It is said and can of course possibly disputed (but it’s all a matter of opinion, and view) that Mario Vargas Llosa’s earlier work like “The Green House,” and “Conversations in the Cathedral,” are modernist works while “Captain Pantoja and the Special Service,” and “Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter,” are post-modernist for their lighter tone to the work – which is something that has been attributed to the works of post-modernist writing. However, though as it has been pointed out that modernist can be just as ironic and comical in its tone, as post-modernist; and personally I do not doubt it that post-modernist literature can be serious in its workings, of writing either.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Julio Cortázar, and Mario Vargas Llosa, are Latin America Boom writers. Those who have read some Salmin Rushdie or any of these three authors work, as well as Carlos Fuentes work, will know what Magical Realism. Magical Realism is usually associated with the post-modernist view of the literary divide. This can be from the fact that the Latin American Boom happened mid-way through the twentieth century so therefore it does not add up with the modernist and postmodernist time line that, is attributed around the World Wars. However for the purpose of this piece, I see the Magical Realism of the Latin American Boom of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Julio Cortázar, and Mario Vargas Llosa as the modernist works. Simply because, Latin and South America does not play on the same stage, as Europe and North America does in the literary way. While Europe and North America are greatly influenced by each other, though both would not wish to admit it. The literature of Latin America and South American is a little more isolated in my opinion and therefore develops on its own. That is why the Magical Realism of the Latin American Boom, is consider modernist and the new urban development of the McOndo is considered post-modernist. These two literary movements are greatly at odd with each other. This dispute is often called McOndo versus Macondo (Macondo being a fictional village that Gabriel Garcia Marquez had established in his work). Magical Realism and McOndo differ greatly on how they treat the climate of their homelands. While Magical Realism describes the place as a beautiful and exotic place; though with political themes of political oppression, and the dictator novel; McOndo is a bit more gritty in its realism and its dealings with the poverty, sexuality and sexual orientation, caste systems, political environment, crime, violence, and the social class. However despise the McOndo movement being more about the economic failures and the social problems, it is less overtly political then that of the Magical Realist narratives.

Once again there is the same fight with McOndo and Magical Realism as there is with modernism and post-modernism, The Lost Generation, and The Beat Generation, Samuel Beckett and James Joyce, both see a very similar world but have a different view of how to express their views of this world, and therefore these two forms, as similar as they are, often disagree on the details.

“Contemporary Post-Modernism,”

Where is contemporary post-modernism today. It can clearly be seen in the works of Thomas Pychon and Don DeLillo in America, and with Martin Amis and Will Self in The UK, as well as Michel Houellebecq in France, Margaret Atwood in Canada, Haruki Murakami in Japan, Orhan Pamuk the Nobel Laureate in Literature of two thousand six, Umberto Eco of Italy and the works of Mark Z Danielwski of America as well – not to mention many other authors, who engage the reader in their avant-garde borderline works such as Milorad Pavić Serbia or Victor Pelevin in Russia. The state of contemporary Post-Modernism is just as confusing as the entire argument itself. However in the in the nineteen-eighties, Post-Modernism was on the verge of extinction as well, with the rise of dirty realism in America which has been attributed as a form of Short Story Renaissance. The playfulness and form experimentation of Post-Modernism was replaced with the realism (classified as dirty realism) of this new short story movement. But Post-Modernism had still survived through the short story movement of the nineteen-eighties, and can be seen in many authors, of the contemporary literary world.

“What is Post-Modernism though Still?”

I wish the question was an easy answer. However if all this research and writing, and wording has proven, it is not. The answer is a complicated one, based on history, based on the differencing of opinions, no clear post-modernist literary movement spokesperson, and the works themselves always varying in degree’s much like the predecessor Modernism. Let’s look at the two literary movements in a different media form though. Let’s look at three film directors. Ingmar Bergman and Krzysztof Kieślowski for the purpose of this piece are considered the representatives of the modernist tradition or the modernist side of literature. They deal with very profound themes. Existentialism, existential crisis’s, in a not so humorous manner (though it could be said that in Krzysztof Kieślowski “Three Colours Trilogy: White,” is an anti-comedy and does deal with the entire manner rather in a comedic fashion to a degree.) Now compare these two film makers with the contemporary film maker Quentin Tarantino. All three of these directors deal with the same themes, in just different manners of style, and how they treat the subject matter. While Ingmar Bergman deals with the entire ordeal in a much more serious tone, Quentin Tarantino will deal with the story in a non-linear, fragmented way but also in a way with humour. Also the post-modernism of today throws a lot of pop cultural references. So as a reader one could be reading lines from Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” and then all of a sudden find Brittney Spears being quoted two paragraphs down. Modernism from what I have read does not usually mix high culture with low culture.

“Are you still wondering . . . ?”

In the end it doesn’t matter how much one can read the work of a modernist author or a post-modernist author, it’s still a finicky slippery slope to deal with. The truth can be easily stated that Modernism and Post-modernism are very different in how they deal with the same subject matter. Both deal with subjective inner consciousness of the individual, but both just go around in dealing with the matter in entirely different ways. Both share a distrust of anything that is declared a universal truth – because truth is subjected to the whims of the individual; neither one is fond of institutions like government or churches; and it is certainly fair to say that both were shaped by the world wars. The largest and main difference (but paradoxically a large similarity) is both recognize the chaos and meaningless of the contemporary world; however Modernism views the chaos as distressing, while Post-Modernism views the chaos as amusing, and embraces it.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
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(If you have any comments or corrections or questions let me know.)