{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2498",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 2498,
    "subject": "Postmodernism (was Re: Wolfe a conservative writer?)",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2000-12-08T17:25:12+00:00",
    "last": "2000-12-08T17:25:12+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0179@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Adam Stephanides",
        "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net"
      },
      "date": "2000-12-08T17:25:12+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Postmodernism (was Re: Wolfe a conservative writer?)",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Alex David Groce wrote:\n\nAdam wrote:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "And for this very reason, that prototypical postmodernist John Barth\nhas also adopted the _Thousand Nights and a Night_ as a model.  Not\nto mention the postmodernist tour de force THE ARABIAN NIGHTMARE by\nRobert Irwin (whose book on _The Thousand Nights and a Night_,\nentitled something like THE ARABIAN NIGHTS: A COMPANION, I highly\nrecommend)."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Hmmm...  This seems to bring us back to the whole question of how to\nknow postmodernism (and without the aid of a SF oracle like Damon\nKnight's finger).  Barth I will agree is postmodernist.  But notice\nthat Wolfe, while he write about stories being told, telling\nthemselves, etc., never (AFAIK) does the kind of metafictional\nintroduction of himself that Barth does (in _Chimera_, for example)."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Well, there was that one in STOREYS (iirc) about the author writing his\nperfect story a word at a time; but I take your point.  But I wasn't\narguing that Wolfe is a postmodernist; I was arguing against the claim\nthat he is a \"very conservative\" writer, and the paragraph you quote was\nmerely an incidental point.  I really don't know if Wolfe is a\npostmodernist or not, especially since I have no definition of\npostmodernism, and the lines between postmodernism and modernism are\nvery fuzzy (which is ULYSSES?)."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Use of the 1001 Nights does not a postmodernist\nmake--Proust and R. A. Lafferty are both frequent travelers to that\nterritory, and Proust is a modernist and Lafferty is whatever on earth\nLafferty is."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "For what it's worth, I would say Lafferty is a postmodernist, among\nother things.  I also don't think the 1001 Nights is that much of an\ninfluence on him, aside from THE THIRTEENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD and the\nshort story about the genie (and maybe a couple of others I've\nforgotten).  I think he owes a lot more to American tall-tale\ntraditions, though he draws upon all sorts of legends."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "I'll agree that THE ARABIAN NIGHTMARE and PEACE have a\n_lot_ in common (though aiming at rather opposite visions, I think)."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "That actually hadn't occurred to me at all.  But now I'll have to think\nabout it."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "What makes THE ARABIAN NIGHTMARE postmodernist rather than modernist?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "It's actually a while since I read it, and while I'm sure I\ninstinctively pegged it as postmodernist, I would have to reread it to\ntell you why I thought so.  Why do you think it's modernist?\n\n--Adam"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}