# Postmodernism (was Re: Wolfe a conservative writer?) *The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 08 Dec 2000* > 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. --- ### Adam Stephanides *08 Dec 2000, 17:25* > Alex David Groce wrote: > > Adam wrote: >> And for this very reason, that prototypical postmodernist John Barth >> has also adopted the _Thousand Nights and a Night_ as a model. Not >> to mention the postmodernist tour de force THE ARABIAN NIGHTMARE by >> Robert Irwin (whose book on _The Thousand Nights and a Night_, >> entitled something like THE ARABIAN NIGHTS: A COMPANION, I highly >> recommend). > Hmmm... This seems to bring us back to the whole question of how to > know postmodernism (and without the aid of a SF oracle like Damon > Knight's finger). Barth I will agree is postmodernist. But notice > that Wolfe, while he write about stories being told, telling > themselves, etc., never (AFAIK) does the kind of metafictional > introduction of himself that Barth does (in _Chimera_, for example). Well, there was that one in STOREYS (iirc) about the author writing his perfect story a word at a time; but I take your point. But I wasn't arguing that Wolfe is a postmodernist; I was arguing against the claim that he is a "very conservative" writer, and the paragraph you quote was merely an incidental point. I really don't know if Wolfe is a postmodernist or not, especially since I have no definition of postmodernism, and the lines between postmodernism and modernism are very fuzzy (which is ULYSSES?). > Use of the 1001 Nights does not a postmodernist > make--Proust and R. A. Lafferty are both frequent travelers to that > territory, and Proust is a modernist and Lafferty is whatever on earth > Lafferty is. For what it's worth, I would say Lafferty is a postmodernist, among other things. I also don't think the 1001 Nights is that much of an influence on him, aside from THE THIRTEENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD and the short story about the genie (and maybe a couple of others I've forgotten). I think he owes a lot more to American tall-tale traditions, though he draws upon all sorts of legends. > I'll agree that THE ARABIAN NIGHTMARE and PEACE have a > _lot_ in common (though aiming at rather opposite visions, I think). That actually hadn't occurred to me at all. But now I'll have to think about it. > What makes THE ARABIAN NIGHTMARE postmodernist rather than modernist? It's actually a while since I read it, and while I'm sure I instinctively pegged it as postmodernist, I would have to reread it to tell you why I thought so. Why do you think it's modernist? --Adam ---