Postmodern Literature

Postmodern literature that takes up this genre is "anti-detective fiction", calling into question the ability of the individual detective to assume the authorial position of masterful reason, and by implication also questioning the possibility of a transcendent authorial position. The books I have chosen for my essay are City Of Glass by Paul Auster and The Man In The High Castle by Philip K. Dick. I will make an "broad" analysis of why city of glass is an work of postmodern fiction, and close read The man in the high castle and give my views of the book. By chance I noticed that both of the book's plot is centred on authors, but the authors have different roles in each of the books and both of the books plays with how I perceive and see reality. I will start with a quote from John Barth from the article Postmodernism Revisited. In there I writes; "The ideal postmodernist novel will somehow rise above the quarrel between realism and irrealism, formalism and contentism, pure and commited literature, coterie fiction and junk fiction"( P 21)

The books I have chosen for my essay are City Of Glass by Paul Auster and The Man In The High Castle by Philip K. Dick. I will make an "broad" analysis of why city of glass is an work of postmodern fiction, and close read The man in the high castle and give my views of the book. By chance I noticed that both of the book's plot is centred on authors, but the authors have different roles in each of the books and both of the books plays with how I perceive and see reality. I will start with a quote from John Barth from the article Postmodernism Revisited. In there I writes; "The ideal postmodernist novel will somehow rise above the quarrel between realism and irrealism, formalism and contentism, pure and commited literature, coterie fiction and junk fiction"( P 21) I interpret this as a framework for postmodern novels, to be more exact I see it as a open framework, where a postmodern novel can be about anything as long as there is no clear border between what we perceive as real and unreal and he contuniues in page 21 with " Postmodern, I tell myself serenely, is what I am; ergo, Postmodernism is whatever I do" I interpret this as that postmodernism is whatever you want it to be, if I write a novel I can call it a postmodern fiction, but this will not matter, because the important factor, according to me, is how the reader interprets the work. What I characterise as postmodern are the obvious plot holes that may or may not be on purpose in books, and in this case, the two books I will use for my essay.