From Postmodernism to New Realism: Varieties of the American Short Story 1960-2000 4219-SC172

In the late 1960s writers such as Robert Coover, John, Barth, and Donald Barthelme published works of fiction, including collections of short stories, in which they seemed to endorse a common belief that the old forms of storytelling came to a dead end. As a solution to the problem, they proposed various techniques that put to the foreground the fictionality of representation, questioning such axioms as the plot, the character, and the setting, even in forms already revised by their modernist predecessors. Another common denominator of their fiction was playfulness – literature was treated by them as a game with the reader whose fossilized reading habits were often put to test and challenged. The postmodernist vogue exhausted itself around 1985, to be replaced by a significant return to realism, represented by such writers as, e.g., Raymond Carver, Frederick Barthelme (Donald’s brother), and Ann Beattie, but it was a new kind of realism often conscious of the discursive nature of reality. Another current that emerged and developed at about the same time was fiction written by various writers who came to the US as immigrants or were immigrants’ children. That group included, among others, Maxine Hong Kingston of Chinese origin and Junot Diaz with his roots in the Dominican Republic. More recent new realists are also Jeffrey Eugenides and T. C. Boyle, as well as Alice Walker, an Afro-American writer who, next to Tony Morrison, continues the tradition initiated by Harlem Renaissance.

1. Introduction: Old Postmodernism, New Realism
2. John Barth, „Lost in the Funhouse,” “Title,” “Life Story”
3. Robert Coover, “The Magic Poker,” “The Elevator,” “The Babysitter”
4. Donald Barthelme, “The Glass Mountain,” “Daumier,” “The New Music”
5. Walter Abish, “The English Garden,” “With Bill in the Desert,” “How a Comb Gives a Fresh Meaning to the Hair”
6. Raymond Carver, “Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?,” “Popular Mechanics,” “Where I’m Calling From,” “Cathedral”
7. Frederick Barthelme, “Shopgirls,” “Moon Deluxe,” “Safeway”
8. Tim O’Brien, “The Things They Carried,” “How to Tell a True War Story,” “The Man I Killed”
9. Maxine Hong Kingston, “White Tigers,” “A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe”
10. Alice Walker, “Roselily,” “”Really, Doesn’t Crime Pay?’,” “Everyday Use,” “The Welcome Table”
11. Junot Diaz, “The Sun, the Moon, the Stars,” “Nilda,” “Alma”
12. Jeffrey Eugenides, “Fresh Complaint,” “Air Mail”
13. T. C. Boyle, “When I Woke Up This Morning Everything I Had Was Gone,” “Jubilation,” “Blinded by the Light”
14. Discussing term papers