Word: postmodernity
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Franzen's literary heroes are the masters of the paranoid, postmodern novel--William Gaddis, Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo--writers who spin huge plots full of manic undertakings and dense riffs on civilization and its discontents. The book he put aside to write The Corrections was cut from that cloth. "It had prisons, race relations, stock-market corrections," Franzen says. "The 'corrections' in the finished book are more personal." The social disorders of the 21st century are expressed mostly through the personal distempers of the three siblings and their flight to the false consolations of sex, careerism and consumerism. "They...
Maybe so, but when you correct certain problems in the postmodern novel--its cartoonish characters, its repetitive paranoia and absorption in Big Patterns--you get a better book. The Corrections does not "solve" the mystery of family life, but it renders its mysteries with the fine filament and moral nuance they require. There are already an impressive 90,000 copies in print. While that's not quite John Grisham territory, Franzen has so far made more than a million dollars. This could be another reason why he's feeling optimistic about the literary novel these days. He may be right...
Talk-Show Guest Bill Murray Forget movie plugs. Murray treats talk shows as postmodern vaudeville, using stream-of-consciousness rants and energetic cover tunes--like a recent Late Show performance of She Bangs--to keep audiences awake...
After decades of played-out Modernist formulas and goofy PostModern replies, we have entered a moment of exciting American architecture. Richard Meier has refined the rules of Modernism to high brilliance. Frank Gehry has exploded those same rules to make some of the great buildings of our time. Why should Holl, at 53, be counted the best of them all? Because his buildings epitomize an architecture alert to emotional needs and the spiritual properties of space. Because he conforms his designs so adroitly to their surroundings. Because he knows how to speak through understatement. For all those reasons, his work...
Which is surely true, but what's strange is that Wilchins' postmodern vision of activism seems to be working even though Washington currently feels a little premodern. When Wilchins founded GenderPAC six years ago, it was barely more than a newsletter scribbled in her New York City apartment. Now, with the help of donations from firms such as American Airlines and Verizon, GenderPAC has a small but well-appointed office in Washington and a yearly budget of $250,000. Its Congressional Gala last month drew 200 people for an address by Colorado Congresswoman Diana DeGette. Even conservatives are noticing...