Moe Szyslak's definition of Postmodernism is still the best one we have?

Moe Szyslak's definition of Postmodernism is still the best one we have?

ummm.. no? who even is that? why is he yellow?

about as good as it gets bc the definition is in regards to architecture, which is how it has been historicized irl

eh it's not that great. it fits better with stuff that is nothing but "le quirky random xD" that you see in contemporary "art"

pomo at least at some connections to modernism and the canon as a whole. even if it was subverting it, the derridean "trace" shows what it is not is present in the opposite, so "weird for the sake of being weird" doesn't really apply.

IMO "Weird for the sake of weird" is more accurate than the cringe "Privileges ontological questions over epistemological ones questions."

>that is nothing but "le quirky random xD" that you see in contemporary "art"

There's nothing random about it. It's all a commentary on the History of Self-Generated Publicity. I don't think you understand contemporary art or post-modernism, at all, for that matter.

go to bed tao

the second bit of this

> go to bed tao

What does that even mean? Is Tao a verb? Finish your fucking sentence.

go to bed mira

is this still the best takedown of pomoshit we have?

>The big contemporary novel is a perpetual-motion machine that appears to have been embarrassed into velocity. It seems to want to abolish stillness, as if ashamed of silence—as it were, a criminal running endless charity marathons. Stories and sub-stories sprout on every page, as these novels continually flourish their glamorous congestion. Inseparable from this culture of permanent storytelling is the pursuit of vitality at all costs. Indeed, vitality is storytelling, as far as these books are concerned. If, say, a character is introduced in London, call him Toby Awknotuby (that is, " To be or not to be"—ha!) then we will be swiftly told that he has a twin in Delhi (called Boyt, which is an anagram of Toby, of course), who, like Toby, has the same very curious genital deformation, and that their mother belongs to a religious cult based, oddly enough, in the Orkney Islands, and that their father (who was born at the exact second that the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima) has been a Hell's Angel for the last thirteen years (but a very curious Hell's Angels group it is, devoted only to the fanatical study of late Wordsworth), and that Toby's mad left-wing aunt was curiously struck dumb when Mrs. Thatcher was elected prime minister in 1979 and has not spoken a word since. And all this, over many pages, before poor Toby Awknotuby has done a thing, or thought a thought!

>Is this a caricature, really? Recent novels—veritable relics of St. Vitus—by Rushdie, Pynchon, DeLillo, Foster Wallace, and others, have featured a great rock musician who, when born, began immediately to play air guitar in his crib (Rushdie); a talking dog, a mechanical duck, a giant octagonal cheese, and two clocks having a conversation (Pynchon); a nun called Sister Edgar who is obsessed with germs and who may be a reincarnation of J. Edgar Hoover, and a conceptual artist painting retired B-52 bombers in the New Mexico desert (DeLillo); a terrorist group devoted to the liberation of Quebec called the Wheelchair Assassins, and a film so compelling that anyone who sees it dies (Foster Wallace). Zadie Smith's novel features, among other things: a terrorist Islamic group based in North London with a silly acronym (kevin), an animal-rights group called fate, a Jewish scientist who is genetically engineering a mouse, a woman born during an earthquake in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1907; a group of Jehovah's Witnesses who think that the world is ending on December 31, 1992; and twins, one in Bangladesh and one in London, who both break their noses at about the same time.

>The optimism of all this "vitality" is shared by many readers, apparently. Again and again, one sees books such as these praised for being cabinets of wonders. Bright lights are taken as evidence of habitation. The mere existence of a giant cheese or a cloned mouse or several different earthquakes in a novel is seen as meaningful or wonderful, evidence of great imaginative powers. And this is because too often these features are mistaken for scenes, as if they constituted the movement or the toil or the pressure of the novel, rather than taken for what they are—props of the imagination, meaning's toys. The existence of vitality is mistaken for the drama of vitality.

tl;dr Rushdie, Wallace and Zadie Smith are shit therefore Pynchon and Delillo are as well.

cringe

how does this constitute a 'takedown' ?

Pynchon and Delillo write political fiction, the others try to copy and regurgitate what their tenured professor tells them and just end up doing Szyslak's concept of "Weird for the sake o' weird."

What is Moe Szyslak on about?

I haven't watched the Simpsons since I was 13 or so

but despite his 'weird for the sake of being weird' line, the commentary on postmodernism is in reference to architecture (Moe's Tavern is transformed from pho-dive/dive to pomo extravagance with non-functional embellishments typical of contemporary urban nightclubs)

whats wrong with weird

No

Postmodernism isn't about trying to be wierd on purpose. Its about revisioning things like what it means to be wierd

>Its about revisioning things like what it means to be wierd

So weird changes for the sake of weird?

He's saying pomo is a lesser art than what came before it. Story telling today lacks the solid dramatic effects that make a good story. Books today are a smorgasbord of small thoughts and fail to present anything greater.

He's not saying it in a particularly convincing way and besides that it's more of an indictment of maximalism than postmodernism itself. Not all postmodern fiction is maximalist

> Homer: Hey, Moe, what's with the eyeballs?
> Moe: It's po-mo.
[Homer, Lenny & Carl shrug]
> Moe: It's post-modernism.
[Homer, Lenny & Carl shrug]
> Moe: Weird for the sake of weird.
[Homer, Lenny & Carl breathe big sigh of understanding]

>Royal Ontario Museum.jpg
Carrion feeding on the corpse of the past.

heh

i like umberto eco's thing:
>The postmodern reply to the modern consists of recognizing that the past, since it cannot really be destroyed, because its destruction leads to silence, must be revisited: but with irony, not innocently. I think of the postmodern attitude as that of a man who loves a very cultivated woman and knows that he cannot say to her ‘I love you madly’, because he knows that she knows (and that she knows he knows) that these words have already been written by Barbara Cartland. Still, there is a solution. He can say ‘As Barbara Cartland would put it, I love you madly’. At this point, having avoided false innocence, having said clearly that it is no longer possible to speak innocently, he will nevertheless have said what he wanted to say to the woman: that he loves her in an age of lost innocence. If the woman goes along with this, she will have received a declaration of love all the same. Neither of the two speakers will feel innocent, both will have accepted the challenge of the past, of the already said, which cannot be eliminated; both will consciously and with pleasure play the game of irony… But both will have succeeded, once again, in speaking of love.

That's good

quite nice

> reading Umberto Eco quotes in translation

Agreed. I don't like DeLillo or Pynchon at all (which sucks since I have a Pomo Novel class this semester, at least it'll be a nice GPA bump) but they are relatively original writers. Especially early Pynchon.

Salman Rushdie isn't original but he's not bad either.

Fuck me Umberto was one of the last good ones

>Hating M&D because le quirky dog XD

nah, sounds like this critic needs a hearty dose of git gud

Is this the best takedown of Moby Dick?

This is an ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition. The style of his tale is in places disfigured by mad (rather than bad) English; and its catastrophe is hastily, weakly, and obscurely managed… Mr. Melville has to thank himself only if his horrors and his heroics are flung aside by the general reader, as so much trash belonging to the worst school of Bedlam literature — since he seems not so much unable to learn as disdainful of learning the craft of an artist. —Henry F. Chorley, in London Athenaeum, October 25 1851

In all those portions of this volume which relate directly to the whale … the interest of the reader will be kept alive, and his attention fully rewarded…. In all the scenes where the whale is the performer or the sufferer, the delineation and action are highly vivid and exciting. In all other aspects, the book is sad stuff, dull and dreary, or ridiculous. Mr. Melville’s Quakers are the wretchedest dolts and drivellers, and his Mad Captain … is a monstrous bore…. His ravings, and the ravings of some of the tributary characters, and the ravings of Mr. Melville himself, meant for eloquent declamation, are such as would justify a writ de lunatico against all the parties. –Charleston Southern Quarterly Review, January 1852

Mr. Melville is evidently trying to ascertain how far the public will consent to be imposed upon. …. We have no intention of quoting any passages just now from Moby Dick. The London journals, we understand, “have bestowed upon the work many flattering notices,” and we should be loth to combat such high authority. But if there are any of our readers who wish to find examples of bad rhetoric, involved syntax, stilted sentiment and incoherent English, we will take the liberty of recommending to them this precious volume of Mr. Melville’s.–New York United States Magazine and Democratic Review, January 1852

Carrion is a corpse you dip

This person doesn't sound like a very good literary critic. They're cherry picking extremely specific examples, and not very good ones, while examining them outside of their context and without considering anything else about the authors' works.

Just sounds like someone is unable to enjoy long novels and is really upset about it.

He looks like he's made of CHEESE! LOL!

He's trying to argue a specific point, why would he be considering other aspects of the author's work that doesn't support his argument?

>a terrorist group devoted to the liberation of Quebec called the Wheelchair Assassins, and a film so compelling that anyone who sees it dies
Those aren't even bad. Did he even read the hamster stampede part?