paper stuff

For my paper I’m focusing on Fight Club the book and the relationship between the author, characters, and reader.  In terms of terms, I like Lyotard’s idea of meta-narratives, and I also like Jameson’s waning affect.  Themes I like are the theme of the self and I’m also intrigued by honesty.  How truthful is the narrator?  The narraotr is a schizophrenic in Fight Club so how do I trust what he’s saying?  How accurate is his own description of himself?  I think there are many truths about the same thing, and one doesn’t necessarily cancel out the other.  Things can be grey.  Is this the point of postmodernism?  To make people realize we live in a grey world?  While I understand this idea and accept it, I still wonder about truth and authenticity.  Another theme I like is subject vs object.

I’m so drawn to Fight Club, maybe because I like me some crazies, I don’t know.  When we were reading it I would see Fight Club-esque things in my life, pretty much on a daily basis.  Or something would happen and I’d be like, Tyler?  Or I even started seeing the squirrels in my neighborhood as members of Project Mayhem… whoa.

The questions I have are about the level of honesty in the text.  Who are the characters, narrators, authors being honest with?  I always want to know why.  Why is this considered postmodern.  There aren’t even any solid boundaries of what makes something postmodern.  Did the author sit down and say, “Hmm I think I’ll write a postmodern novel…”  I guess I want to know if it was a conscious decision, or if it just happened.

~ by aprillesundae on November 27, 2007.