postmodern reading list

this is more of a personal media list than a strict recommendation list. the thing about postmodernism is that 1. it's not so much a genre as an artistic movement 2. the whole point of postmodernism is that it defies definition and traditional structure. for me this means the "boundaries" of postmodernism are incredibly individualistic. things i list here may be things you wouldn't consider postmodern. and we're both right.

postmodernism may CONTAIN elements of art i have cited on my weird fiction and meta fiction pages; however the presence of metanarrative and quote enquote weirdness does not automatically qualify art as postmodern, to me. in addition i will be citing art on this list that is on my backlog but which i have seen passed around as being "postmodern" work. if i decide upon playing that it DOESN'T fit in my personal canon, i will remove it.

books:

  • house of leaves: anyone who has heard of postmodern literature probably immediately thinks of this book, regardless of whether or not they've actually read it.
  • slaughterhouse-five: absurdism is its own movement, but i think this one falls under both umbrellas.
  • if on a winter's night a traveler: [on to-read pile]

films:

  • daisies: the new wave films of the post-war era are all, in my mind, stretching the very boundaries of traditional narrative and film structure, and none moreso than daisies. in this essay i will
  • blue: a film that has nothing to see but an hour and a half of a single shade of blue while the filmmaker spoke. i've never seen anything quite like it.

television:

  • neon genesis evangelion: specifically the final two episodes, due to budget constraints; but frankly the entire back half depicting the total mental breakdowns of the main cast is
  • twin peaks the return: the work of david lynch on the whole toys with postmodernism, but i'm specifically citing the return, which is lynch pushing the boundaries of television as far as he can.
  • princess tutu: this is a primarily due to metanarrative example but i'll allow it because ahiru gets trapped beyond the pages of her story by her original author and has to be rescued by the man trying to usurp his role as the author of the story and i love that for them
  • revolutionary girl utena: an anime so veneered in layers upon layers of metaphor and symbolism that it nearly chokes on it until its final act cracks the whole fucking thing wide open. also nanami turns into a cow.

theater:

  • rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead: oh, of course.
  • waiting for godot: again, absurdism doesn't quite overlap with postmodernism, and this play is structured fairly classically - but also nothing happens. and many productions treat it as something postmodern so.
  • hamletmachine: six scenes, all monologue, all a complete and total breakdown of what hamlet is.
  • love and information: caryl churchill is a master of postmodern theatre, but i think this play - fifty individual exchanges of dialogue, no named characters, no indicator of who is saying what lines - is as postmodern as she gets.
  • woyzeck: okay i think woyzeck is actually an interesting one because given that buchner passed before its completion it's sort of impossible to know whether or not this play is supposed to be like that. however, it's the one we have; and i think the way it communicates its story speaks volumes to the time buchner was written in. i would love to see this performed one day.

video games

NOTE: undertale, in my opinion, is not a postmodern video game. if you want to hear my complete thoughts on that, subscribe to the moonshot patreon and listen to me discuss it with marn and juliet on our undertale episode of zero hours played.

  • pathologic: if you've watched the hbomberguy pathologic video, i implore you to also watch the ruby seals ones. if you've also watched the ruby seals ones, you get me.
  • alan wake: [on my video game backlog]
  • slay the princess: [thoughts to come]