Narrating Postmodern Time and Space

Francese defines postmodern writing and distinguishes it from modernist prose by citing the examples of two modem and three postmodern authors: Italo Calvino, John Barth, Toni Morrison, E. L. Doctorow, and Antonio Tabucchi. While modernist narrative homologates what is other, postmodern narratives valorize nonassimilable diversities through the recuperation of multiple, conflicting subjectivities. Moreover, the subject of postmodern narrative eschews the isolation of its modernist forebear and seeks out an external, communicative authentication of its discourse. These changes in narrative strategy come in response to the transformation of real living conditions, particularly in the industrialized world, caused to a great degree by the revolution in information technology. Among the consequences of the modification of "common sense" are the radical shortening of time horizons and the tendency to live increasingly within the continuous present of the video image. Although stylistic solutions vary, in opposition to the so-called condition of postmodernity, the narratives analyzed here propose a collective recovery of the past into a future-oriented present. To begin to understand how literature intervenes in history, specific works of literary art representative of both periods and of distinct national traditions are compared and contrasted.