Where to Start With Postmodern Literature

For those of you who'd rather take that red pill! This stuff will mess with your head and turn you into paranoid weirdos; if that doesn't bother you, enjoy all of the gateway drugs listed in this video!

Books mentioned in the video, in alphabetical order, together with my review of it if I've ever filmed one:
DeLillo - White Noise
Dick - Ubik
Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude
Vonnegut - Breakfast of Champions
Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse 5

What books do YOU think work as good introductions into the world of postmodernism? Do you like the books I talk about here?
Let me know in the comments!

Follow me on GoodReads!

[hwelf]

Your caveat above about the danger of being turned into a "paranoid weirdo" reminds me that back when I was a grad student, one of my friends recommended that I should read "V", which led to my being hooked on Pynchon for life. I had a friend in the English department who shared my enthusiasm; when I mentioned to her that I was planning to start on "The Crying of Lot 49", she shook her head and said, "that's the book that drove insane" ...(Y____ being a mutual acquaintance who was convinced that government agents or extraterrestrials were tormenting him by transmitting threatening messages to him via his dental fillings).

[michellecostley]

Kurt Vonnegut. Yes. He answers the big questions with humor and ease and is never condescending. I wrote him a fan letter once and got a postcard in reply that he designed. Write to living authors. They love it! I also got letters from John Irving and Jack Williamson.

[FleurPillager]

When anyone mentions Vonnegut I hear harps playing in background. It makes me want to kneel on a prayer mat and bow towards Indianapolis.

[AnalniRovokopac]

*a washing machine interrupts a video about postmodern fiction with a song*

[nubojin]

I’ve only started reading books a year ago, and by watching this I’ve just realized that I’m somehow unknowingly keep on picking up post-modernist books. Love Vonnegut to bits, am reading Midnight’s Children, and One Hundred years of Solitude is on my shopping cart waiting to be checked out.

Will definitely have a look on your recommendations! Thank you for this video!

[marialindaraharja]

I am forever thankful for finding your channel when I was doing my thesis. So much love for you <3

[sixtofive]

Probably not the best of choices, but Gravity's Rainbow was my first taste of pm fiction. I don't think I got more than a quarter of the way through on the first attempt. Months later, when I finally came back to it, I just accepted that I won't always understand what is happening or why and let my imagination live in the moment page by page. I finished it and really enjoyed it.

[WhatKamilReads]

Great to see this video in my subscribers feed, I was one of the people asking for it. Read some of those, but I love you setting them in the genre. Looking forward to read the rest.

[davidlean]

I am intrigued how post modern fiction later influenced movies. Pulp Fiction is certain a post modern film, but my favorite is PT Anderson's Magnolia. As a matter of fact, David Foster Wallace was Anderson's English lit professor for a short time. I can see a huge influence on Anderson's work.

[vins]

The more I get to know it, the more I am convinced that Latin-American Literature is full of marvellous and portentous post-modernist novels - Bolaño, Vargas Llosa, and still many others to discover. I do think that Latin-American Literature "is the future"!

[candicebliss]

I’d like to recommend “The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor, ” by John Barth, to anyone who would like to sample post-modern literature. It’s a delightful read, not too difficult (once you get used to the narrative style), and not very long. It’s no like anything I’ve ever read, and I loved it. 💕

[helenasf]

Thank you so much for this video and all your content. Having recently finished House of Leaves, I was looking for my next post-modern read and landed on Slaughterhouse Five to start based on this video. You’re right, it is a perfect novel. It was so thought provoking and a real call to action, or call to peace more specifically. It is one of my favourite books too now! Thank you again. I’ll be working my way through your other recommendations now!

[mohamadkebbewar]

Slaughter House Five is one of my favorite books too. Looking forward to read more post-modern novels soon.

[jamesbutler]

I'm so glad you're doing these videos! I'm reading If on a Winter's Night a Traveller and watched your video on it which I thought was superbly balanced and insightful.
I'd add John Barth's novel The Sotweed Factor (1960) to your list - it's a hugely enjoyable, playful game of a book.

[SwirlOfColors]

Spot on selection! If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino is one of my favorites. I would also add At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien (okay, maybe not really post-modern, but) to me it is a clear inspiration or influence (okay, maybe not really, but I cannot help myself thinking otherwise) on such books: V. by Thomas Pynchon, (the mentioned) If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino, Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami (another one of my favorites); so if you like At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien there is a good chance you will like those as well, hence it is a bridge to post-modernism. Maybe it is a roundabout way of reasoning (but I cannot help myself thinking otherwise).

[roniklinkhamer]

I love your stuff, your enthousiasm, thanxx a lot, I only just discovered you yesterday, Bookchemist!
Personally I should love to add 'The Hitchhikers guide into the Galaxy' the omnibus of 5 parts, of Douglas Adams. Hilarious, and touching and weird and uplifting and ceashing, wow...!

[WhiteLionSabre]

VALIS by PKD is explicitly more postmodern since it attacks the nature of reality way more closely (partially because it's based on PKD's hallucinations that made him question reality). The trade off is that it's also extremely bizarre and at times over the top, but that's part of the fun.

[JohnnyCashavetes]

The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster was my introduction to postmodern fiction. I didn't know postmodern fiction existed, but by stumbling onto that book, there I was, reading it, and enjoying it. The New York Trilogy is a collection of three short novels, so it won't take much time investment, and if one doesn't like the the first story (City of Glass), then there is no reason to read the next two, and their postmodern experiment can be over in a couple of hours. City of Glass has all the postmodern staples, but is straight forward in prose, so it's one of the easier postmodern books to read. My enjoyment of that book eventually got me to Auster's more famous friend, Don Delillo, where I agree, his White Noise is another fantastic starter, and probably my favorite book in the genre. White Noise says everything that needs to be said about the last fifty years in America, which is striking because thirty years have passed since it was written, and it covered that too.

[briansbookbastion]

Thanks for the suggestions. Just borrowed "If on a winter's night a traveler" from my girlfriend and will be starting it in the next couple of days!

[KitchenJames]

The Broom of The System is one I would recommend. it's not short but it's really easy to read.