04-14-2016, 07:28 AM
Postmodernism's Your Friend
I'm not a big reader of postmodern books.
And yes, I know, I've heard it before,
that Postmodernism's Your Friend,
that any book written since World War II
is postmodern, baby.
Well, balls.
Give me the broken cross of East Lynne,
the rain-swept maidens moulded by Ann Radcliffe,
the white hopping-things and sacrilegious tomes
of M. R. James, with the mountains like a woman's breasts
in H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines.
I am a discerning sort of chap, I swear.
I'm just more music-hall than coffee shop,
more cottage than studio loft.
Oh, I can sit a good long while with Virginia Woolf,
and even pass a pleasant conversation
with James Joyce.
But inside, I'm ashamed to say,
while Finnegan's wake prattles on,
and Mrs. Dalloway enters, suddenly,
I'm thinking about Vampyres.
I'm not a big reader of postmodern books.
And yes, I know, I've heard it before,
that Postmodernism's Your Friend,
that any book written since World War II
is postmodern, baby.
Well, balls.
Give me the broken cross of East Lynne,
the rain-swept maidens moulded by Ann Radcliffe,
the white hopping-things and sacrilegious tomes
of M. R. James, with the mountains like a woman's breasts
in H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines.
I am a discerning sort of chap, I swear.
I'm just more music-hall than coffee shop,
more cottage than studio loft.
Oh, I can sit a good long while with Virginia Woolf,
and even pass a pleasant conversation
with James Joyce.
But inside, I'm ashamed to say,
while Finnegan's wake prattles on,
and Mrs. Dalloway enters, suddenly,
I'm thinking about Vampyres.
"We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges." - Gene Wolfe