Introducing Postmodernism: A Graphic Guide
By Richard Appignanesi and Chris Garratt with Ziauddin Sardar and Patrick Curry
Page I bailed on: 80
Verdict: There’s nothing wrong with short introductions to complex, or even not-so-complex subjects. I’ve never gone the For Dummies or Complete Idiot’s Guide route but I’ve enjoyed most of the volumes I’ve read in Oxford’s Very Short Introduction series. Out of the twenty or so of those I’ve been through I think there have only been a couple of clunkers that were of no help at all in adding to my understanding of the topic being covered.
One of the good ones was Christopher Butler’s book on postmodernism. I learned quite a bit from that. But I learned nothing from this Introduction, which takes the form of a “graphic guide.” I take it all the pictures were to make it more engaging and/or accessible, but they added nothing to the text and didn’t help explain or make clear any of the concepts in play.
Granted, I’m not, and never have been, a fan of critical or literary theory. Especially after it got bogged down in the philosophy of language in the twentieth century. Maybe I’m just a die-hard pragmatist, but I keep wondering what the use value is of postmodern speculations. If Derrida (probably not a good example, as he was so slippery about saying anything) was right (or “right”) then so what? Why does it matter? I still don’t know, and it’s hard to summon the mental energy to tackle such an obscure body of work when I feel there’s nothing at stake.
Alex Good 
I tried wiki for an explanation of postmodernism so I could make a sensible comment, but I DNF’d it!
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🤣
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The very short intro series was total bollux imo. So if this was in the same vein, I’m not surprised you dnf’d it. And given the subject matter itself, I’m surprised you lasted all the way until page 80.
Do dnf’s get zero or one stars from you?
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The VSI series varies a lot in quality. Some of them are excellent. I’ve found most of them to be very good. The one on postmodernism, for example. A few have been really disappointing, especially when the author goes off on a personal tangent.
I’ve never used the star scale, but I guess a DNF would be no stars. Or N/A.
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Well, glad somebody got some use out of the VSI books anyway 🙂
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My impression is that a lot of what I don’t like in today’s world could be considered postmodern in one way or another, so it’s like the devil’s philosophy for me. All that meta crap, for instance. I think of it as the “doesn’t take anything seriously” philosophy. But I could be all wrong. That’s just my impression.
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It’s a notoriously and deliberately difficult concept to pin down. In part (but only in part) because it doesn’t think you can pin anything down, at least definitionally. There’s no arguing with people about it because they just slip away (e.g. “There is no postmodernism, only postmodernisms”). Sure that itself can be its spirit, but it seems too much work for too little payoff for me.
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I studied postmodernism as part of my literature module at university, scored a respectable 2:1 (second to highest grade) on an essay about postmodernism in Heart of Darkness. If you asked me what it actually is, I’d say that I don’t really know. Not “really”. Like I sort of do. But really, I don’t.
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It may be like quantum physics. If you say you can explain it then you don’t really understand it.
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Well, if nothing else, we can agree it comes after modernism, not before.
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I knew an academic who thought Tristram Shandy was a postmodern novel so you could argue anything . . .
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