This paper focuses exclusively on Postmodernism literature and analyze the 4 most common aesthetic codes. Postmodernism dismissed the central idea of modernist and avant-garde trends, which is the mythologization of existence and reality. These trends tended to create utopian or idealistic paradigms of life that transcended all forms of primitive negativity, such as violence, inhumanity, poverty, and depression.
Postmodernism holds the idea that myths are just mere creations (created by certain people) that have no basis in reality, and that these myths are often used as a form of brainwashing or social coercion, which force the masses to believe in a single form of reality and way of existing.
Postmodernism originally was a critique against Socialist Realism (the Communist myth), and now focuses on questioning and deconstructing all contemporary concepts, such as intelligence, beauty and happiness. However, Postmodernism is by no means an attempt to say that nothing in life is "real", rather, it holds an ambivalent view towards all ideas and points of view, deconstructing them, and then reconstructing them and amalgamating them into one big, playful whole.
Thus, Postmodernism holds that all ideas have potential but refuses to side with any particular idea. It seeks to form a compromise that meets somewhere in the middle between 2 extreme polar ideas, whereas previous modernist trends believed that polar opposites were incompatible.
Russian Postmodernist Literature
Russian Postmodernism is an artistic trend that came into existence in the 1960s and 1970s, at about the same time as its equivalent form in Western society. Until the 1980s, Postmodernism was only able to express itself in secret, in underground contexts, as it was against the conventional, official ideologies of the Soviet Union. However, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Postmodernism flourished without much holding it back. Postmodernism is a response to Modernism, the latter being a philosophical trend that seeks to sever social and cultural links with the past. The aim of Modernism is to represent the achievements of the industrial revolution. Many revolutions occurred in the arts, humanities, physics, politics, and other fields, throughout the first half of the twentieth century. The communist revolution was a modernist uprising that aimed to put the proletariat in control. The proletariat were encouraged to drag the bureaucrats down and obtain power and control (Epstein, Mikhail, et al. p.25).
On the other hand, Postmodernism dismissed the central idea of modernist and avant-garde trends, which is the mythologization of existence and reality. These trends tended to create utopian or idealistic paradigms of life that transcended all forms of primitive negativity, such as violence, inhumanity, poverty, and depression. Postmodernism holds the idea that myths are just mere creations (created by certain people) that have no basis in reality, and that these myths are often used as a form of brainwashing or social coercion, which force the masses to believe in a single form of reality and way of existing ((Epstein, Mikhail, et al p.26). Postmodernism originally was a critique against Socialist Realism (the Communist myth), and now focuses on questioning and deconstructing all contemporary concepts, such as intelligence, beauty and happiness. However, Postmodernism is by no means an attempt to say that nothing in life is "real", rather, it holds an ambivalent view towards all ideas and points of view, deconstructing them, and then reconstructing them and amalgamating them into one big, playful whole. Thus, Postmodernism holds that all ideas have potential but refuses to side with any particular idea. It seeks to form a compromise that meets somewhere in the middle between 2 extreme polar ideas, whereas previous modernist trends believed that polar opposites were incompatible.
In this paper, I want to focus exclusively on Postmodernism literature and analyze the 4 most common aesthetic codes (Lotman, I. M., & Uspenskii, B. A. 1985), (Lipovetskii, M. 1999).
First of all, Postmodernist literature tends to use the aspect of "emptiness", or as Ilya Kabakov called it, "garbage," which means: the inclusion of non-significant, seemingly pointless objects or events in literary works. The idea is that everything, especially concepts, can become garbage, in that they can become "undone", or deconstructed by being challenged, and having their basic structures taken apart (Kabakov, Ilya. p.54). A perfect example of a novel that displays the concept of "emptiness" is Victor Pelevin's novel titled "Zheltayastrela (The Yellow Arrow)" (1993), in which the main character Andrei spends the entirety of the book on a train with seemingly no particular destination. It just keeps on going and going throughout Eastern Europe as if it's on a permanent terrain. The passengers aboard the train are convinced that there exists no reality outside of the train. All they know is the overcrowded, dirty, and musty inside of the train. This story appears to be a critique of the modernist, utopian idea that life can only get better with time and that there is an ultimately perfect destination awaiting ahead.
It also critiques the seemingly repetitive nature of life, with new passengers being born on a daily basis, others getting married, and then finally dying aboard the train, before being tossed outside. The passengers even hold jobs, and some even get into corrupt business dealings that cause shortages of resources for all the other passengers, such as spoons.
Andrei's conversation with Khan (the first passenger he meets at the beginning of the story) expresses the conscious awareness of this repetitiveness, by stating that he has been wandering around the train for years, performing the same actions daily and even thinking the same thoughts. All the characters in the story appear to have no distinguishable personalities; rather, they seem to blend with each other, and are all lethargic, emphasizing the mundanity of life. The meaninglessness of life is further shown with the lack of interpersonal connections between the characters. Andrei's connections with Anton, and Grisha and Petr Sergeievitch become less meaningful as the story goes on, as they become more interested in their own economic businesses and become richer. This is evidenced by the scene where Andrei finally meets Anton after a very long time, and tries to read him some pieces from a book, but Anton shows flagrant disinterest and is now more absorbed by his family, and does not seem to care about the wellbeing of Anton or the other passengers who are getting mugged, the prostitution of young girls, and the horrible life conditions of the lower class passengers who have to live in the open carts with no roof over their heads.
A second common aspect in Postmodernist literature includes "simulations'', a term which was invented by a postmodernist philosopher by the name of Jean Baudrillard. He believed that reality is just a simulation, that is, an artificial representation created by humans themselves, and the objects and concepts in it do not correspond to forms that exist independently from our own distorted perceptions (Polasek, A. D. 2012). Victor Pelevin's book titled "Omon Ra'' (1992) is a great example of this postmodernist aspect. The story is about a man named Oman Krivomazov, who, after falling in love with a cardboard cutout of a spaceship, decides to become an astronaut. He goes to study at Meres'ev Flying School, however, he later finds out that the Soviet Space Program is a fraud with fake scientific experiments and fake explorations and missions. Throughout the story, he makes many sacrifices for the space program, such as getting his legs amputated, and he witnesses his friends giving up their own lives for the missions. He finds out the truth after he is supposedly, supposed to be launched to the moon, but instead ends up on a train in an underground tunnel. He finds out that it is in this tunnel where the entire space program is being staged, as if it were some sort of theatre play. This novel serves as an allegory for the Soviet Union and all its propaganda with unreliable media and news, and even history books. Life, as depicted by Socialist Realism, was happy and there existed no such thing as any form of negativity such as Racism, when in reality, freedom of speech was suppressed, dissidents were sent off to the torturous gulags and Jews were the victims of assault on a daily basis.
Another novel which serves as an example of reality being a simulation is "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabakov. The main character Humbert, is delusional, believing that a 12 year old child is the reincarnation of his dead lover Annabel. Throughout the novel, Humbert has himself convinced that Dolores is the one who "seduced" him (page 132), and that he believes that her behaviour is purposefully tempting. She seems to be fighting her mom for Humbert's attention, and even sits in his lap early on in their initial encounters, with a "banal, Eden-red apple" (page. 58), a metaphor is meant to compare her to the naughty Eden who ate from an apple tree when she was not supposed to. Sitting in a grown man’s lap at the age of 12, is quite odd, since usually, children under 5 would be sitting on adults' laps.
Granted, the girl may be promiscuous, as evidenced by her sexual behaviour with a boy at summer camp. However, it is important to note that the girl had grown up without a father figure, and it is known that girls who lack a father often "mature" a lot sooner than other girls due to a natural hormonal process. Their bodies perceive the environment as "unsafe" and therefore, they cannot afford to remain as helpless, and vulnerable children, and so, the body matures faster. Furthermore, children are naturally egotistical creatures and they crave attention, which can explain Dolore’s need for Humbert’s attention constantly. She is also perhaps very excited that she finally has a father in her life, which cna explain her eccentric behaviour. Furthermore, the story is being narrated from Humbert's point of view, and therefore, it is entirely possible, and likely, that he may be over exaggerating Dolore's behaviour, or even confabulating it entirely, in such a manner that the reader is often, finding his/herself actually feeling sorry for him, and even emphasizing with him. After all, he did witness his childgood girlfriend die.
Postmodernist literature tends to include a lot of deconstruction of reality in its narrative plots as well, that is, previously stable realities are dissolved or undone, taken apart, so that they are no longer recognizable or real. Vladimir Sharov's novel "Sooner or Later" (1993) is an excellent example of this. This story is basically a meta-analysis and a parody of all the Russian mythological ideologies and beliefs throughout its history. The plot of the story is as follows: Aliosha, the main character, suffers from amnesia and is forced to stay at a hospital. Ifraimov, another important character, spends most of the novel recounting to Aliosha the history of the "Salvation Project", which was created by the Cosmic philosopher Nikolai Fyodorov. This project is basically a plan for transforming our universe into a perfect world, with no illness, poverty, or even the possibility of death. Aliosha believes that the story that he is hearing true, and is based on real historical facts. It is a creative confabulation that even pulls in other important communist leaders such as Vladimir Lenin and Georgi Plekhanov (a Marxist revolutionary), and Ifraimov says that these 2 figures were involved in Fyodorov's project in secrecy.
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- Quote paper
- Sal Susu (Author), 2021, Russian Postmodernist Literature. Analysis of the four most common aesthetic codes, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/1027366
