The Literature of Reconstruction

Reviews / Votes

The demise of postmodernism might be said to be a long time coming, as scholars in the last few years have begun to characterise a transformation in literary and cultural production since the early 1990s. ... Within this new wave of literary criticism that reflects on a new body of writing, Wolfgang Funk's The Literature of Reconstruction persuasively argues that recent literary fiction has moved away from the postmodern project through formal innovation. * Textual Practice * Funk (Gutenberg-Universitaet, Mainz, Germany) offers an academic treatise on authenticity in the wake of postmodernism. He focuses on David Eggers's Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, seven novels by Jasper Fforde, Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending and England, England, and Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad, in each examining the scholarly value in the voice. Eggers entangles his narrator with the voice of the writer, thus creating a self-conscious narrator. Fforde uses paradox to disrupt time. Funk's view of modern literature relies on technique rather than plot. The book covers the discourse in a range of postmodern novels, works that focus not on plot or character development but rather on meta reference to create a narrative assemblage for the reader. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty. -- K. Gale, University of Nebraska, USA * CHOICE * The number of critical studies telling us how to think about the fiction of the early twenty-first-century is growing by the day. Amid this abundance, Wolfgang Funk's The Literature of Reconstruction stands out for its critical breadth and sophistication, its nuanced and original readings, and its fresh and accessible style. It is a must for scholars of contemporary literature, but not only for them: the book should also be read by anyone interested in the idea of authenticity, as Funk's anatomy of this concept is nothing short of a revelation. * Adam Kelly, Lecturer in American Literature, University of York, UK, and author of American Fiction in Transition *