John Barth

The problem of the ’already said”

Is postmodernist fiction an art form to take seriously, or is it pretentious nonsense from quirky writers who can’t say what they mean? A novelist sometimes accused of postmodernism in his own work here examines the phenomenon and concludes that, well, yes and no.

“By ‘exhaustion’ I don’t mean anything so tired as the subject of physical, moral, or intellectual decadence, only the used-upness of certain forms or exhaustion of certain possibilities — by no means necessarily a cause for despair.”