sleepplease said:
Zephyrio - Have you read Elliot's "The Hollow Men" ? It's one of my favourites.
I agree the Wasteland is a challenge, but perhaps in a few years, on retrospect, aspects of it will appeal to you more. It's definitely not postmodern! It has such a strong sense of poetic self/identity and there's not even much subversion of the structure. I do get your point about fragmentation, but the technique itslf is not po-mo. Postmod fragmention has the intent usually of commenting on the methods of communication and perception - playing with language and expression - Elliot isn't doing that at all.
Oh, don't do post-modernism injustice by labelling it as prose cut up pretending to be poetry! It's just another movement, with another intention, no better or worse than the next and equally important and intellectually valuable.
(Have you read Hughs' "Deaf Children" another I'd strongly recommend)
One of the points on the BOS HSC Marking Centre Notes on EE2 is that too many people opt for "postmodernism" and think that by structuring work in such a way (btw, I wasn't saying that Elliot was being an arse by doing that, I was referring to others who try to produce po-mo work) as "cut up prose" (I love this phrase - mind if I steal it?) they believe that they'll get more marks. Now, I have absolutely no problem with such structure if I can see the rationale behind it - but all too often I see others use it for the sake of using it - it doesn't effectively communicate any ideas, and are just eyesores for markers really. So if it's utilised without intent, it's not equally important/intellectually valuable as the next movement.
I can definitely understand the fragments in BOS Showcase works, well most, but I think that if I need to read the reflection statement to see the intent behind it (if it even mentions it at all!) I think the work hasn't been effective enough - a shortcoming as far as clarity is concerned. Umm what else was I about to say? lol
Personally, Postmodernism doesn't appeal to me that much at all, though when my English teacher asked me what I liked, I said I didn't fancy Modernism too much either (I'm usually much more concerned with how writers/poets explain things, not so much their trademarks which fit in neatly within artistic moments a la the ones I mentioned above.) With doing EE2, I've found that perhaps I am really a product of my time, and more Postmodernist that I had earlier viewed myself. Sometimes, I think that Postmodernist writing is too "scholarly" and "academic" - to prove writing capability and experimentation - which undoubtedly shadows the "story" element to a piece of work in many cases. For example, most books nowadays, though they may deal with issues within the Postmodern framework, the way they express this does not correlate to the Postmodernist movement at all. That's why we see works which, in some ways identify with Postmodernism but are written "palatably" and for readers to digest, not to be confused about. Yes, there are minor sentences and some works may indeed experiment with form and structure, but ultimately, the works I like most tell a good story - what is the use of a story if it is clouded with convoluted language, or written beautifully but has no storyline!!?!? The ONE Postmodern book which I have enjoyed is Arundhati Roy's
The God of Small Things - if you haven't had a look, maybe you'll enjoy it as much as I did. ^_^
And thank you for your suggestions
I might get around to reading some Elliot later.
