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Feb. 12th, 2020 01:34 pmIf there’s one thing worse than postmodernism, it’s stories that should be postmodern but aren’t.
There’s this novel called The Highest Form of Killing. It’s about three people who start off as interesting and nuanced. Then plot happens, and one of the three becomes a boring villain. To stop him, the second becomes a boring hero. The third becomes a boring love interest, because apparently the author really wanted the hero to have sex with someone. It’s like they’re possessed by the spirits of bad writing, who puppeteer their bodies to follow a generic tale of science gone wrong.
If this book were actually postmodern, the characters would recognize that their real enemy was the plot. They’d fight to retain their identities, and maybe they’d succeed, or maybe they’d fail. But since it’s not postmodern, they simply go to their predictable deaths in service of a predictable ending. Any personality they started with is wasted.
There’s this novel called The Highest Form of Killing. It’s about three people who start off as interesting and nuanced. Then plot happens, and one of the three becomes a boring villain. To stop him, the second becomes a boring hero. The third becomes a boring love interest, because apparently the author really wanted the hero to have sex with someone. It’s like they’re possessed by the spirits of bad writing, who puppeteer their bodies to follow a generic tale of science gone wrong.
If this book were actually postmodern, the characters would recognize that their real enemy was the plot. They’d fight to retain their identities, and maybe they’d succeed, or maybe they’d fail. But since it’s not postmodern, they simply go to their predictable deaths in service of a predictable ending. Any personality they started with is wasted.
