Postmodernism, Irony, The Enjoyable by Umberto Eco - Book Report/Review Example

According to the study Eco is quick to note that postmodernism is a label that is used carte blanche to explain any number of phenomena usually at the user's whim. However, insofar that postmodernism represents an ideal category rather than a temporal appellation, literally "after modernism," its ability to recognize the role of the past in attempt to respond to the avant-garde, which is indicative of the modern, offers a compelling critique that can simultaneously recapture the past without imitating it.

Instead of imitation or flattery being the mode of revisiting the past, postmodernism attaches irony with its use of the past. Eco further adds that what is advantageous about this use of irony is that while it is playful in spirit, it can and is occasionally taken seriously, which energizes artistic expression by enlivening the discourse. If indeed this is case, Eco claims that the postmodern can co-exist, alternate or follow closely the modern and makes this case by using the work of James Joyce as an example of the shifting ground of modernism and postmodernism.

Thus, the role of the postmodern in literature can be leveraged to reemploy the conventions of plot fashioned by our "nineteenth century grandparents" coupled with a sense of irony that allows it to function effectively as a work of art rather than a sentimentalist pastiche. Interesting however, postmodern discourse allows even sentimentalist pastiche to be raised to the level of valuable art as long as it too is intertwined with an ironic edge. By citing the commentary of Leslie Fielder, Eco reveals that this is the case and offers that despite Fielder's unorthodox hopes about the reemergence of another Gone With the Wind, the attempt to break down the barrier between art and enjoyability is a central issue in the postmodernist's heart.

A central question that predominates in this discussion is the role of intention in the presentation of a work of art, literary or otherwise. Postmodern literature as opposed to other forms is intensely aware of itself not only as work of literature but as a commentary on other works of literature. It then seems in each literary epoch, the last adopters in an effort to overcome the exhaustion of the form that they have been witness to- ironically and/or self-consciously comment on that form.

Yet if Eco's comments warrant traction, then the intention of the author is perhaps negated by the fact that the un-ironic reception of a work of literature can be classified as part of this postmodern milleu, because it offers a seriousness to the play in which postmodernism delights. This seriousness can be interpreted a number of ways, either as a desire to be recognized by critics as compelling and interesting or an "economic seriousness, " or as an ambition to be earnestly read by the masses.

Eco's citation of Fielder suggests that none of these goals or wishes are necessarily antithetical to the postmodern spirit and should be thus not be interpreted as such. In the end, what this means is that we can have our plot and eat it too, that we do not have to succumb to the edicts of the hip by rejecting traditional narrative conventions and apotheosizing escapist genres of fiction in order to consider ourselves true connoisseurs of good literature. In fact, thanks to postmodernism we may always be "haunted by them."