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Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne
Published in five installments from 1759 to 1767, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is obviously not a postmodern work of fiction, since postmodernism is a mid-20th century movement. Yet Laurence Sterne, a British novelist, satirist, and clergyman, uses techniques that seem to have foretold postmodern concerns with the limits and challenges of narrative structures, recursive and associated ideas, and slippery time frames. The eponymous narrator of Tristram Shandy finally admits that it will take longer to chronicle his life than to actually live it and comments on how recalling past events inevitably shapes his experience of the present moment.
"The Garden of Forking Paths" by Jorge Luis Borges
This story, one of Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges’ most famous, was published in Spanish in 1941 and in English in 1948, just as postmodern approaches were beginning to appear in literature. A mystery studded with historical details that give the impression of nonfiction is embedded in a fictional frame also attached to the real world. Two narrators provide details that sometimes agree and sometimes contradict, and some plot events occur with the help of other (fictional) texts. The story explores time, paradox, and identity in thought-provoking ways.
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
This novel, published in 1973 and adapted into a popular movie in 1987, is presented as an abridged version of a fairy tale by a fictional author, S. Morgenstern. The actual author, American writer, playwright, and screenwriter William Goldman, narrates the novel’s frame as a fictionalized version of himself and weaves in his commentary on the story, which had been a childhood favorite of his but only because his own father, in this narrative conceit, abridged and interpreted the book on the fly as he read it to his son. The “reality” of the frame (itself a fiction) and the fantasy of the fairy tale are also enmeshed with facts from the real author’s work as a screenwriter in Hollywood, the source of many fantasies.
If On a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
Italo Calvino’s 1979 novel uses unconventional structures and a mix of genres to explore perplexing questions about the act of reading and the challenges of interpreting what is read and what is real. Each part of the book is a chapter from another novel, which “you”—perhaps the narrator, perhaps the reader—read and interpret. Yet these chapters end abruptly. Readers follow the “you” who reads as this reader gradually pieces together a somewhat complete story, helped along by interjected comments and passages.
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Published in 1986, this dystopian novel presents a society, Gilead, in which women’s lives have been so constrained that they are essentially enslaved as housemaids or “handmaids,” women who can still get pregnant and bear children in a time when environmental degradation has made human reproduction increasingly difficult. The novel lacks a resolution, since the narrator’s fate after she escapes Gilead is not known. However, Atwood picks up the story again in The Testaments (2019), the acclaimed sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Mark Haddon’s 2003 novel, sometimes described as a children’s story, was controversial when first published because of its neuroatypical protagonist’s first-person narrative style. The main character is a math phenom who cannot read the expressions or emotions of other people, has no sense of humor, and tells his story without a hint of irony or figurative language because the world, to him, is matter-of-fact, without nuance. The narrator relates events by modeling his writing on the only genre of literature he reads: straightforward detective stories. Readers perceive the world through the narrator’s naïve view, with little narratorial commentary, and must draw the inferences he cannot.
