Posted by HH on June 30, 2010 at 11:24:49:
In Reply to: Comment re Postmodernism posted by Postmodernist Girl on November 04, 2009 at 13:10:28:
: Umberto Eco
: "I think of the postmodern attitude as that of a man who loves a very cultivated woman and knows that he cannot say to her "I love you madly", because he knows that she knows (and that she knows he knows) that these words have already been written by Barbara Cartland. Still there is a solution. He can say "As Barbara Cartland would put it, I love you madly". At this point, having avoided false innocence, having said clearly it is no longer possible to talk innocently, he will nevertheless say what he wanted to say to the woman: that he loves her in an age of lost innocence."
: — Umberto Eco
Eco also said, ". . . I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it . . . "
That pretty much sums up what postmodern writers are trying to say.