First, thanks for doing the AMA Mr. Dirda. Secondly, don't you think that what is in fact "new" about Lethem and Chabon is their recombinant use of genre, what I think of as mash-up? So instead of writing a western or detective story they mash those forms up with, say,science fiction? Leslie Fiedler was already talking about pop literary projects in 1970 in "Cross the Border-Close the Gap," so it strikes me that that is simply a symptom of postmodernism, as Fred Jameson has identified.
wes-g19 karma
First, thanks for doing the AMA Mr. Dirda. Secondly, don't you think that what is in fact "new" about Lethem and Chabon is their recombinant use of genre, what I think of as mash-up? So instead of writing a western or detective story they mash those forms up with, say,science fiction? Leslie Fiedler was already talking about pop literary projects in 1970 in "Cross the Border-Close the Gap," so it strikes me that that is simply a symptom of postmodernism, as Fred Jameson has identified.
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