Contemporary fiction

Feminist authors

ALICE WALKER (*1944) is an Afro-American feminist but for her feminism was still too soft and she was right since it used to aim only white middle class women so she found her own feminist movement Womanism. She was unpopular both with whites and blacks since she was too open for her time and presented in bad light even black community (violence, rape, abortions).

The Color Purple (1982) features as average black woman whose husband bets her and the only good things in her life is when his husband's lover starts supporting her as she does not agree with husband´s violence. They get a revenge on him and become friends.

Everyday Use (1973) is a story narrated by mother Mrs. Johnson is abound the day when the older daughter, Dee, visits from college and engages into a conflict family´s heirloom. Dee claimed to be proud of her heritage but rejects everything the whites imposed on them, starting with her own name she changed to Wangero, even though, it has a long tradition in the family for generations. She even became a Muslin as she sees Christianity as something the slave masters imposed on the blacks and found a husband Hakim a Barber, also a Muslim. Dee decides at dinner that she wants the butter churn as heritage because her uncle carved it from a tree they used to have. However, she wants it for the wrong reason, saying that she will use it only for decoration – not everyday use.

She also wants the quilts since generations of clothing and effort were put into them. Dee does not want her sister Maggie to have them – Maggie would put them into everyday use and Dee sees it as disrespectful. Dee is described as independent and educated but by rejecting her name makes her heritage empty as she does not understand it. However, could we blame her that she did not want to live in ghetto for whole life? Maggie is not shown in good light but she would respect heritage by using them which pleases mother. Mama is presented more like man (strong, not hesitant to kill animals) but she fantasizes about reuniting with Dee though TV show she watched since she does not feel appreciated by Dee but knows it will not happen.

TONI MORRISON (*1931) is an Afro-American author who received a Nobel Prize. Her novel The Bluest Eye (1970) is a novel about little girl where the only idea of beauty are dolls with blonde hair and blue eyes. She is raped by his father, gets pregnant and goes mad. Beloved (1987) is about women deciding to kills their babies to escape slavery. One of the killed babies returns as a ghost and haunts the house.

The short story Recitatif (1983) features two female character of different races for whom their race is essential. The narrator is Twyla whose mother neglects her. Roberta's mother suffers from a mental sickness. Morrison is making fun of the concept of race, she does not reveal the race of these two woman so we can only speculate. These two women meet five times after going their own way from childhood. The second meeting is in 1960s and Roberta behaves very coldly towards Twyla who works as a waitress at the restaurants where Roberta comes. Later Roberta apologises for it with “you know how it was in these days.” She did not want to speak with a white waitress or a black one? The third time they are older and both have families. Twyla has one son, Roberta is a widow with four children. However, Roberta is rich, living in the neighbourhood of computer workers. But it was popular for some time to have a beautiful black wife so again we cannot say whether she is white or black.

The fourth time is during a demonstration about children of different colours commuting to school, probably concerning racial segregation. Twyla does not mind mixed schools but Roberta is angry. Should the minority be angry? Or the majority? There is a poster war between them, their posters connect, otherwise do not make sense separately. The fifth encounter is during Christmas in a coffee shop, again a few years later. They are discussing Maggie, a woman whom they both known during their childhood, but there is no conclusion, they do not remember the truth. She was deaf, working in a kitchen and being laughter on and bullied. The two women argue whether she was black or white. Roberta says that Maggie was black but Twyla insists on whiteness. Being adults, they feel sorry about Maggie who was deaf, crippled, muted and probably coloured. When they were angry about their weird mothers, they took in on poor Maggie.

How come it is so difficult to guess the race of these women? As a computer expert, Roberta's husband, we would expect to be someone white, for a fireman, Twyla's husband, black - but that is only stereotypical image. But then at the chapel, Roberta's mother refused to shake hands! Roberta is a fan of Jimi Hendrix, a black musician, but he became hit also among whites, mainly hippies because the blacks did not go for concerts. However, Roberta is having huge earrings and curly hard which we associate with a black girl but it was Twyla who server her as a working waitress. It is mentioned that Roberta cannot write or read and again we would stereotypically expect the blacks to be illiterate.

AMY TAN (*1952) was born only a few years after her parents immigrated from China. Amy Tan’s work often explore mother-daughter relationships. Tan was featured in The Simpsons, season 12, episode 3.

Her most well-known novel is The Joy Luck Club (1989) has been adapted into a film, the story is analogical to mahjong and is based on her other's own experience of being forces to leave her three daughters from a previous marriage behind in China. Tan has written several other bestselling novels, The Kitchen God's Wife (1991) was also based on her mother's life and deals with Chinese-American female identity. Tan has also written a children's book Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat which was turned into an animated series.

A Pair of Tickets is a short story which depicts the time when Tan learned about her mother's former marriage to an abusive man in China and in 1986 she travelled to China for the first time where she met her three half-sisters. In her adolescence, she has never thought of herself as Chinese but an American and her white friends agreed that she was "about as Chinese as they were." However, her mother insisted that "once you are born Chinese, you cannot help it but feel and think Chinese." It proves to be true when Amy arrived in China and start to feel differently, stating "I am becoming Chinese" and realising she had never really understand what it means to be Chinese. Somehow, at the airport in the crowd of Chinese she does not mind pushing. She adopts the same approach and stars pushing as well, totally diving into the Chinese mentality she had never experienced before. It is true then what her mother said, it is in her blood. However, physically she could never pass for true Chinese, she is too tall.

She meets her relatives, especially her half-sister from mother's first marriage she was forced to abandon. The mother is now dead, though, she was not reunited with them, she did not manage to find them during her lifetime. She tries to gently convey to them the news of their mother's death and feels a bit guilty about not appreciating her mother more when she lived. She takes a photo of her relatives, discovering that it is just a myth that Chinese women look young forever, another American stereotype. There is a language barrier, they speak Cantonese dialect but she can only understand Mandarin but cannot speak it well. The family proudly boasts that "Americans aren't the only ones who know to get rich" as they built quite a big house and accommodate her at a very expensive hotel and she cannot believe this is a communist country. At the same time, maybe her Chinese relatives overpaid because they thought that "rich Americans cannot be without luxuries even for one night."

Amy asks for the reason why her mother abandoned her first babies. She was running away from the husband during the war with two babies, blistered and bleeding. First she left suitcases behind but soon she was delirious with pain and fever until she did not have the strength to carry her babies further. She begged some people to take the babies with them but they were not willing. Then she left them near the road with the message: "Please care for these babies with the money and valuables provided." She walker on but eventually fainted. However, she was rescued by an American missionary lady but it was already too late to return for the babies. Then she learned her abusive husband died and was delirious with madness. "To come so far, to lose so much and to find nothing."

It was a peasant woman who found the babies and took them. The valuables were of great price and the peasant pair has never seen such fine jewellery before so they known the babies came from a good family but they were illiterate so they could not read the message but the peasant lady loved these baby girls like her own. It was a sheer destiny that those sisters, when already adults, where recognised by a former classmate of her mother and that is why there were able to meet. Not with their mother but at least their half-sister who fulfilled mother's "long-cherished wish" after her death. She feels her Chinese roots: "It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood." She is finally reunited with her relatives and her origin.

MAXINE HONG KINGSTON (*1940) is the second generation of Chinese immigrants as she was already born in America, her family running a laundry shop. She has contributed to the feminist movement and focuses on gender and ethnicity and how these concepts affect the lives of women.

She became famous for memoir The Woman Warrior (1975) written in postmodern style as she is blending Chinese tradition with flashbacks or her own memories, it can be describes as creative non-fiction. Kingston explores the gap between the Chinese immigrants and the generation born already in America. Although she is narrating many Chinese myths, she is rewriting these tales to reflect the experience of Chinese-Americans.  However, she does not claim that her experience is universal of the whole community.

It books is focused on stories of five women, firstly the dead aunt from No Name Woman, then the mythical female warrior from White Tigers, then the narration of her own mother who was a doctor delivering babies so she also killed unnecessary baby-girls, her still living aunt that never learned to speak English and went mad and Maxine's own life story. Her story is based on her childhood and teenage years when she wanted to fit with American friends but her mother did not appreciate assimilation and tried to bring her up in a Chinese tradition. Mother were telling her stories of ghosts, stoning and dead children to frighten her to that Maxine will not shame the family. Even though mother was a doctor, she did not believe that girls are equal and Kingston grew up in that kind of environment, being constantly reminded of that her mother had luxury of keeping her.

White Tigers is a retelling of the story of Mulan promoting that women are just as good as men. It is said that men in China were scared of women's potential so they were bind their feet from early age, preventing them from becoming warriors like Amazons. As a child, Mulan got lost in the woods but she was educated by an old wizard who taught her the art of a warrior. Once Mulan wonders if she can stop her periodic bleeding but then she would stop being woman! She saves her village and leads the army, disguised in men's armour, even while she is pregnant. The woman warrior is a symbol of equality, especially powerful in a Chinese culture where a for a wife and a slave look very similar.

No Name Woman tells a story of Kingston's dead aunt. Her mother narrates the story to her as a warning against adultery so that she would not bring the same shame again to the family because she started to menstruate. Aunt's husband sailed to America and his wife stayed home. Kingston's mother, at that time still a child, notices that her sister's belly is getting bigger. She was pregnant even though her husband was away for some years already. When the baby was due, the whole village went to punish the family, destroying their house and killing their stock as a warning to other women. The next day, aunt is found dead together with the baby in the well. However, she did not commit adultery willingly, she was forced to do it by that man who impregnated her. She obeyed because she knew that she had to listen to men. He probably masked himself when we joined the raid on her family to silence his own shame. In addition, the baby was probably a girl, useless anyway. However, the real punishment was not the raid but her own family erasing her from their memories as if she had never existed. At least the aunt committed a spite suicide, drowning herself in the drinking water and the Chinese were always scared of the drowned ghosts, pulling down substitutes.

China Men (1980) is a masculine counterpart to The Woman Warrior with a focus on the history of the men in Kingston's family. Kingston wrote these two books as one and would like them to be read together but she decided to publish them separately in fear that some of the men's stories might weaken the feminist perspective of the women's stories.

MARILYN CHIN (*1955) is a Chinese-American writer and a feminist. She focuses on bi-cultural identity of the following generations of Chinese origin. Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen is a collection of short stories about two America-born Chinese sisters.

Parable of the Cake is a short story about to these sister who deliver Chinese food as children. Their grandmother does not speak English nor does she follow American traditions. It is Christmas time but the Chinese do not want to celebrate it, they do not need to adopt American culture to be successful. They did not accept Jesus when the Christian lady tempted them with the cake. However, they did not listen to grandmother's narrow-minded teachings either. The sisters grew up to be beautiful, educated and successful.

Postmodernism

DON DeLILLO (*1936) was born to Italian immigrants. His characters are products of consumer culture and mass media, spiritually undernourished people whose neuroses reflect disintegration of society. He is dealing with the role of television media, nuclear war, digital age and global terrorism. He believes that "writers, by nature, must oppose whatever power tries to impose on us."

His debut novel was Americana (1971) about spiritual search of a young television producer in which he drew material from people and situations he knew firsthand. End Zone (1972) reflected fears of nuclear warfare but examined the subject in the form of college football. White Noise (1985) achieved a cult status. Underworld (1997) examined the Cold War experience and American culture.

JOHN BARTH (*1930) is an academic and a novelist. In his essay The Literature of Exhaustion he discusses the theoretical problem of fiction writing, the death of the novel which can be compared to Roland Barthes’s The Death of the Author.

The Sot-Weed Factor (1960) is a postmodern mock epic of colonisation of Maryland based on the poem of an disillusioned actual poet. It is a large, loosely structured work with distractions and stories within stories. Giles Goat-Boy (1966) is about a half-man half-goat who discovers his humanity. Lost in the Funhouse (1968) is a short story collection.

THOMAS PYNCHON (*1937) is considered one of the finest contemporary authors for his dense and complex fiction that encompasses the fields of history and science. There are rumours about his location and identity.

The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) is a parody of Jacobean revenge drama, a conspiracy involving the bones of WW2 being used as charcoal cigarette filters. It also contains lots of references to science, obscure historical events and several allusions to Nabokov’s Lolita. Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) is regarded as one of the archetypal texts of American postmodernism, containing paranoia, racism, colonialism and conspiracy.

DONALD BARTHELME (1931-1989) was known for his playful postmodernist short fiction. His short stories are very compact, sometimes called short-short story, narrated in a very fragmented way.

He had arguments with his demanding father in his adolescence and later also over literature. While his father was avant-garde, he did not approve of postmodernism. He dealt with their relationship in the novel The Dead Father (1975) depicting the journey of vaguely defined entity that symbolises fatherhood. Short story collections Sixty Stories (1981), Forty Stories (1987).

Me and Miss Mandible is a story in form of journal entry over several weeks, quite difficult to follow. It starts with a controversial first sentence in which the teacher Miss Mandible wants to make love to her student at elementary school but the narrator explains his true age right away – he is 35 years old man who was just by some conspiracy placed back into school among eleven graders. He mentions he could re-learn things to be better so he stops trying to solve his predicament. He can feel Miss Mandible fighting her feeling for him and also a fellow student is interested in him but she is only eleven years old! He recalls his previous life, being married but the wife had a lover. Upon being caught with Miss Mandible naked in a cloakroom, he tried to explain the disciplinary commission that she did no crime since he is already an adult but they fail to listen to his argument.

BRET EASTON ELLIS (*1964) was born into a wealthy family and his novel Less Than Zero (1985) is a tale of disaffected rich teenagers of Los Angeles. His most controversial work is a violent novel American Psycho (1991) about a serial killer which achieved a cult status.

JOHN IRVING (*1942) is a novelist who achieved acclaim after the international success of The World According to Garp (1978) about a woman wants a baby but not a husband. When she nurses brain-damaged soldier Garp, she impregnates herself when he is sexually aroused and for that she became a feminist figure. Garp junior becomes a wrestler and a devoted parent, keeping his children safe from dangers. Other best-selling novels include The Cider House Rules (1985). Both novels were adapted into films.

CHUCK PALAHNIUK (*1962) is a writer of transgressional fiction that focuses on characters who feel confined by the norms and expectations of society and break free in unusual ways. Protagonists are often mentally ill, anti-social or nihilistic and the genre often deals with taboo subjects. His best known novel Fight Club (1996) features a nameless narrator who, because of the stress of his job, begins to suffer from insomnia.

  

Sci-fi and comics

STEPHEN KING (*1947) is a best-selling author of horror, sci-fi and fantasy. Many of his books have been adapted into movies and comic books.

His first work is an epistolary novel Carrie (1974) about a shy high-school girl discovers who discovers that she has telekinetic powers and takes revenge on those who bullied her. It was even banned at American schools. His second book, Salem's Lot (1975) involved a writer who returns to the town of his childhood to discover that residents are all becoming vampires.

The Dark Tower series (1982-2012) is considered to be his opus. The series of novels incorporated multiple genres like fantasy, sci-fi, horror and even Western. It is a story of a gunslinger and his quest towards a tower, both physical tower and metaphorical.

GEORGE R. R. MARTIN (*1948) is an author of all fantastical genres and a screenwriter. He is best known for his series of epic fantasy novels A Song of Ice and Fire series (1996-present) which HBO adapted for its dramatic series Game of Thrones. Martin himself serves as a co-producer, looking after the adaptation. He is considered to be one of the most influential people in the world.

FRANK MILLER (*1957) revived comics as a graphic medium of sequential narrative. Most comics became a real mass medium in the early 20^th century in the United States with the newspaper comic strip. Although historically the form dealt with humorous subject matter and was, therefore, seen as low art, its scope has expanded to encompass the full range of literary genres and became a modern form called a graphic novel.

Daredevil is notable as being among the few superheroes with disability. Having been blinded as a youth in a radioactive incident, Matt Murdock’s senses drastically heightened and gave him a radar-sensei. However, Daredevil’s main weakness is his vulnerability to excessive sounds and odours.

Sincity is drawn in black and white to emphasise its film noir origins. The story is set in a fictional town in the American west full of crime and corrupted police. During the California Gold Rush, the Roark family imported a large number of women to keep the miners happy. After decades, these women formed a district, the prostitute quarter, where they rule with absolute authority. The Roark line remained in power for generations, running the city as they see fit.

Dark Knight Returns tells how Batman retired after the death of his second Robin but at the age of 55 returns to fight the rime. Miller created a tough portrayal of Batman who is often referred to as the Dark Knight, creating new form of more adult-oriented storytelling, redefining Batman in the mainstream mind.