(In)Conclusion: Looking Forward

Abstract

Throughout this book I have considered how postmodernism offers a way through which to observe the world and provides a lens through which to view history, interpret reality and (re)consider unity. In line with Berger’s comment above, postmodern fiction may urge, or even force, its readers and critics alike to reconsider previously fixed notions of both fiction and the discourses usually represented within that fiction. However, it also opens the possibilities to engage with the texts in entirely new and exciting ways. My approach throughout this book has been to raise issues, draw attention to strategies, acknowledge inconsistencies, but also to delight in the playfulness and subversion within the texts under discussion. Whether it is possible to arrive at any definite conclusions is another matter. In a similar manner to the postmodern enterprise itself, rather than seek conclusions I merely offer a number of observations.

The postmodern world may be more unsettling than the modernist world it replaced, but it is, at the very least, much more exciting. (Berger, 2003, p. 100)