ABSTRACT
David Cowart makes the point that postmodernism moved in what he terms "generations." A reader might well agree that postmodernism as an esthetic began with the work of John Barth, William H. Gass, and/or Gilbert Sorrentino. In making David Cowart selections of authors and works featured in the lengthy essays, which comprise most of the book, Cowart assumes a voice that might have been usefully heard during earlier canon wars. He claims to be challenging the belief that postmodernism stemmed from the writing of men, white men. But in the case of postmodernism, with kinds of writing being fused into rare postmodern distinctions, perhaps a more allusive kind of difference pattern occurs. The novel of endless variety—art, music, drawings, paper changes, photos, song lyrics—is truly encyclopedic, and in the praises of readers who understand postmodernism, that adjective represents unqualified good.
