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WHY IS THINKS… A POSTMODERN NOVEL?

Everybody can easily understand that Thinks… is a postmodern novel. As a matter of fact it includes many features of this cultural movement.

Let’s begin from style. David Lodge’schoice of using different genres and devices (such as journal, recording thoughts, stream of consciousness, series of tales and e-mails) is typically postmodern. As a matter of fact it draws the reader’s attention more on technique, on theory than on  content and besides it makes the narrator use an informal linguistic register (there is no need of using a formal register when you write a journal). A further important postmodern feature is the fact it reminds us that there is no difference between “high and low culture” any more.

Also David Lodge’s narrator shows postmodern features: it is usually a first person narrator (according to postmodern theory Objective Truth cannot be known, for example, by an omniscient narrator) and sometimes a third person non-omniscient narrator.

Intertextuality is also important in David Lodge’s novel: it is both implicit (note the connection between Helen Reed and Helen of Troy) and explicit (for example when Helen quotes some famous writers and Ralph cites some scientists’ thoughts).

Also parody (a figure of speech often used by postmodernists) is an important device in the novel, (as we can note in most of interventions, both as speaking voice and as character discussing with Helen?)

But the reader can especially understand that Thinks… is a postmodern novel looking at its main themes. Let’s speak about truth, for example. It has a very important role in the economy of the story: the two main characters have some ideas, some certainties, but when they meet , they can be sure of nothing any more (as a matter of fact at the end they both change their mind).

No person, no point of view and no argumentation can demonstrate Truth: it doesn’t exist for Lodge as well as for postmodernists: “many truths” exist and they are all subjective (like Ralph’ and Helen’s ones).

The theme of subjective truth is also underlined by Ralph’s thought about Cognitive science: at the moment (maybe in the future science will reach this aim) human beings cannot know what other people and even animals think (What is it like to be a Bat?): we can only suppose it, but if we imagine, we use our personal point of view; we cannot reach objective knowledge (that means that we can’not reach objective truth).

Last but not least, David Lodge uses the device of Metafiction in many points of his novel, for example when Ralph speaks about the ways he uses his Pearlrecorder or when Helen corrects her students’ works in progress.

But I think that the most important passage (where the reader can really notice both Metaliterature and also Parody) is when Ralph and Helen (typical postmodern characters) discuss and even critic Postmodernism!