<\/p>\n
I want to apologize for this late post.\u00a0 <\/span>I know some of these topics were discussed on Wednesday and some were exhausted but I would like to contribute some of my thoughts.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>I thought that Mao II was one of the most interesting novels we have read so far and the most representative of what postmodernism is.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Terrorism and its portrayal in the media is such a striking theme in Mao II.\u00a0 <\/span>Terrorism played such a prominent role, not only forming the novel\u2019s plot, but also in influencing our society\u2019s reception of art and stimulation.\u00a0 <\/span>The shift from traditional art, i.e. paintings, sculptures, novels, etc., to the media oriented \u201cart\u201d is an overarching theme of Mao II and a symptom of postmodernism.\u00a0 <\/span>I thought Delillo\u2019s execution of this idea is insightful and impeccable, given that terrorism has become central to today\u2019s media coverage.\u00a0 <\/span>I first thought that terrorism stood in as a metaphor for the utopian tendency to conform culture into a uniform society by way of unrealistic ideals.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>I think Delillo is certainly suggesting that but I also think that terrorism is literally used as a social and cultural pervading revolution, no matter how disturbing and repulsive it may be, and that is pulling social thought away from traditional art and into a stimulated society.\u00a0 <\/span>People react to terrorism portrayed on the news more readily than say that of a novel.\u00a0 <\/span>The horror of terrorism overshadows whatever emotion tied with traditional art.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>On page 200, Bill is thinking about the conversation he had with George on the terrorists, \u201cWhen you inflict punishment on the innocent, you began to empty the world of meaning\u2026replacing real things with plot and fiction.\u00a0 <\/span>One fiction taking the world narrowly into itself.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>This One<\/em> fiction of the terrorist is recognizable as the utopian ideas that are wrapped up with modernism and other nonpostmodern ideas.\u00a0 <\/span>Bill sees this revolution as a form of subversion and a threat to the art that he represents.\u00a0 <\/span>However, at the same time I found that the terrorist achieve what postmodernists see as the end of the great novel and the beginning of the new media, the only force capable of changing social thought and beliefs \u2013 the revolution will be televised.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Bill\u2019s unfinished book is another aspect of Mao II that struck me as a poignant signal of postmodernism.\u00a0 <\/span>Bill is the reclusive writer, which as we discussed in class is a clich\u00e9.\u00a0 <\/span>Bill tries to separate himself from the society of spectacle, or the mass mind of today\u2019s culture, but ultimately fails.\u00a0 <\/span>His book remains unfinished and modernism dies or at least stays unfinished.<\/span><\/p>\n I found the change of occupation for Brita to be the saddest point in the novel.\u00a0 <\/span>She has abandoned her work of photographing writers for the oversaturated and over stimulated culture of war correspondence and other bloated forms of media exemplifies the postmodern theme of Mao II.\u00a0 <\/span>She travels to Beirut to photograph the terrorist after Bill fails to communicate with them.\u00a0 <\/span>The irony of this scene is striking.\u00a0 <\/span>Brita accepts that the terrorist have replaced the writer, the traditional artist.\u00a0 <\/span>On page 229, \u201cShe does not photograph writers anymore.\u00a0 <\/span>It stopped making sense.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Terrorism and new media have replaced the artist and have become the new art.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I want to apologize for this late post.\u00a0 I know some of these topics were discussed on Wednesday and some were exhausted but I would like to contribute some of my thoughts.\u00a0\u00a0 I thought that Mao II was one of the most interesting novels we have read so far and the most representative of what … Continue reading Terrorism Vs. The Great Novel<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-week-11-mao-ii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=577"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":578,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577\/revisions\/578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}