Postmodern Sublime: Technology and American Writing from Mailer to Cyberpunk

by Joseph Tabbi

Focusing on works by Norman Mailer, Thomas Pynchon, Joseph McElroy, and Don DeLillo, Joseph Tabbi finds that a simultaneous attraction to and repulsion from technology has produced a powerful new mode of modern writing―the technological sublime.

Genres: Nonfiction, Criticism, Literary Criticism

256 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1995

Reviews

[Goatboy]

Re-read parts of this to remind myself of what Tabbi says about McElroy now that I been reading him. Also re-read the Delillo chapter along with the intro and epilogue.
Liked this much more than I remember liking it in the past so added a star.

[Маx Nestelieiev]

Joseph`s PhD where he wanted to put Mailer and Pynchon together and - voilà - he`ve done it (also, he mentioned DeLillo and McElroy here). And 40-something pages on Joseph McElroy`s Plus and W&M is the most interesting part in the book. Also, Tabbi puts down some interesting thoughts on cyberpunk (actually he just comments A Cyberg Manifesto by Donna J. Haraway). The main concept - Lyotard idea of Sublime - is pretty interesting point in the book too, some mix of esthetical and technological aspects.

[Bradley]

Essays on living authors. The essay "Delillo At Mid-Career" is quite interesting in that it shows how much Delillo has grown in stature since this book's publication in 1995.