Text/Countertext

"Text/Countertext: Postmodern Paranoia in Samuel Beckett, Doris Lessing, and Philip Roth" analyzes the psychological and structural dynamic of three postmodern novels: Samuel Beckett's "Malone Dies." Doris Lessing's "The Golden Notebook," and Philip Roth's "The Counterlife." Storytelling becomes here the dangerous activity of a guilty outsider who has come to expect hostile disapproval from all quarters. The result is a sadomasochistic confrontation between these postmodern writers and their imagined audiences: the pleasure of storytelling is linked to the pain the authors inflict upon their readers in retaliation for their anticipated disapproval. The structural consequence is -serial negation- - the constant agonistic oscillation between text and countertext, reflecting the authors' determined efforts to sidestep criticism and maintain artistic control."