Stoner by John Williams (image courtesy Goodreads)
Modernism was a funny period. It fostered experimentation in every genre of the arts (about which I have written before) and brought us numerous “isms” – Dadaism, Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism. It also brought, as I have also noted, the “academicization” of the arts, particularly after World War II. Modernist works in every branch of art – music, visual art, literature – are most clearly characterized by difficulty posed to the listener/viewer/reader. Whether the dissonant 12 tone compositions of Schoenberg, the seemingly chaotic drip paintings of Pollock, or the stream-of consciousness narrative experiments of Joyce/Woolf/Faulkner, Modernist artists sought to force readers to be aware of their engagement with art – whether they appreciated that engagement or not.
The successor to Modernism’s rigorous challenge to the audience was, of course, PoMo, post-modernism, perhaps
Article source: http://scholarsandrogues.com/2014/06/05/john-edward-williams-stoner-and-the-glory-of-realism/