本書從眾多美國後現代派小說家及其作品中挑選了10位*有代表性的作家及其*有代表性的長、短篇小說。包括：海勒的《第二十二條軍規》、馮內古特的《五號屠場》、巴思的《路韻盡頭》和他的短篇小說、霍克斯的《第二層皮》、巴塞爾姆的《白雪公主》和他的短篇小說、品欽的《叫賣第49批》和他的短篇小說、納博科夫的《微暗的火》等；屬手第二階段的有：海勒的《*後一幕》、庫弗的《公眾的怒火》和他的短篇小說、多克特羅的《拉格泰姆時代》和德裡羅的《天秤星座》等。對這些作品進行深入而細致的剖析，必將有助於我國讀者了解美國後現代派小說從20世紀60年代初至今四十多年來解構與重構的曲折過程，關注歷史和政治的社會效應，以及它們在藝術表現上的新探索和新話語。

本書以一篇篇經典的代表性作品為具體例證，繫統闡述了後現代主義 在小說解構、重構、元小說、反體裁、語言遊戲、戲仿、拼貼、蒙太奇、 迷宮、黑色幽默、零散敘事、滑動能指、零度寫作、通俗化傾向、後現代 主義文學代碼的語義學和句法學特點等方面的藝術特征。它將後現代主義 理論探討與小說文本分析相結合，將小說主題思想討論和藝術風格分析相 結合，全方位地把握其發展脈絡和社會影響，使讀者能對美國後現代主義 小說有一個深刻而全面的認識。 該書可用作我國高等院校英語語言文學專業本科生和研究生“美國後 現代主義小說研究”課程教材，同時亦面向高校文學院外國文學專業本科 生和研究生、從事文學批評和文藝理論研究的學者，以及廣大外國文學愛 好者等。

Preface/ 1
Directions for Teaching/ 1
The Abbreviations of the Works' Titles/ 1
Chapter I The Aesthetic Dimensions of Postmodernist Fiction/ 1
A. The Core Concepts of Postmodemist Thought/ 1
B. The Evolvement of Fiction: Realism--Modernism Postmodernism/ 4
C. The Aesthetic Dimensions of Postmodernist Fiction/ 8
1. Metafiction/ 8
2. Anti-genre/ 18
3. Language Games and the Reader's Interpretation/ 21
4. Tendency towards Popularization/ 25
5. Parody,Collage,Montage,Black Humor,and Labyrinth/ 27
6. Language Subject,Fragmented Narrative,Shifting Signifiers,and Writing Zero/ 38
Chapter 2 The Deconstructive and Reconstructive Tendencies of Postmodernism in Snow White/ 53
A. The Deconstructive Tendency of Postmodernism/ 55
1. Indeterminacy/ 55
2. Fragmentation/ 57
3. Decanonization/ 60
4. Selflessness and Depthlessness/ 64
5. The Unpresentable and the Unrepresentable/ 70
B. The Reconstructive Tendency of Postmodernism/ 72
1. Irony/ 72
2. Hybridization/ 75
3. Carnivalization/77
4. Performance and Participation/ 79
5. Constructionism/ 81
6. Immanence/ 82
Chapter 3 The Absurd Social Reafity and the Grotesque FiCtional World in Catch-22 and Closing Time/ 90
A. The Absurd Social Reality/ 90
1. The Catch-22 in the 1960s/ 90
2. The Catch-22 in the 1990s/ 95
B. The Grotesque Fictional World/ 99
1. Black Humor/ 100
2. Language Games/ 106
3. The Tendency towards Popularization/ 112
Chapter 4 The Nonlinear Narrative,the Death of the Author,and Black Humor in Slaughterhouse-Five/ 117
A. The Combination of the Significant Theme and the Innovative Form/ 119
B. The Nonlinear Narrative/ 124
1. Combining History with Imagination/ 124
2. Combining Reality. with Fantasy/ 129
3. Combining the DiachroniC with the Simultaneous/ 133
C. The Death of the Author/138
D. Black Humor/ 146
Chapter 5 The Labyrinth Composed of Entropy,Polysemy and Indeterminacy in The Crying of Lot 49/ 152
A. Entropy/ 155
1. Demon and Oedipa/ 156
2. Entropy and the Society/ 160
3. Entropy and Information/ 164
B. Polysemy/ 170
C. Indeterminacy/ 174
Chapter 6 The Comic Nightmare and the Dishevelled Structure in Second Skin/ 182
A. The Comic Nightmare/ 184
1. The Comic Elements/ 185
2. The Nightmarish Elements/ 205
B. The Dishevelled Structure/ 211
1. The Unsymmetrical Space/ 212
2. The Discontinuous Time/ 214
3. The Blanks/ 218
C. Metafiction/ 220
Chapter 7 The Transcendental Realities and the Unusual Techniques in Pale Fire/ 227
A. The Transcendental Realities/ 229
1. The Subjective Reality/ 230
2. The Imaginative Reality/ 231
3. The Consciousness of Death/ 232
4. Solitude/ 234
5. Alienation/ 236
B. The Unusual Techniques/ 240
1. Intertextuality/ 242
2. Parody/ 251
3. A Game of Worlds/ 254
Chapter 8 The Parody of Philosophical Texts and Metafietion in The End of the Road/ 268
A. The Parody of Philosophical Texts/ 269
1. The Parody of Existentialism/ 270
2. The Parody of Freudianism/ 281
B. Metafiction/ 292
Chapter 9 The Literary Code of Postmodernism in The Public Burning/ 301
A. What Is a Literary Code?/ 302
B. The Semantic Characteristics of the Literary Code of Postmodernism/ 305
1. The Prominent and Very Frequently Used Lexemes/ 305
2. The Prominent Semantic Fields/ 306
C. The Syntactic Characteristics of the Literary Code of Postmodernism/ 311
1. The Characteristics of the Sentence Structures/ 312
2. The Characteristics of the Text Structures/ 317
Glossary/ 336
Bibliography/ 342
The Readings for the Study of American Postmodernist Fiction/ 357
Postscript/ 361