The Goon Squad

Words: 1557
Pages: 7

People react to Jennifer Egan’s A Visit From the Goon Squad in various ways. Some have responded to the novel in a postmodern way, as seen by Cathleen Schine from the New York Review of Books, who explains that it is “an enormous nineteenth-century-style epic, brilliantly disguised as ironic postmodern pastiche” (Schine, Cruel and Benevolent). Whereas, Kristin Rix describes the novel as “a 90s independent art film” (Rix, Book Review on Jennifer Egan). As for Egan, she chooses to acknowledge that A Visit from the Goon Squad can be interpreted as postmodern, as she’s familiar with the style due to her love for literary theory. Egan explains her love for literary theory in an interview with the Paris Review,“I think literary theory satisfied a deep love I have for big …show more content…
This is because postmodernism helps to explain that the complex world people live in today, that consists of a lot ‘gray area’, and very little black and white. This makes it hard to know exactly what is known versus unknown, and what is right versus wrong-- as what might be right to one person might be wrong to another. Take art for example, with postmodernism it no longer has to be a classical painting or sculpture, but can be a digital montage or even a meme. Similarly, in literature, like in A Visit from the Goon Squad, which strays far away from what is considered a “normal novel”. A Visit from the Goon Squad skips around chronologically, in order to highlight the important events in the characters lives, sort of like Sparknotes, which tells the key point of a book. By utilizing postmodern style Egan has created an action packed story, that is always interesting and does not have boring ‘filler’ chapters. This allows for the idea of the importance of time and change to come through, which the present day world revolves around because there’s only so much that one can