If I have been cautious so far with the word ‘realism’, ‘anti-realism’ a fortiori carries worse risks. But much good work has been done on definitions in the past fifteen years, the most useful to me having been Narcissistic Narrative – The Metafictional Paradox by Linda Hutcheon (1980), Postmodernist Fiction, by Brian McHale (1987) and World-Games–The Tradition of Anti-Realist Revolt, by Cristopher Nash (1987), who themselves cite many others, and from whom I shall be quoting liberally. This chapter is a reconsideration and confrontation of their discussions from the viewpoint of a critic who is also a practising writer.

Realism

In the last chapter I quoted Graff, and part of McHale's reply, on the mimetism of ‘postmodern’ fiction, the argument being that the unreal reality it presents is in fact ‘not a fiction but an element in which we live’ (Graff 1979, 179). Similarly Newman says that ‘the vaunted fragmentation of art is no longer an aesthetic choice; it is simply a cultural aspect of the economic and social fabric’ (1984, 183, both quoted McHale, 219–20).

McHale's reply to ‘these serious charges’ is, first to point out the critics' parti-pris, but in addition, since as he admits this is not a rebuttal, to show that ‘postmodernism’ does in fact imitate (my italics) something other than ‘the unreality that modern reality has become’, that is,