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« on: September 15, 2010, 04:28:30 AM »
I agree and disagree. I liked getting into Brandon's head; I think one of my favorite things about him is his frankness about how he approaches his writing.
But the criticism was absolutely merited. For a New York Times bestselling novelist to make a blog post titled "Postmodernism in Fantasy," and then go on to say he knows nothing about postmodernism and then butcher the term all over the place to suit his essay... that should be criticized.
What Brandon should've done, in my estimation, is make all the same points without using the terms postmodern, postmodernism, deconstruction, and especially not "deconstructionism" (which is not actually a real term). There was nothing wrong with any of the points he made; the essay was interesting, and such, but there are entire schools of thought based on Postmodernism, and for him to clumsily butcher the term in a post that titles itself "Postmodernism in Fantasy"... something just needed to be said. Not necessarily as an enormous "OH EM JEEZ UR WRONG ABOUT POSTMODERNIZM" outcry, but as a dialogue that says: "Look, we got famous authors who are slinging this term around, and they're not doing it justice. Here's what it REALLY is."
I look forward to someday reading a real essay about actual postmodernism in fantasy. Sanderson's obviously not gonna be the one to write it, though.