本书从众多美国后现代派小说家及其作品中挑选了10位最有代表性的作家及其最有代表性的长、短篇小说。包括：海勒的《第二十二条军规》、冯内古特的《五号屠场》、巴思的《路韵尽头》和他的短篇小说、霍克斯的《第二层皮》、巴塞尔姆的《白雪公主》和他的短篇小说、品钦的《叫卖第49批》和他的短篇小说、纳博科夫的《微暗的火》等；属手第二阶段的有：海勒的《最后一幕》、库弗的《公众的怒火》和他的短篇小说、多克特罗的《拉格泰姆时代》和德里罗的《天秤星座》等。对这些作品进行深入而细致的剖析，必将有助于我国读者了解美国后现代派小说从20世纪60年代初至今四十多年来解构与重构的曲折过程，关注历史和政治的社会效应，以及它们在艺术表现上的新探索和新话语。

本书以一篇篇经典的代表性作品为具体例证，系统阐述了后现代主义在小说解构、重构、元小说、反体裁、语言游戏、戏仿、拼贴、蒙太奇、迷宫、黑色幽默、零散叙事、滑动能指、零度写作、通俗化倾向、后现代主义文学代码的语义学和句法学特点等方面的艺术特征。它将后现代主义理论探讨与小说文本分析相结合，将小说主题思想讨论和艺术风格分析相结合，全方位地把握其发展脉络和社会影响，使读者能对美国后现代主义小说有一个深刻而全面的认识。

该书可用作我国高等院校英语语言文学专业本科生和研究生“美国后现代主义小说研究”课程教材，同时亦面向高校文学院外国文学专业本科生和研究生、从事文学批评和文艺理论研究的学者，以及广大外国文学爱好者等。

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