Doom Patrols: A Theoretical Fiction about Postmodernism

Although suffering from paragraphs that are simply too long and an invisible bibliography, Shaviro's work is a wonderful read, albeit dense. A reading of Grant Morrison's "Doom Patrol" is highly recommended as each of the chapters in Shaviro's work draws from Morrison's complex superhero saga; cursory knowledge of some of the other sources may help too, as they are numerous and vital to understanding how gross Shaviro's effort truly is. Worth reading, if only for the discussions on language (memes showing their ugly face again), identity, the information age and perversity. Conspicuously absent are Frank Zappa, Pee Wee Herman and Greg Egan. But then one needs material for a sequel.

The main virtue of Steven Shaviro's book is that it exemplifies what it discusses. Rather than sit back and presume to parse the postmodern world from the standpoint of a sort of objective, third-person narrator (in the mold of a Mailer, Bellow, or Kirkus) who remains ultimately "disinterested" in his subject matter, Shaviro dives in and swims with the strange fish populating his _Patrols_. How could one write about postmodernism without referring to postmodernists? Shaviro does so with perfect synthesis, and discusses relevant issues with poetic prose that becomes its own complex, ambiguous, challenging artifact. Look no further than _Doom Patrols_ for incisive chapters on race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, class, money--and all the other topics the high modernists would have us forget in the name of Kultur.