Post-Modernism Is Serial Killing

That's the title of the second installment of Arik Glasner's series in Haaretz justifying higher literature. (I called him Eric in my last post on his article. How many Israelis do you know with that name?) I had hoped that Glasner would rather more closely and cogently justify literature's contribution to the world. He doesn't quite do that, choosing instead (as you can tell from his title) to attack post-modernism; I suppose Israelis haven't gotten the Derrida is Dead memo yet. Still, Glasner writes well in a general way about what literature (and, in particular, novels of the realist school) can contribute:

What is customarily called post-modernism is serial killing. It's the heir to the full severity of concepts like the "death of God." Emphasizing the "destruction of hierarchy," it also announced the "death of the subject," the "death of the author," and even the "death of art." Nevertheless, wonder of wonders, people keep being born and wanting to express themselves in complicated ways which will enrich their life. Literature's heroic experiment is the attempt to give some sort of order, to provide meaning to the world. Even if this attempt is doomed to failure, the very writing of the history of this struggle, the struggle for meaning and narrative, is better than yielding to chaos.