SOURCE: “‘Every Decoding is Another Encoding’: Morris Zapp's Poststructural Implications on our Postmodern World,” in English Language Notes, Vol. 33, No. 3, March, 1996, pp. 61-7.

In the following essay, Friend discusses the literary and epistemological implications of Morris Zapp's postmodern dictum “every decoding is another encoding” in Lodge's novel Small World.

Poststructuralism and postmodernism have much in common. Poststructuralism, of course, is more linguistically based, but the two theories merge on their notions of obscurity and indeterminacy. The insufficiency of language as signifier in poststructural doctrine precedes postmodernism, where, ultimately, everything is insufficient as signifier. Reactions to this postmodern condition vary greatly, but in many instances postmodernism describes a fascinating and unfortunate way of looking at the world, simply because its implication of indeterminacy invites unnecessary confusion. In David Lodge’s parodic novel Small World, which addresses some of these issues, Morris Zapp, a scholar and critic supposedly modeled after...