Thoughts on postmodernism and wondering if anyone can read postmodern fiction today

The salient characteristics of postmodern American fiction, circa 1980: Narratives that call attention to themselves as acts of narration generally w/ references to the author's engagement with his or her material; a narrative style that draws attention to itself, completely nontransparent, the opposite of Flaubertian naturalism; a tendency toward maximalism, as if the value of the literary work is in direct proportion to the magnitude; following on above a tendency to provide excessive detail, repetition of detail and statement as if saying the same thing in multiple ways increases (rather than diminishes) the effectiveness of the best image; experiments w/ narrative and form, especially in short fiction, following on the premise that the "novel is dead" and must be re-born in a new form. All of these in varying degrees dominated American literary fiction in the 70s and 80s, with the high priests of the movement being Barth, Barthelme, Hawkes, Coover, Gaddis, Gardner - very male-dominated, in fact, and very at home in the halls of academe. In fact, these precepts played perfectly into the graduate seminar, as in some ways postmodern fiction required only inventiveness and imagination - and relatively little lived experience, the perfect metier for a young ambitious writer. Tellingly, there's not much of a 2nd generation of postmodern writers - most of the students of these greats failed to stand on the shoulders of the giants (Marilyn Robinson is one exception). The postmodern movement, however, migrated and crossed the Atlantic and in the late 80s British writers, long imbued w/ realism (esp the Angry Young Men movement) tried their hand - and Martin Amis's 1989 novel, which some consider his best or at least most famous, London Fields, is an example of pretty much all of the above. And you know what? Today, this style - or at least this novel - feels practically unreadable. Begins with the "author" explaining the process he went through in naming this novel; then, the narrator says that every in this novel is true, but also made up, or something like that, and he begins to tell the story of a murder, with various side comments on his invention of the characters and issues he encounters as the writer of this narrative. The novel is long, the paragraphs are long and full of repetition, and the whole project seems artificial, cloyingly self-conscious, and out of date. Can anyone read this novel today? I've gone through about 50 pp., skimming eventually, will give it at least one more night in case I am missing something or was just in a cranky mood while reading, but I believe this is a work whose time has passed.

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