The postmodern novel, it has been argued, is almost by definition "subversive" of the literary tradition to which it self-consciously belongs. The relationship between the two, we have heard on many occasions, is insistently ironic. It is indeed a postmodern commonplace that the undermining of genre is a structural function of any incorporation of other genres into the novel. Certainly, it is an effect of the code by which novels are read (and written) at this juncture. Linda Hutcheon's label of historiographic metafiction has been crucial in this regard, and it may well be appended to Ishiguro's novel, along with the labels of postcolonial and postimperialist. (4) One purpose of my investigation here is to introduce some doubts regarding this blanket assignation of subversiveness, and suggest that the postmodern irony may even tend to conceal cultural patterns that may legitimately be held to account by a less postmodern sort of critique. The ironic, postmodern staging of history......
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