So, I woke up to the Writer's Almanac this morning, and was delighted to hear heard this pithy and true quote from David Foster Wallace:

"Postmodern irony and cynicism's become an end in itself, a measure of hip sophistication and literary savvy. Few artists dare to try to talk about ways of working toward redeeming what's wrong, because they'll look sentimental and naive to all the weary ironists. Irony's gone from liberating to enslaving. ... The postmodern founders' patricidal work was great, but patricide produces orphans, and no amount of revelry can make up for the fact that writers my age have been literary orphans throughout our formative years."

That's well said, and exactly right, in my opinion. Enough of post-modern deconstrutionism; the literary project this generation desperately needs is one of reconstruction.