[it_does_follow]

> literally phrased as a grand narrative

Can you point me to one serious postmodern theorist that holds this view? There are many different views of the postmodern, but rejection of meta-narratives (academic speak for "grand narrative" here) is pretty much universally accepted.

[zozbot234]

It's a pretty standard criticism of Lyotard, with whom that description of post-modernism is perhaps most widely associated. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - which is a quite well-regarded source - has a very readable account of Lyotard's intellectual background https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lyotard/#InteBack which relates quite plainly that he was far from intellectually consistent in his rejection of metanarratives (or "narratives about narratives"). Rather, a number of contingent political shifts in his outlook on the French society of his time seem to have played a larger role in how he chose to frame his arguments.

Given how closely this description of post-modernism is associated with Lyotard, one can only surmise that other post-modern authors were, if anything, even less consistent with it.

[PaulHoule]

I would look at the methods of Jean Baudrillard, particularly his book Simulacra and Simulation which is a collection of parables each of which could be the plot of a movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and each of which attacks the reality principle in one way or another.

These are all small micro-master narratives which each have a totalizing perspective and collectively reduce the ‘truth’ to the ‘truth that is out there’ in the intro sequence to the X Files.

Furthermore I would point to his book On Seduction which is is even more accelerationist than Simulacra in that he tells you exactly how to tear the roof down.