Good contemporary British writing?

S

shudder

Well-known member
I've been having this ongoing argument with my friend. He keeps telling me that basically all (or mostly all) contemporary british fiction is pretty much shite, and that really even for most of the last century there's precious little british writing he'd want to read. I keep maintaining that there must be good contemporary british writing, if only b/c of population size. I can't really point to anything, though. In his defense the british writers we tend to hear about most on this side of the atlantic are Ian McEwan and Zadie Smith, and neither of them seem all that great...

So, lay it on me. Who do you love?

(I realize how stupid this post sounds, but... you gotta start somewhere...)
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Not read any Zadie Smith but I think McEwan's great - when you say he "doesn't seem all that great", is that your own opinion of his books, or an impression you've picked up from other people? Just curious, you understand.

Of course, there's always the jewel in the crown of contemporary British fiction...
 
S

shudder

Well-known member
Mr. Tea said:
Not read any Zadie Smith but I think McEwan's great - when you say he "doesn't seem all that great", is that your own opinion of his books, or an impression you've picked up from other people? Just curious, you understand.
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Second hand! I know many people who picked up atonement and couldn't get through it....
 
mixed_biscuits

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
Atonement is very badly written. My mum and brother had a little game going for a while where they would circle particularly choice bits of the text to tut at.

Much contemporary British fiction is too topical to be of interest - chasing after high sales with a sympathetic readership already in its sights. Ephemeral.
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
"I liked Zadie Smith much more than I thought I would. Autograph Man is great."
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Do you think so? I thought it was awful (though her others are better). I'd be quite interested to know what you saw in it as everyone I know who read it hated it.

"In his defense the british writers we tend to hear about most on this side of the atlantic are Ian McEwan and Zadie Smith..."
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... and Martin Amis and Julian Barnes and Will Self. JG Ballard, Kazuo Ishiguro, David Mitchell, Allan Holinghurst, AS Byatt etc etc That's just the really obvious ones, there are millions.
What about Irvine Welsh? OK he may have lost it now but when Trainspotting came along it was incredibly vibrant and exciting and the characters were brilliantly realised. I re-read it a year or so ago and it still seemed good to me.
"Atonement is very badly written. My mum and brother had a little game going for a while where they would circle particularly choice bits of the text to tut at."
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Watched Atonement the other day and it was ok I guess but I have to say that the only McEwan I've read and thought wasn't awful was Cement Garden.

Of course there is a continuing argument (I think it's been on here several times) about US vs Uk fiction and how the "big ideas" of the "Great American Novel" are so much better than the parochial little English one but I just don't subscribe to that at all. I don't really see that people should be trying to create some kind of English version of the GAN, just doing their own thing and doing it to the best of their ability.
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
Well said IdleRich.

Also, you should definitely add Ian Sinclair to that list. And Michael Moorcock. And loads of comic book writers....
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
IdleRich said:
Do you think so? I thought it was awful (though her others are better). I'd be quite interested to know what you saw in it as everyone I know who read it hated it.
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(re Zadie Smith's Autograph Man) Yeah. I fully expected to hate her books. But I have to say I found a real warmth that I loved in there, and quite a few insights that I agreed with. Having said that, I usually feel that I'm at a complete loss to appreciate what many people get out of reading fiction, and I am frequently disappointed by so much fiction for lacking the two qualities I pinpointed in Zadie Smith's book.

For example, I find Amis intolerable. While his journalism is insightful and witty, his fiction I find utterly pretentious.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
"(re Zadie Smith's Autograph Man) Yeah. I fully expected to hate her books. But I have to say I found a real warmth that I loved in there, and quite a few insights that I agreed with. Having said that, I usually feel that I'm at a complete loss to appreciate what many people get out of reading fiction, and I am frequently disappointed by so much fiction for lacking the two qualities I pinpointed in Zadie Smith's book."
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I think I agree that Zadie Smith has some good insights and at times has warmth but I find her a little patronising and didactic. Both White Teeth and, er, the other one (the EM Forster pastiche) seem to have a bit of spark to them as well though which made her general tone a lot more bearable whereas I found The Autograph Man a complete mess. It felt as though she started it and then realised that she didn't really know what she was trying to do and then it just kind of petered out without having achieved anything at all except annoying me.
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
IdleRich said:
I think I agree that Zadie Smith has some good insights and at times has warmth but I find her a little patronising and didactic. Both White Teeth and, er, the other one (the EM Forster pastiche) seem to have a bit of spark to them as well though which made her general tone a lot more bearable whereas I found The Autograph Man a complete mess. It felt as though she started it and then realised that she didn't really know what she was trying to do and then it just kind of petered out without having achieved anything at all except annoying me.
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lol. Didn't realise the EM Forster link til a friends pointed it out, and haven't read White Teeth cos it looked too much like something I'd hate, even given liking her other two books.

I just found TAM oddly charming. Insubstantial maybe, but charming nonetheless.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I've not read any Smith so I can't comment on whether she's over- or under-rated, but it does strike me that she might be one of those writers than some people feel they have to dislike just because she's so successful - I mean, you see people reading her on the Tube, for God's sake! ;) Actually, a few years ago it started to look as if it had been made illegal to travel on the underground without reading either White Teeth, Captain Correlli's Mandolin, Bridget Jones' Diary or a Harry Potter book. Is there perhaps a touch of snobbery going on here, the idea that a book that widely read 'couldn't possibly be any good'?
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Don't think so, I mean, to say I prefer Martin Amis to Ian McEwan is hardly obscurantist.
 
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STN

STN

sou'wester
I just didn't think White Teeth was any good, I'm afraid you'll have to trust me.

I second Derek Raymond (though he did die 13 years ago) and I like the Sinclair/Ackroyd/Petit axis.

David Peace's Tokyo Year Zero is a nice little Raymondesque read.

Blahdy love Denton Welch, btw.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Sure, but I'm talking specifically about Zadie Smith, who (it seems to me) is a publishing phenomenon beyond even the massive success of McEwan. I mean, I don't have any publishing figures to hand, so this could be complete rubbish, but that's the impression I get from newspaper column attention, magazines etc.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Is she? I dunno, I mean there have two big adaptations of McEwan novels in recent years (and there is a film of the Cement Garden as well and of Amis' Dead Babies and Trainspotting etc which are things I recommended) so it would be a strange distinction to reject Smith due to her popularity - and anyway I said that I quite like two of her three books. I think you're barking up the wrong tree.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
IdleRich said:
I think you're barking up the wrong tree.
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Yeah, prolly...it was just the two or three comments along the lines of "I wasn't expecting to like ZS but actually she's not bad" that got me thinking that. I'll shut up now.
 
STN

STN

sou'wester
Alasdair Gray anyone?

I think a lot of people did read White Teeth to 'see what the fuss was about' rather than because they thought it would be up to much - that kind of thing snowballs, you feel you can't be part of certain conversations unless you've read it. All the books Tea mentions are quite successful brands in terms of having striking covers, I think. I'm not going to present something popular I like to defend myself from allegations of snobbery - I spend my time in an ivory tower snorting saffron, reading Virgil and kicking my servants.
 
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