Good contemporary British writing?

[slim jenkins]

After reading Saturday I have lost all patience with McEwan. So safely and cloyingly middle class, middle brow, middle of the road, boring. The guys kids just happen to be an amazing blues guitarist and a talented poet living in Paris?!! Everyone in his book is a doctor or a poet eating picnics of mozzarella, olives and other choice organic foodstuffs.

Gets universal props because he is so safe - the upper-tier Costa Del Sol massive can pick him up from the airport whilst the people who think they are proper intellectuals and literature lovers can read him safely cos he is endorsed in all the broadsheets. He is somehow blockbustery and intellectually safe. He is fast approaching national treasure status.

I don't read contemporary literature, except for Ballard and Cormac McCarthy. Something about seeing the Potter books everywhere (being read by adults!), that Smith bird and the other supposedly fantastic writers makes me... Probably because I'm a reactionary prole who hasn't yet been published (fiction-wise...non-fiction, I have) and will be schmoozing with them as soon as I am... But do you think they'd speak to a poorly educated idiot like me? If so, how would they come to terms with my failure to worship The Great American Novelists?

I'd rather read 'This Man Is Dangerous' and imagine Lemmy somehow walking off the page and into Alphaville later...that or 'Lady Don't Fall Backwards'...

 

[stelfox]

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.

Lanark by Alasdair Gray is one of the best books i've ever read, a fantastic dystopic sci-fi drubbing of Thatcherism.
Robin Cook/Derek Raymond absolutely thirded.
Anything by Patrick Hamilton is essential, especially Hangover Square and 20,000 Steeets Under The Sky. Dark, minutely observant bum lit, England-style.
Although he's not technically British - an Irish American who took Irish citizenship - I'm always saddened by the lack of love in the world for JP Donleavy, too.

 

[Slothrop]

He seems to tiptoe on the peripheries of contemporary issues, without ever really dealing with them, Its like he's constantly saying to himself 'write about what you know' the whole thing reads like an upper middle class self help leaflet on why not to feel guilty.

I guess some of the difference is between writing a book about the upper middle class and writing a book that can't see beyond the upper middle class. There are plenty of novels that are almost exclusively concerned with middle class characters that I've never seen that sort of complaint thrown at - consider (to pick a few at random) The Bonfire of the Vanities, lots of Ballard, Ulysses, Foucault's Pendulum...

Sufi's shout for James Kellman is dead on. I've just finished How late it was, how late and it was ace.

 

[STN]

With regard to Derek Raymond, I think he was at his best after he adopted that pseudonym - A State of Denmark and Crust on It's Uppers aren't great in my opinion. It's all about The Factory.

Second Patrick Hamilton, esp Hangover Square, which I picked up yesterday having not read it for years. 20,000 Streets has a special place in my heart for the sequence on Richmond Hill in the second novel.

 

[STN]

While we're on the 1930s, 'Of Love and Hunger' by Julian MacLaren-Ross is a wonderful, depressing seaside day of a novel.

 

[swears]

http://www.author-me.com/fiction/juddandmolly.htm

 

[simon silverdollar]

.
Anything by Patrick Hamilton is essential, especially Hangover Square and 20,000 Steeets Under The Sky. Dark, minutely observant bum lit, England-style.
Although he's not technically British - an Irish American who took Irish citizenship - I'm always saddened by the lack of love in the world for JP Donleavy, too.

yes! yes! i'm so glad someone else likes jp donleavy- i picked up 'the saddest summer of samuel s' in a second hand bookshop last year, loved it, but couldn't find any information about him, nor anyone who'd actually heard of him...

and 20,000 streets under the sky is just fantastic; the whole analogy of pub-as-theatre is perfectly done.

 

[crackerjack]

Anything by Patrick Hamilton is essential, especially Hangover Square and 20,000 Steeets Under The Sky. Dark, minutely observant bum lit, England-style.

Pardon my ignorance, but what is bum lit? Books about tramps?

 

[mistersloane]

Pardon my ignorance, but what is bum lit?

Toby Lit's alter-ego.

 

[stelfox]

yes! yes! i'm so glad someone else likes jp donleavy- i picked up 'the saddest summer of samuel s' in a second hand bookshop last year, loved it, but couldn't find any information about him, nor anyone who'd actually heard of him...

and 20,000 streets under the sky is just fantastic; the whole analogy of pub-as-theatre is perfectly done.

you should also read the onion eaters, fairytale of new york and leila if you like donleavy. he's great. one of my favourite writers of all time, i think

 

[HMGovt’s Glorious Return!]

you should also read the onion eaters, fairytale of new york and leila if you like donleavy. he's great. one of my favourite writers of all time, i think

There is a copy of the Ginger Man sitting right in front of me. One of the best I've read this year. I've been looking for The Unexpurgated Code for years without success, not at a reasonable price anyway.

 

[slim jenkins]

'Fairytale of New York' had me laughing out loud...not many books have that effect.