so, is the british novel fucked?
melmoth - so is it?
are we to be perpetually in thrall to Henry James and the need for obsessive investigation in/ simulation of character?
for you, melmoth, this equates with bourgeoise navel gazing, bloomsbury incarnate which seems to have reached its apotheosis in mcewan's saturday - the forensic quality which boils down in the end to the question 'what am i thinking? and how do i know?' it allows for the author to reveal his every little observation on how people act and react and if we let the character be a brain surgeon it allows for this arse aching analysis and also allows for a whole heap of (bravo) research.
yet i know loads of people that love this book for just those qualities that drive me mad about it and i suppose it'll garner all manner of awards
but surely that whole UEA/ bradbury school of writing is in decline, the big guns of the eighties - rushdie/amis/swift/barnes ahve all benn found wanting. they've spawned a host of watered down imitators - both here and abroad but the only one who seems to have swum free is Ishiguro and he had to write the unreadable Unconsoled first.
there are pockets of resistance but i think in the ned it's not so much that the novel is fucked but that quality contro has gone wonky - never has so much literary fiction been published and most of it is mush.
but is this whole question new? what survives from the past is a mere wisp - who reads Meredith now - huge seller back in the day. same for arnold bennett (and more fool those who don't read Riceyman Steps). and i wonder how much longer dh lawrence can hang on to his place on university syllabuses - he's already gone from the a level.
so what's good? well, if you discount my weakness for powell and waugh, you might agree with soem of this: nicola barker, sinclair, john mcgahern, byatt's recent quartet, gilbert adair, moorcock's mother london, andrew o'hagan, pat barker, shena mackay, robert irwin, michael bracewell, seamus deane, toby litt, alan warner, john banville, rupert thomson, tim parks, andrew miller and pullman.
i've got a feeling you'll have issues with many of them but i've given it a bash....
much like the long player the novel's death has long been anticipated and when you think of how modenism came along and cracked it like an egg eighty years ago you can see the problem. BUT i reall believe it's still vibrantly alive, anything that makes me cry on the tube is doing ok.
as wether it's worse here or elsewhere - a couple of years ago the granta best british writers collection came out at teh same time as a collection of u.s writers - burned children of america edited by yr mate zadie and in terms of quality there wasn't much in it - about 80% crap in both books.
i think it's interesting that we can get people fulminating over minute details of funk or mia or whatever but we can't string a serious literary discussion before the thread falls into disuse all too soon.
anyway, i'd be interseted to read your list of what's better and why. sorry this post kind of grew and grew
