British Authors

[winzer]

In terms of complexity for novels and short stories:
What James Joyce is to Ireland, who is to England?

[mayneverhave]

Virginia Woolf

[meh!]

Alasdair Gray

[TheFifthElement]

Alisdair Gray is Scottish whereas the OP states England though the header says Great Britain! Very confusing! Winzer - can you please clarify whether you mean England, Great Britain or United Kingdom?

[eyemaker]

Virginia Woolf

That's the first author that came to my mind as well. :)

[promtbr]

That's the first author that came to my mind as well. :)

I will third that. Tho you did narrow it down to specifically complexity. You could argue for B.S. Johnson there.

[bluosean]

Charles Dickens would be my pick. Though his shorter works can be hard to find. Of course he is more of a novelist. But he has wrote some stuff that is less than, say, 900 pages that is quite good. A Christmas Caroll is one of his best. It would be a rather long short story though.

[mono]

I will third that.
That's the first author that came to my mind as well.
Virginia Woolf
. . . and I will fourth that. I agree with promtbr that the word "complexity" not surprisingly has a very complex definition, but both Joyce and Woolf meet and surpass its definition, in my opinion, and I can think of few writers that have similar literary talents, particularly in terms of complexity. Woolf's flight-of-consciousness literature certainly contributes to her undefined complexity, yet no one owns the explosive qualities of her words, the psychology of her characters, and the incessant unpredictability of her plots.
I agree with the syllogism that what James Joyce seems to Ireland, so does Virginia Woolf to England, but, in terms of complexity, one can say a lot of writers like John Milton and Geoffrey Chaucer, too. Both Milton and Chaucer, however, did not own that incredibly unique quality of style that writers like Joyce and Woolf had, but that seems a lot like saying a great writer like Pushkin lacks the many philosophical undertones of Dostoevsky.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Virgina Woolf for sure, the much under-read novel The Waves is a prime example of her complexity and stream of consciousness technique.

[Dark Lady]

Virgina Woolf for sure, the much under-read novel The Waves is a prime example of her complexity and stream of consciousness technique.

Oh wow, Neely are you ready for this? I completely agree with you! It had to happen at some point. :lol:

[Helga]

my first choice is Virginia Woolf too...

[Barbarous]

Virgina Woolf for sure, the much under-read novel The Waves is a prime example of her complexity and stream of consciousness technique.

perfect example and one of my favorite books. The Waves, to me is almost a combination of T.S. Eliot's 'The Wasteland' and The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, both works mentioned are pretty 'Joycean'.

[JBI]

John Berger, but he's in the next generation.

[andave_ya]

John Berger, but he's in the next generation.


:eek2: Berger?! The art critic? Why?

[Stepen]

Joseph Conrad and Charles Dickens

[JuniperWoolf]

Yeah, its pretty much unanimous for Woolf. Dickens did a lot for Britain, but as far as complexity and style is concerned, Woolf takes it.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Oh wow, Neely are you ready for this? I completely agree with you! It had to happen at some point. :lol:

Damn, now I am doubting myself. ;) Though I suspect we had to agree at some point.


Joseph Conrad and Charles Dickens

I wouldn't mix Dickens with Joyce at all, for me they are quite apart.


perfect example and one of my favorite books. The Waves, to me is almost a combination of T.S. Eliot's 'The Wasteland' and The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, both works mentioned are pretty 'Joycean'.

Super, I thought I was the only person in the world who has read it. :thumbs_up

[Paulclem]

Definately Woolf. The stream of consciousness technique was a revelation to me when I first read it.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Definately Woolf. The stream of consciousness technique was a revelation to me when I first read it.

Yes it is certainly interesting and doesn't always seem to work very well. Kerouac used the technique in The Subterraneans which I didn't think worked particularly well as a whole, here is a snippet:


hints of our business of writing down dreams or telling dreams on waking, all the strange dreams indeed and (later will show) the further brain communication we did, telepathizing images together with eyes closed, where it will be shown, all thoughts meet in the crystal chandelier of eternity - Jim - yet I also like the rhythm of to dream, to wake, and flatter myself I have a rhythmic girl in any case, at my metaphysical home - desk -

Phuffff.
.................................................. ..................................................
As regards Woolf, Mrs Dalloway is the better novel, but in The Waves the soc technique is taken to greater extremes and is therefore perhaps a better example to use, though I have never come across it on a syllabus. Oh, what the hell, here's an extract of The Waves in case anybody is interested: (I quite fancy plucking in down from the shelf and having a quick skim in any case)


"We are about to part," said Neville. "Here are the boxes; here are the cabs. There is Percival in his billycock hat. He will forget me. He will leave my letters lying about among guns and dogs unanswered. I shall send him poems and he will perhaps reply with as picture post card. But it is for that that I love him. I shall propose meeting - under a clock, by some Cross; and shall wait, and he will not come. It is for that that I love him. Oblivious, almost entirely ignorant, he will pass from my life. And I shall pass, incredible as it seems, into other lives; this is only an escapade perhaps, a prelude only. I feel already, though I cannot endure the Doctor's pompous mummery and faked emotions, that things we have only dimly perceived draw near.

There you go then.

I must say that even from this randomly plucked passage that there is an intrigue here, a stir of interest in the human element. Something I think which Woolf was incredibly good at creating.

[Red-Headed]

George Eliot

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Eliot

[prendrelemick]

DH Lawrence. So complex I havent a clue what he's on about either.

[Paulclem]

George Eliot - Silas Marner so good - The Mill on the Floss so bad..

[dafydd manton]

I know he's Welsh, not English, but Dylan Thomas. Some of his prose is - well- yes.......

[Red-Headed]

George Eliot - Silas Marner so good - The Mill on the Floss so bad..

Eliot lived in Coventry for a bit I think. I have always classed Middlemarch as one of the finest (if not the finest) Victorian novel. I quite liked 'Floss' but it is a typical example of Victorian melodramatic sentimentality I suppose. Silas Marner is quite short, so probably more accessible. Scenes of Clerical Life work well. Not a bad attempt for a first novel.

[islandclimber]

Woolf is definitely the one that best fits as an answer to the OPs question, but depending on what was meant by British one could suggest writers such as:

Salman Rushdie
some of Anthony Burgess
Berger
Walsh

although my personal favourite for Stream of Conscious, is the poet Hugh MacDiarmid... and his long poem A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle

but like others I would have to agree with the choice of Woolf..

[Paulclem]

Eliot lived in Coventry for a bit I think.

She did.I often travel down George Eliot Road when I'm out and about from work. She also wrote about the weavers in Coventry - an area called Foleshill. I liked Scenes From Clerical Life too. I just didn't get on with either Middlemarch or The Mill... Perhaps now I'm older it would be better appreciated.

[MarkBastable]

She also lived in a house in Wandsworth. Well, Southfields, to be strictly accurate. I remember seeing the blue plaque when I was a kid.

I also used to notice the plaque commemorating Swinburne's residence on Putney Hill.

Actually, for Brits, there's a whole thread in this: writers commemorated by blue plaques near where you've lived. (Though - hang on - are blue plaques just a London thing?)


(To which the answer, apparently, is 'yes' (http://www.passportnewsletterblog.com/2008/06/blue-plaque-guides/). Which limits the possible participants in such a thread.

I still like the idea though.)



Eliot lived in Coventry for a bit I think. I have always classed Middlemarch as one of the finest (if not the finest) Victorian novel. I quite liked 'Floss' but it is a typical example of Victorian melodramatic sentimentality I suppose. Silas Marner is quite short, so probably more accessible. Scenes of Clerical Life work well. Not a bad attempt for a first novel.

[MarkBastable]

DH Lawrence. So complex I havent a clue what he's on about either.

I don't think he's complex, unless we're using 'complex' in its narrow definition of 'pretentious, po-faced and self-regarding'.

[Paulclem]

Actually, for Brits, there's a whole thread in this: writers commemorated by blue plaques near where you've lived

You're right. Perhaps not the blue plaques, but none of us Brits arevery far from notable authors. I've got Tolkien 15 miles away in Birmingham and Shakespeare 15 miles away in Stratford.

[mono]

Charles Dickens
One could classify Dickens, yes, as complex, but nowhere in the neighborhood of Joycean complexity; Dickens showed complexity in narratives, storytelling, and ethical dilemmas, but never a complex rhetoric, like Joyce or Woolf.

DH Lawrence. So complex I havent a clue what he's on about either.
Very good suggestion, prendrelemick, and definitely agreed! I do not know what possessed me to forget about him. :D

[Red-Headed]

I just didn't get on with either Middlemarch or The Mill... Perhaps now I'm older it would be better appreciated.

I think that Middlemarch swings in & out of fashion as the decades pass. For a long time nobody really understood it. Then it was seen as a great postmodern masterpiece by some. It is like anything with Eliot, you have to understand the philosophy behind her characters. She uses symbolism quite subtly. It helps if you have studied Feuerbach, Kant & Strauss as well!

[Red-Headed]

Actually, for Brits, there's a whole thread in this: writers commemorated by blue plaques near where you've lived. (Though - hang on - are blue plaques just a London thing?)


(To which the answer, apparently, is 'yes' (http://www.passportnewsletterblog.com/2008/06/blue-plaque-guides/). Which limits the possible participants in such a thread.

I still like the idea though.)

I'm pretty sure 'Blue Plaques' exist outside of London (& north of the Watford Gap LOL). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_plaque

[Virgil]

I think that Middlemarch swings in & out of fashion as the decades pass. For a long time nobody really understood it. Then it was seen as a great postmodern masterpiece by some. It is like anything with Eliot, you have to understand the philosophy behind her characters. She uses symbolism quite subtly. It helps if you have studied Feuerbach, Kant & Strauss as well!

I may be wrong, but I thought Middlemarch has always been considered a classic.

[Red-Headed]

I may be wrong, but I thought Middlemarch has always been considered a classic.

I suppose it depends on who is reviewing it.

'In Middlemarch there is some of her best work, but the plot is so cumbrous, with its subsidiary plots & its attempt to portray the many-sided life of a country town, that it baffles many readers.' ~ Women Novelists: Muriel Masefield (1934).

This attitude lasted up until the late 1950's & it was not until it was seen from a postmodernist perspective that a lot of its genius as a novel was appreciated.

[meh!]

blue plaques are certainly everywhere.

[wessexgirl]

Actually, for Brits, there's a whole thread in this: writers commemorated by blue plaques near where you've lived

You're right. Perhaps not the blue plaques, but none of us Brits are very far from notable authors. I've got Tolkien 15 miles away in Birmingham and Shakespeare 15 miles away in Stratford.

Me too Paul, with slight variations on the mileage. I'm probably about 5 miles from Sarehole Mill, Tolkien's old stamping ground, and about 20 miles from Stratford and the best of the best writers with Shakespeare. Of course I'm quite near Eliot ground too with Nuneaton, (I think that's where she was born). It's interesting that these 3 masters of language, come from places which these days are often associated with accents which are considered "dumb". Imagine Shakey speaking with a Brummie accent? :D

[Emil Miller]

As one might expect, there are numerous blue plaques in London but although I live in the suburbs, there is a plaque to Thomas Hardy about ten minutes walk from my home.

[Paulclem]

Imagine Shakey speaking with a Brummie accent?

Hi Wessexgirl. My mileage is very rough as I don't drive.

I have relatives who ive in South Yorkshire - Fitzwiliam, which souds posh, but is actually a rough mining village. There they say thee and thou - in ordinary speech wth a very stong South Yorkshire/ Barnsley type accent. I didn't think about it too much until I started teaching a bit of Shakespere. It's odd that Shakespeare is associated with high culture, yet his speech is closer to working class Yokshire speak than the received pronunciation we have come to associate with him. Perhaps Olivier etc were responsible in their stage renditions in the 50's.

[wessexgirl]

Imagine Shakey speaking with a Brummie accent?

Hi Wessexgirl. My mileage is very rough as I don't drive.

I have relatives who ive in South Yorkshire - Fitzwiliam, which souds posh, but is actually a rough mining village. There they say thee and thou - in ordinary speech wth a very stong South Yorkshire/ Barnsley type accent. I didn't think about it too much until I started teaching a bit of Shakespere. It's odd that Shakespeare is associated with high culture, yet his speech is closer to working class Yokshire speak than the received pronunciation we have come to associate with him. Perhaps Olivier etc were responsible in their stage renditions in the 50's.

I'm only using approximate mileage as I do drive, (but only recently and not outside of my local comfort zone), so I haven't driven to any of these places yet :).

That's interesting Paul. I think it's The Northern Broadsides(?) theatre company, under Barry Rutter, who put Shakespeare on in their Yorkshire accents, unlike the rp of the drama schools. I always think it's a bit daft that people think Shakey is elitist and difficult, when he was writing for the masses, as well as the "educated". It's just a case of "tuning your ear in", and going with the flow. The gist of what's being said becomes understandable, if people are willing to try.

[Paulclem]

Very true. It's nice to make physical links to studied authors. It is highly likely that Shakespeare visited Coventry to see the Mystery Plays which paraded through the city in the 16th Century. It is, of course conjecture, but he Mystery Plays were renowned at the time, and he must have gained his playright inclinations from somewhere.