US v England contemporary novels

[mgv1208]

I was listening to an interview w Martin Amis and he argued that the English contemporary novel is stronger than the contemporary american novel. What do you guys think?

Prominent English novelists: Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, Zadie Smith, Will Self, Julian Barnes

American Novelists: Don Dellilo, Pynchon, Cormac Mccarthy, Foer

[JBI]

The States by a long shot. England from what I can gather has failed to embrace itself. The world it writes has been museum-afied for about 60 years already, and rather than embrace the James Bond vibe of just ignoring the empire and embracing a freedom and new identity, the culture has retracted into itself.

Not that the US is much better, but it is better, and still has a sizable writing base, and the benefit of a local population unconcerned with international authors.

Still, I think the novel itself is in trouble, as it fails to be as engaging a genre as film or television.

[Kafka's Crow]

The States by a long shot. England from what I can gather has failed to embrace itself. The world it writes has been museum-afied for about 60 years already, and rather than embrace the James Bond vibe of just ignoring the empire and embracing a freedom and new identity, the culture has retracted into itself.

Not that the US is much better, but it is better, and still has a sizable writing base, and the benefit of a local population unconcerned with international authors.

Still, I think the novel itself is in trouble, as it fails to be as engaging a genre as film or television.

Oh my God JBI, what are you saying? Unfortunately all statements in your post are wrong although I really hate to disagree with you. We are comparing two countries so different in size that the comparison itself seems stupid still Britain compares very well with the US as far as the quality (and even quantity) of literary output is concerned. I don't know where to start.

Children's Literature: Ever heard of JK Rowling, CS Lewis, AA Milne, Richmond Crompton, Roald Dahl, Jill Murphy etc and all these writers have nothing to do with the empire?

Novel is alive and kicking: Proof: not many writers win the Booker Prize twice. There is such a plethora of talent that each year you see new faces ranging from Monica Ali to Hilary Mantel in the lineup along with old stalwarts like AS Byatt, VS Naipaul and Kazuo Ishiguro. Even the names would show you how diverse the society and its literature are: Hanif Qureshi, Salman Rushdie, Sam Selvon, Antonia Fraser, D M Thomas, Tariq Ali, Nadeem Aslam...

Poetry: Ted Hughes, Jo Shapcott, Jackie Kay, James Fenton, Andrew Motion, Duffy, Adrian Mitchell:
http://youtu.be/1TWZY14tGsU
http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poem/item/13604

I must admit I don't know much about the poets though I do read and listen to and come across loads of contemporary poetry all the time. We read together as family and AA Milne is among the favorites though the all time favorite being The Old Possum by a certain St Louis fella who became a naturalised British citizen.

Drama: What? No drama in Bard's own land? Bond, Pinter, Osborne, Shaffer, Stoppard, Bennett, Coward, Sarah Kane, Ayckbourn, Simon Gray...

And I am not a knowledgeable person on contemporary literature but I have a good knowledge of English AND American literature in general. Keep in mind, Britain is only one fifth in size (in population) when compared with the US. As far as reading public is concerned, Britain is the 2nd largest producer of books after the US and reading has been on the rise in Britain for many, many years whereas this trend has been in reverse in North America in general and the US in particular. Even Da Vinci Code was last week dethroned from its perch of 'the all time biggest seller' by Fifty Shades of Grey. Even in production of trash literature, Britain has finally beaten the US!!!
And me, an outsider and an exile, can see and say all this about a country that has been my refuge for only 15 years!

[Desolation]

The US has Pynchon and DeLillo, the two best novelists working today...So, what more needs to be said?

[JBI]

We are talking novels, and we are talking England. The Booker is international (all of the empire), and has a very Indian feel anyway.

As for drama, if you said drama, I would have totally agreed. If you said poetry, I still would have gone with the US, as Ted Highes et al are finished (he is dead already). I do not think the British poetic scene is better than an English poetic scene that simply is better funded, larger, and more diverse.

But the topic is novels, not other genres. The American novel is far more alive than the British, but both are in bad shape. The American public is a novel reading public, and has no concern for the continent.

As a Canadian, we are early on taught the importance of the United States in publishing our books. Just look at genre writing, for instance. Niched genres were far more able to form inside the US than the rest of the world because of the simple fact that the readership is greater, and life there is more boring, and people need something to fill their time.

England, as I put it, never recovered from the death of empire. The great British Elegy is the work of Larkin, which would be a depressing poetry, if he did not hammer home with the recurrent, so what? who cares? what do we make of it? themes. The country I guess just crumpled and went on, and so its literature lost its big vision of its own grandeur, something bad for the world but traditionally good for literature.

Now, if we were to say music, well, England would win hands down. But I am afraid the novel is an incredibly Eastern genre now. The great novel publics are now India, China, and I would wager more so than ever, South-East Asia, which has a large self-contained market, and now a renewed sense of nation and improved literacy. Still, due to its size and its self-obsession, the US still trudges on with the genre, more so than elsewhere, and still has some innovators, though the biggest voices are all old, and the names mentioned here are novels out of the 70s generation pretty much, who have already put in their contributions.

[Delta40]

Can I clarify JBI that you're saying UK authorship is contemporarily multi-cultural and what isn't is entrenched in empire and lacks the power to draw on its own unique sense of self?

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Well, America has an automatic edge in that our population is so much larger than England's. Simple math: more people, more chances for good novels. Now, I don't know if this is the case, as I'm pretty unfamiliar with contemporary British literature.

As for who establishes a better national identity, I really don't see how England could beat the USA. If the Americans do anything well, it's pride.

The States by a long shot. England from what I can gather has failed to embrace itself. The world it writes has been museum-afied for about 60 years already, and rather than embrace the James Bond vibe of just ignoring the empire and embracing a freedom and new identity, the culture has retracted into itself.

Not that the US is much better, but it is better, and still has a sizable writing base, and the benefit of a local population unconcerned with international authors.

Still, I think the novel itself is in trouble, as it fails to be as engaging a genre as film or television.
Well, electronic media is beating out literature in any form, really. It's just restoring attention spans. I don't think literature, be it poetry, drama or novel will ever die out completely. There're still too many people reading, even with the vast amount of distractions.

The US has Pynchon and DeLillo, the two best novelists working today...So, what more needs to be said?
Dont forget McCarthy.

[mortalterror]

The Big hitters in recent years:

2008 August: Osage County by Tracy Letts (USA)
2006 The Road by Cormac McCarthy (USA)
2004 Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (UK)
2004 2666 by Roberto Bolano (Chile)
2004 Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Columbia)
2004 Wolf Totem by Lu Jiamin (China)
2003 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (UK)
2003 The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Afghanistan/US)
2002 Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (Japan)
2002 The Coast of Utopia by Tom Stoppard (UK)
2001 The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (US)
2001 The Human Stain by Philip Roth (US)
2000 Ravelstein by Saul Bellow (US but Canadian born)
2000 The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)
2000 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (US)

The best living poets appear to be Seamus Heaney of Ireland and Adunis of Syria.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Man, JBI, Kafak's Crow, AND mortalterror all making an appearance in the same thread? Good to see you, guys.

[JBI]

Man, JBI, Kafak's Crow, AND mortalterror all making an appearance in the same thread? Good to see you, guys.

I had been traveling along the silk road for the past month, where the Chinese government has conveniently made it impossible for "foreigners" without their own computers to go online. wifi is non existent and the virtually free, numerous internet bars require a government identity card (similar to a Chinese national's passport or Greencard) to use, so I was out of luck. The odd times I did get on, the net was too slow to do anything, especially typing on an iphone.

As for Mortal's list, I would generally disagree with many of them, having read more than half, but I do not like novels in general, and have become a classicist anyway.

[Desolation]

Dont forget McCarthy.

I haven't read McCarthy yet, so I can't say one way or the other...But, All the Pretty Horses is my next assigned reading in my American Lit. class.

[mortalterror]

As for Mortal's list, I would generally disagree with many of them, having read more than half, but I do not like novels in general, and have become a classicist anyway.

I am open to suggestions if you wish to make them. Contemporary literature isn't my strongest area so I'm not entirely married to those novels, especially the ones by Eggers, Franzen, and Roth. Mostly, I was just trying to establish a baseline, or a concrete line of data points, from which to speculate further. No doubt the canon is still in flux, and most of the contenders aren't even on my radar yet. I'm guessing that some very fine work is being done in India, China, and South America right now but they aren't making the same kind of waves as the novels and plays I mentioned.

Some people think that Rushdie or Delillo should make the cut, but I feel like they haven't done significant work in over a decade. Rushdie peaked in the 80s with Midnight's Children and the Satanic Verses. Delillo peaked in the 90s with Underworld.

Martin Amis is an abortion and I read Will Self's Great Apes in college. There was nothing special about it. I don't know how Great Britain can claim these men as it's best writers. They used to be a nation of titans, but now they are all pigmies grimacing at each other in a funhouse mirror. The gall they have to call poets like Ted Hughes and Philip Larkin great!

[stlukesguild]

England, as I put it, never recovered from the death of empire. The great British Elegy is the work of Larkin, which would be a depressing poetry, if he did not hammer home with the recurrent, so what? who cares? what do we make of it? themes. The country I guess just crumpled and went on, and so its literature lost its big vision of its own grandeur, something bad for the world but traditionally good for literature.

How true is that artistically? I agree that a great deal of the finest art across the whole of history comes from those cultures who have some grandiose vision of themselves and their future. This is true whether we are speaking of the Greek Athenian Renaissance, the Italian Renaissance, or the United States from the time of Emerson through perhaps the 1960s. But then we also have the Hebrew Biblical texts written after the fall and captivity of Israel, the Shanameh composed under similar circumstances, and one of your old favorites, Leopardi (I was just reading his Elegy for Italy). It seems to me that a good writer writes from whatever experience life brings. Writing from the position of an Empire in Decline (and we shouldn't ignore the fact that while Britain may be in Decline in terms of international influence and power, they remain the 6th wealthiest nation on the planet and London the 5th largest city in the world) seems no less likely to inspire great literature than writing from a position of increasing wealth and influence.

[stlukesguild]

The gall they have to call poets like Ted Hughes and Philip Larkin great!

I agree... but then you famously dislike most poetry since mid- 20th century... if not earlier. Which poets, beyond Adunis and Heaney, would you deem possibly worthy of being called "great"?

[mortalterror]

The gall they have to call poets like Ted Hughes and Philip Larkin great!

I agree... but then you famously dislike most poetry since mid- 20th century... if not earlier. Which poets, beyond Adunis and Heaney, would you deem possibly worthy of being called "great"?

And it's your contention that the poetry from 1960 onward is as good or better than what came before?

[stlukesguild]

It's largely my contention that it has always been impossible to accurately assess the art of one's own time. If we lived in 1820 I have no doubt you'd be declaring that the poets of our time, such as Blake, Byron, and Keats, couldn't hold a candle to the past.

[mortalterror]

It's largely my contention that it has always been impossible to accurately assess the art of one's own time. If we lived in 1820 I have no doubt you'd be declaring that the poets of our time, such as Blake, Byron, and Keats, couldn't hold a candle to the past.

If I were living in 1820 I'd probably have heard of Byron. Keats career was brief and he probably died before he had a following, so I'm guessing his fame came later. Wordsworth and Coleridge were established for twenty years by then. I'm not a fan of Burns or Austen. Leopardi just started writing and was little known, but I'd have known of Shelley. Cao Xueqin and Nguyen Du were eastern so I wouldn't have heard of them. I'd probably be a big fan of Goethe and Sir Walter Scott though. And I'd scoff at people for thinking we were living in some great age because of Robert Southey and Leigh Hunt.

I won't claim to know what the best books of the last ten years were for a fact, but forty to fifty years ago I've got a pretty good idea. Even thirty years ago and I'm probably in the ball park. And I won't say that the art of our time is totally mysterious and unknowable. I just do not prioritize staying current when there is so much awesome stuff from a thousand years ago I still haven't read. If I was really interested I bet I could stay on top of the contemporary scene, but that would almost be a full time job.

[mgv1208]

James Fenton(UK) is considered by many to be the greatest living poet. Im not saying that he is, but he at least deserves to be in the conversation.

[mgv1208]

O and the point Amis was making was that the top American novelists (Pynchon, Roth, Dellilo) would be dead soon and that there aren't many good young american novelists, but young (or youngish) brithish novelists like Zadie Smith, Will Self, Chris Cleave, etc... were on the rise

[Pierre Menard]

^^^
As far as younger authors go, does anyone rate Michael Chabon as a young quality American author?

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is meant to be excellent for example? As is The Yiddish Policemen's Union.

[JBI]

England, as I put it, never recovered from the death of empire. The great British Elegy is the work of Larkin, which would be a depressing poetry, if he did not hammer home with the recurrent, so what? who cares? what do we make of it? themes. The country I guess just crumpled and went on, and so its literature lost its big vision of its own grandeur, something bad for the world but traditionally good for literature.

How true is that artistically? I agree that a great deal of the finest art across the whole of history comes from those cultures who have some grandiose vision of themselves and their future. This is true whether we are speaking of the Greek Athenian Renaissance, the Italian Renaissance, or the United States from the time of Emerson through perhaps the 1960s. But then we also have the Hebrew Biblical texts written after the fall and captivity of Israel, the Shanameh composed under similar circumstances, and one of your old favorites, Leopardi (I was just reading his Elegy for Italy). It seems to me that a good writer writes from whatever experience life brings. Writing from the position of an Empire in Decline (and we shouldn't ignore the fact that while Britain may be in Decline in terms of international influence and power, they remain the 6th wealthiest nation on the planet and London the 5th largest city in the world) seems no less likely to inspire great literature than writing from a position of increasing wealth and influence.

Perhaps true, but the novel, particularly the British novel, is very nationalist, if not imperial. The genre itself is credited with creating national identities, languages, and cultures on almost every continent. It is not hard to suppose that national welfare and the novel go hand in hand.

Still, I meant more culturally. I don't see a transformation, only a decline into unfeeling, something similar to a Coleridgean Dejection, is how I formulate it. Its as if everyone has kind of given up on creativity in search of pursuing the conventional - so now you have sensational novels written in England with omniscient narrators, or a focus on the past glories of "English humor" which, to an international audience is very hit and miss.

It could be worse though. Chinese authors are now completely absent internationally because they only understand or write about themselves. Even in China regionalism is a huge determiner in audience (North-Western authors for instance would have a North-Western audience, and a North-Western publisher). Still, the situation can be applied elsewhere.

Simply put, novels originated as a national pass-time. The English novel got its start as a rentable entertainment for middle-class educated women to read to their families, or read on train-rides or alone at home. It evolved into a national concept - the study of English literature in a sense was created for export - at that time the reading educated mass would be absorbed in classics, and not in novels - but for the Indian subclass of imperial subjects, well, they needed something to teach them how to be English.

Of course, that doesn't work anymore, but the Booker recognition is perhaps a shadow of the situation.


^^^
As far as younger authors go, does anyone rate Michael Chabon as a young quality American author?

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is meant to be excellent for example? As is The Yiddish Policemen's Union.

I found the work quite amateurish actually. The ending was rather weak, and he glosses over much of the important elements of history. In a sense, I found it weak as an historical novel, and couldn't help remembering that sarcastic line from Doctorow about New York, "There were no black people."

If anything, I think Chabon is too self-conscious as a novelist, and too textbookie to ever break into something. I doubt he will ever approach a subject without a sort of cleanliness to it, the same way he will never approach human sexuality, only write around it.

[Mr.lucifer]

How does Michael Chabon count as a young novelists? He's nearly 50.

[Desolation]

How does Michael Chabon count as a young novelists? He's nearly 50.

In novelist years, that's about 25.

[The Truth]

I don't read much contemporary but my favorite contemporary authors are definitely American, David Foster Wallace & Mark Z. Danielewski. I'm not even sure I've read a contemporary author who's British in a while. :blush5:

[Paulclem]

Still, I meant more culturally. I don't see a transformation, only a decline into unfeeling, something similar to a Coleridgean Dejection, is how I formulate it. Its as if everyone has kind of given up on creativity in search of pursuing the conventional - so now you have sensational novels written in England with omniscient narrators, or a focus on the past glories of "English humor" which, to an international audience is very hit and miss.



I just read an article by Will Self "On Modernism and Me" where he writes:

For myself, I haven't been content to carry on producing books that merely strain against the conventions – as I've grown older, and realised that there aren't that many books left for me to write, so I've become determined that they should be the fictive equivalent of ripping the damn corset off altogether and chucking it on the fire. In 2010 I published Walking to Hollywood, a book which exhibited all the continental pretensions we – and I say "we" advisedly – instinctively abhor: the incorporation of the writer as a character in his own work, the abandonment of plot, the banjaxing of realism etc etc. Among the British – and the Scots in particular – the critical reception was good, but the sales tanked. If I had been motivated by seeking a readership – in the way Blairite focus groups sought an electorate – then I might have tried to rein back these tendencies in my next novel; instead, I found myself unable to do this. Never before – not even in those cold winter days of the early 80s – have I felt myself to be so at odds with everything, including my own facility with words. In the winter of last year I was staying in a flat in Dartmouth in Devon, which has been lent to me for 20 years now as a writing bolthole. It was bitterly cold, and as I hammered at the keys of the typewriter, I felt a dreadful intractability about the text I was working on – no matter that I had eschewed the simple past and dived into the dangerous waters of the continuous present; no matter that I had struck out from the safe shores of the third-personal to embrace the slippery evanescence of the stream of consciousness, still I felt the corset cutting into me, still I felt mired in convention.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/03/will-self-modernism-and-me

He seems to be refuting what you are saying about being satisfied with cosy conventions in the Modern English novel. I haven't read any of his books, though I think I'm definately going to pursue this, and JG Ballard whom he notes in the article.

Certainly Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall is written in an interesting and unconventional first person stream of consciousness style that allows her to convey character and plot through Cromwell's thought.

I would also say the Rushdie's Midnight Children does not follow a cosy conventionality, and provides an interesting angle upon the end of colonialism in India. His use of multiple symbolism and scene contrasts makes for a great impressionistic experience.

I confess, though, that I am unable to compare these modern novels with modern US efforts.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I'm going to have to totally disagree with JBI on Chabon. I've read both of the novels mentioned above, and while neither one was flawless, I found Kavalier and Clay to be nearly so, giving it a 9.5. His real talent lies in developing plot, but his character creation is also wonderful. Plus, he won the Pulitzer for Kavalier and Clay, not something slouches usually accomplish.

I'm not sure what JBI means when he says, "The ending was rather weak, and he glosses over much of the important elements of history," because Kavalier and Clay (I must assume that's the book he's referring to, since Yiddish Policemen... is an alternate history/mystery novel) is a book about the history of comic books, a fictionalized history mostly, so I don't know what important parts of history are missing. Historical accuracy has little to do with it. I also found the ending good.

[ChicagoReader]

Very limited knowledge here and I am American but I'd have to side with contemporary American lit. In addition to the older but still active writers like McCarthy, Pynchon, and Roth, there's the likes of David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Franzen, Richard Powers, Junot Diaz, Richard Ford, and even Denis Johnson. While I might not like all these authors they still produce quality material. As for Britain I'm fairly ignorant, though I love David Mitchell and Ishiguro is good too if he counts.

[mortalterror]

What a lot of people here fail to grasp is that David Foster Wallace is dead and Midnight's Children was thirty years ago.

Also, if we're talking about younger writers then Junot Diaz, the author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is only 44. I haven't read this but it does make a lot of the critic's lists.

JBI, as a Canadian, what do you think of Rohinton Mistry? Does his later work live up to A Fine Balance? Could you put him on the same pedestal as Atwood say?

And has anyone kept tabs on Paul Auster since he left for France? He might have done some more good work there. He certainly has the brains, though I found him a bit too pretentious for my taste.

By the way, I don't think anyone has mentioned Chuck Palahniuk yet. The man obviously has talent, but every book he's written since the first has been more polished and less inspired than the last. I stopped reading him in 2005, but he might have written himself out of the rut since then.

[Kafka's Crow]

What a lot of people here fail to grasp is that David Foster Wallace is dead and Midnight's Children was thirty years ago.

Also, if we're talking about younger writers then Junot Diaz, the author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is only 44. I haven't read this but it does make a lot of the critic's lists.

JBI, as a Canadian, what do you think of Rohinton Mistry? Does his later work live up to A Fine Balance? Could you put him on the same pedestal as Atwood say?

And has anyone kept tabs on Paul Auster since he left for France? He might have done some more good work. He certainly has the brains, though I found him a bit too pretentious for my taste.

By the way, I don't think anyone has mentioned Chuck Palahniuk yet. The man obviously has talent, but every book he's written since the first has been more polished and less inspired than the last. I stopped reading him in 2005, but he might have written himself out of the rut since then.

Of all the US writers mentioned here, only Gore Vidal, Pynchon and Cormac Mc-Carthy are considered as of some importance outside the US. The rest are national writers, not international writers. I spend quite a lot of time reading posts on this forum and have had significant interest in American Literature for over two decades, hence my knowledge of some US writers who are virtually unknown outside the US. I spent almost a year researching Walker Percy as I once was in the circle of Dr Marcus Smith who was a Fulbright professor at Loyola University at that time, a close friend of Walker Percy and had some hand in the publication of A Confederacy of Dunces after its manuscript was given to Percy by J K Toole's mother. I am a student of Dr Jerome McGann of U o Virginia, all these things pushed me deeper and deeper into the US Literature and my knowledge of this literature is, well, above average when compared with other non-US readers. So when somebody mentions Dellilo or DF Wallace or Austere or Pat Conroy, Danielewski or Chabon, I know who they are talking about. Don't expect this to be the case with other people who are situated in the same geographical location as I.

This comparison seems quite futile to me although no discussion is totally futile as long as it generates ideas. I am sure Gunter Grass or Gabo (Garcia Markez) or le Clezio would smile at all these arguments.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I love seeing Danielewski's name pop up. I just finished House of Leaves. Man, what a trip. I'm looking forward to seeing where he goes.

[JBI]

I'm going to have to totally disagree with JBI on Chabon. I've read both of the novels mentioned above, and while neither one was flawless, I found Kavalier and Clay to be nearly so, giving it a 9.5. His real talent lies in developing plot, but his character creation is also wonderful. Plus, he won the Pulitzer for Kavalier and Clay, not something slouches usually accomplish.

I'm not sure what JBI means when he says, "The ending was rather weak, and he glosses over much of the important elements of history," because Kavalier and Clay (I must assume that's the book he's referring to, since Yiddish Policemen... is an alternate history/mystery novel) is a book about the history of comic books, a fictionalized history mostly, so I don't know what important parts of history are missing. Historical accuracy has little to do with it. I also found the ending good.

I don't think historical novels should gloss over history. This is world war two we are talking about in the most chaotic environment in the world, New York - you are talking racial, labour and political movements. You are talking anti-semitism, and war - conscription, loss, sons coming home, etc. Not a bunch of kids with dreams. It is a clumsy crafting.

As for the ending, he gets rid of the gay character to move the heterosexual one back in - replaces the replacement father if you will - clever and clean, a great play to the American penchant for happy endings. Let alone the intense homophobia that glosses over rather lightly.

It is a novel about comic books, but if you notice there is no real villain - a sad excuse for an American nazi, and a semi-evil rich boss. It is an applause for greatness of the American creative mind, perhaps, but it fails.

You can tell this author was trained as an author and studied creative writing. He writes like someone trained to write in a specific style, and isn't mature enough to my ear to break out of his constructive space into an individualized talent that is non-academic.

I will compare him to the bunch of painters in the early 19th century trained in the academies - contrived, commonplace, acceptable, and non-controversial.


What a lot of people here fail to grasp is that David Foster Wallace is dead and Midnight's Children was thirty years ago.

Also, if we're talking about younger writers then Junot Diaz, the author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is only 44. I haven't read this but it does make a lot of the critic's lists.

JBI, as a Canadian, what do you think of Rohinton Mistry? Does his later work live up to A Fine Balance? Could you put him on the same pedestal as Atwood say?

And has anyone kept tabs on Paul Auster since he left for France? He might have done some more good work there. He certainly has the brains, though I found him a bit too pretentious for my taste.

By the way, I don't think anyone has mentioned Chuck Palahniuk yet. The man obviously has talent, but every book he's written since the first has been more polished and less inspired than the last. I stopped reading him in 2005, but he might have written himself out of the rut since then.

Mistry's work, from what I can gather, is very Canadian in content now. I must confess not reading widely beyond a Fine Balance. Now, if Canadian immigration was interesting to an international audience (which makes up much of his non-fiction), he may be better read, but he has not written as international a book as A Fine Balance since - and I think he knows it.

Still, there is no need to lambast him over it - A Fine Balance is a fine book, and should be treated as so. It is well written, well crafted and mature - a very professional book. Do I call it a Canadian novel? Well, not exactly, but it is a good novel and who cares.

I doubt he will be making a bigger contribution to literature than that already achieved in his earlier book, but then again, most authors are one-hit wonders.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I don't think historical novels should gloss over history. This is world war two we are talking about in the most chaotic environment in the world, New York - you are talking racial, labour and political movements. You are talking anti-semitism, and war - conscription, loss, sons coming home, etc. Not a bunch of kids with dreams. It is a clumsy crafting.

As for the ending, he gets rid of the gay character to move the heterosexual one back in - replaces the replacement father if you will - clever and clean, a great play to the American penchant for happy endings. Let alone the intense homophobia that glosses over rather lightly.

It is a novel about comic books, but if you notice there is no real villain - a sad excuse for an American nazi, and a semi-evil rich boss. It is an applause for greatness of the American creative mind, perhaps, but it fails.

You can tell this author was trained as an author and studied creative writing. He writes like someone trained to write in a specific style, and isn't mature enough to my ear to break out of his constructive space into an individualized talent that is non-academic.

I will compare him to the bunch of painters in the early 19th century trained in the academies - contrived, commonplace, acceptable, and non-controversial.
Your first paragraph: Well, the roll they take in WWII and how they deal with the issues in their comics plays a large role in the story. I think where I have to really disagree with you here is that you think any story set in the era of WWII (and only a fraction of the book is) must be dark, depressing, and bleak because, obviously, that time in New York was completely dark, depressing, and bleak and no one was ever happy and therefore there were no kids with dreams . . . even though kids with dreams are who created comic books. And it isn't like the two protagonists are just a couple of happy-go-lucky buddies with not a care in the world. You know that isn't the case. And if you think it just glossed over the issue of homophobia, maybe you read a different book than I did.

Your second paragraph: I admit I don't completely remember how it ends, but I don't remember it being a complete happy ending. It was in some ways, but not for everyone. Anyways, what's wrong with happy endings?

Your third: Why does there have to be a villain? And I think it quite succeeded. For some reason, I don't think you'd ever be able get into a book that celebrates America.

As for the fourth, I just disagree.

[mortalterror]

[Which poets, beyond Adunis and Heaney, would you deem possibly worthy of being called "great"?

Missed this the first time through. In answer to your question, the poets I think which qualify as great working in the second half of the twentieth century are Pablo Neruda obviously. Dylan Thomas died in '53 but in '51 he wrote Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. W.H. Auden wrote The Shield of Achilles in '52. Thomas and Auden were probably minor authors but those individual poems are great. Frost was still plugging away in the sixties. I like Adunis and Heaney, and they are certainly better than Hughes and Larkin, but I'm afraid that they are probably also minor writers as well. Zbigniew Herbert, that's a major writer. Derek Walcott, another major. Herbert's Mr. Cogito poems are marvelous and Walcott's Omeros has a lot to recommend it, even though I like some of his shorter work more. Czesław Miłosz was probably a major poet. I like some of his stuff. Billy Collins is good but minor.

The later poetry of Archibald MacLeish and Robert Penn Warren is very good, and I do like it, but they are minor poets. Robert Lowell and Theodore Roethke, talented but still minor. My exposure to Elizabeth Bishop was too brief and too long ago to recollect an opinion. Ginsberg's Howl has some great things in it, and it may be a great poem, but he is no great poet. Lawrence Ferlinghetti is garbage. Charles Olson garbage. Gary Snyder, haven't read him. James Merrill, minor. Aniara sounds like something I'd be into so I'm definitely planning to read Harry Martinson some day. And that's all the poets I can think of for now.

[Pierre Menard]

I don't think historical novels should gloss over history. This is world war two we are talking about in the most chaotic environment in the world, New York - you are talking racial, labour and political movements. You are talking anti-semitism, and war - conscription, loss, sons coming home, etc. Not a bunch of kids with dreams. It is a clumsy crafting.





Um, whaaat? Surely it's the authors prerogative to decide the boundaries of what he wants to explore history-wise? Isn't the book largely about the comics industry...not about labour, political movements and sons coming home? You make it sound like as an author, he has a responsibility to explore big 'social themes'. What if they were of no interest to him?

I honestly don't see how that is clumsy crafting?

[JBI]

Um, whaaat? Surely it's the authors prerogative to decide the boundaries of what he wants to explore history-wise? Isn't the book largely about the comics industry...not about labour, political movements and sons coming home? You make it sound like as an author, he has a responsibility to explore big 'social themes'. What if they were of no interest to him?

I honestly don't see how that is clumsy crafting?

Maybe you misunderstand, or haven't read the book. The book is not just about comics, it is about background. It very much tries to be historical. My problem is its historical setting is like a straw-man history with paper-cut heroes.

Much of the book is concerned with labour disputes, and the realities of death and war. My problem is the treatment is tacky and not realistic. It seems preoccupied with pushing forward a good American image at the cost of realism or conflict.

For example, it makes American Naziism out to be a joke in the form of a comedic buffoon of a villain. It makes American immigration seem easy, accepting, and open. It makes it seem that everyone can find their dream in the States.

Now, reality. A Czech Jew arriving without papers from a strange path via Japan would have virtually no chance of getting into the United States, let alone landing a decent paying job right when he arrived (the first day). It's enough that he wouldn't have been so fluent in English, or perhaps would have been seasick.

Next point, the world of New york in the late 30s was chaotic. A violent place, with identity, class, and racial chaos. Not some land of dreams coming true. He touches on it, but ultimately misses.

The main plot threads concern labour, concern immigration, concern WW2. My quibble is the depiction is clumsy, and contrived.

[WyattGwyon]

I haven't read McCarthy yet, so I can't say one way or the other...But, All the Pretty Horses is my next assigned reading in my American Lit. class.

That's too bad. Their are four or five of his novels that are better: Suttree, Blood Meridian, The Crossing, I even think his first novel, The Orchard Keeper was better.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Maybe you misunderstand, or haven't read the book. The book is not just about comics, it is about background. It very much tries to be historical. My problem is its historical setting is like a straw-man history with paper-cut heroes.

Much of the book is concerned with labour disputes, and the realities of death and war. My problem is the treatment is tacky and not realistic. It seems preoccupied with pushing forward a good American image at the cost of realism or conflict.

For example, it makes American Naziism out to be a joke in the form of a comedic buffoon of a villain. It makes American immigration seem easy, accepting, and open. It makes it seem that everyone can find their dream in the States.

Now, reality. A Czech Jew arriving without papers from a strange path via Japan would have virtually no chance of getting into the United States, let alone landing a decent paying job right when he arrived (the first day). It's enough that he wouldn't have been so fluent in English, or perhaps would have been seasick.

Next point, the world of New york in the late 30s was chaotic. A violent place, with identity, class, and racial chaos. Not some land of dreams coming true. He touches on it, but ultimately misses.

The main plot threads concern labour, concern immigration, concern WW2. My quibble is the depiction is clumsy, and contrived.

Oh yeah? . . . well . . . it won the Pulitzer, so it's GOOD! So there!

[Kafka's Crow]

As the latest turn in the argument shows, each of the two nations is doing well with their literature in their own sphere. American Literature for Americans, English for the Britons. You can not understand what we are doing, nor do you need to either, nor are we in a position to judge what is going on across the pond. Each to their own. There is no empire and there is no imperial culture any more. JBI is right, English Literature, as a discipline, was designed to influence the thinking of the Indian subjects of the empire (see Gauri Viswanathan's The Masks of Conquest). As far as the readership in the UK is concerned, we'd put our cup of tea back in its saucer and say, "we are dong very well, thank you." The literary scene is hugely diverse, vibrant and satisfactory and is serving its primary function of increasing the number of readers and I really do hope that the the North American readers can say the same about their own literature.


I love seeing Danielewski's name pop up. I just finished House of Leaves. Man, what a trip. I'm looking forward to seeing where he goes.

I read about 50 pages of The House of Leaves, reminded me of Blair Witch Project. I might read this books some time. His sister, Poe , is a singer (she actually released a song called 'five and a half minute hallway') and I watched an interview in which he called Poe's songs something like parallel or complimentary texts to his book. Still, too much of a Blair Witch Project for my liking. It is in my wishlist on Amazon and I will read it pretty soon.

[Paulclem]

What a lot of people here fail to grasp is that David Foster Wallace is dead and Midnight's Children was thirty years ago.



Rushdie has continued to write since Midnight's Children. I referred to this as a book I know with the implication that he hasn't slipped his unconventional approach.


I read about 50 pages of The House of Leaves, reminded me of Blair Witch Project. I might read this books some time. His sister, Poe , is a singer (she actually released a song called 'five and a half minute hallway') and I watched an interview in which he called Poe's songs something like parallel or complimentary texts to his book. Still, too much of a Blair Witch Project for my liking. It is in my wishlist on Amazon and I will read it pretty soon.

How was the writing like The Blair Witch Project? (I didn't like the film, but applaud the attempt).

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I read about 50 pages of The House of Leaves, reminded me of Blair Witch Project. I might read this books some time. His sister, Poe , is a singer (she actually released a song called 'five and a half minute hallway') and I watched an interview in which he called Poe's songs something like parallel or complimentary texts to his book. Still, too much of a Blair Witch Project for my liking. It is in my wishlist on Amazon and I will read it pretty soon.

Well, I liked The Blair Witch Project, thought it was creative and it always creeps me out.

I get the comparison, but I think the book is so much more. I guess the biggest similarity one could point out is that both try extremely hard to portray themselves as actual occurrences and not works of fiction.

[Kafka's Crow]

Well, I liked The Blair Witch Project, thought it was creative and it always creeps me out.

I get the comparison, but I think the book is so much more. I guess the biggest similarity one could point out is that both try extremely hard to portray themselves as actual occurrences and not works of fiction.

Blair Witch Project was cheap. I found the actors they used for developing an impression of reality thoroughly implausible. I can recall one of the so-called professors commenting on the video, the guy with tinted glasses, he looked like an out of work pornstar instead of a university professor. It was creepy and scary but not because of the 'footnotes' but because of the story-line. The rest was padding to support a 30 minute film. Can we say the same about The House of Leaves?

And BWP also created a 'cult-following' like The House of Leaves has recently done, did not last long though.


How was the writing like The Blair Witch Project? (I didn't like the film, but applaud the attempt).

There are footnotes and fabricated academic debates about the truth of a documentary on pages along with the narrative itself like the debates and 'expert opinions' in the movie. Bulk of the book is made up of these footnotes and excerpts from journals.

I recently read William Hope Hodgson's The House on the Borderland dealing with the subject of a house that defies space and time. Spooked me out well and truly.

Early this morning I finished reading A S Byatt's Possession. I started reading it many years ago but gave up because of the slow pace of her story. On second attempt I thoroughly enjoyed the novel and finished it within a week. Still through all those years I kept on looking for some information on Randolph Henry Ash, Victorian poet and contemporary of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Swinburne. During those years more and more information is become available on RH Ash thanks to the internet and now, finally after so many years, am I able to see through Byatt's ruse.

[Paulclem]

Cheers - I might give it a whirl. It does remind me of the more basic approach taken by Stoker in Dracula, (and other of course), with the journal entries. I suppose he was after a similar effect using a limited method.

[Kafka's Crow]

Cheers - I might give it a whirl. It does remind me of the more basic approach taken by Stoker in Dracula, (and other of course), with the journal entries. I suppose he was after a similar effect using a limited method.

Have a look at the edited message!

As far as Dracula is concerned, see here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKdGwfMD8u8

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Can we say the same about The House of Leaves?



Well, you can't. You only read fifty pages. :D

House of Leaves is two stories (at least two main stories; others are peppered throughout). One is the actual story of the haunted house, told through interpreting a film documented by the owners of the house. I found the theme of dissociation quite fascinating. We are shown the core of the story, a haunted house story (sections of which are quite creepy) first through the lens of the people behind the camera documenting it (we get no insight into the actual characters thoughts) then we get another lens because we aren't actually seeing the movie, but reading a book about the movie (in that the book portrays itself as nonfictional discussion of the movie, sometimes in academic terms), and then there,s a further lens placed over that in the footnotes we get by the editors and the man who goes mad while reading House of Leaves, his footnotes being a whole other story, also scary, as it's a first person account of a man going insane. There're layers and layers, and without the "padding," it would be just another haunted house story. Which he could have done. He had enough material concerning the story of the house to write a book about that only, but then it would be just another horror story and nothing special.

I need to write a review on the book, as it is definitely one of the most fascinating things I've read, maybe the most fascinating since I read Moby Dick. I can easily see why someone wouldn't like it, as it is always easy to see with strange literature, but I can't imagine the amount of time that went into creating this labyrinthine creation.

P.S. How much of Blair Witch Project was comprised of experts and stuff? Wasn't it like the first ten minutes, at most?

[Kafka's Crow]

Well, you can't. You only read fifty pages. :D

House of Leaves is two stories (at least two main stories; others are peppered throughout). One is the actual story of the haunted house, told through interpreting a film documented by the owners of the house. I found the theme of dissociation quite fascinating. We are shown the core of the story, a haunted house story (sections of which are quite creepy) first through the lens of the people behind the camera documenting it (we get no insight into the actual characters thoughts) then we get another lens because we aren't actually seeing the movie, but reading a book about the movie (in that the book portrays itself as nonfictional discussion of the movie, sometimes in academic terms), and then there,s a further lens placed over that in the footnotes we get by the editors and the man who goes mad while reading House of Leaves, his footnotes being a whole other story, also scary, as it's a first person account of a man going insane. There're layers and layers, and without the "padding," it would be just another haunted house story. Which he could have done. He had enough material concerning the story of the house to write a book about that only, but then it would be just another horror story and nothing special.

I need to write a review on the book, as it is definitely one of the most fascinating things I've read, maybe the most fascinating since I read Moby Dick. I can easily see why someone wouldn't like it, as it is always easy to see with strange literature, but I can't imagine the amount of time that went into creating this labyrinthine creation.

P.S. How much of Blair Witch Project was comprised of experts and stuff? Wasn't it like the first ten minutes, at most?

As I said, I want to read the House of Leaves but I am a bit cautious when dealing with things which have a cult following: Doctor Who, Lost, The X Files etc. Blair Witch Project had such following but it did not last long and the sequel was a traditional horror flick and fans went to watch it any how. I watched TBWP very long time ago. Can't recall most of it except for the stickmen, hand-prints, the ending and that 'professor' who literally made me laugh out loud.

[The Truth]

I love seeing Danielewski's name pop up. I just finished House of Leaves. Man, what a trip. I'm looking forward to seeing where he goes.

I pre-ordered an autographed copy of his novella The 50-Year Sword which is just now getting a full release and am eagerly awaiting 2014 when his 27-volume serial novel The Familiar. It's an interesting experiment to see it released in a serialized form and I can't wait to see what he does.

You read Only Revolutions yet?


Well, you can't. You only read fifty pages. :D

House of Leaves is two stories (at least two main stories; others are peppered throughout). One is the actual story of the haunted house, told through interpreting a film documented by the owners of the house. I found the theme of dissociation quite fascinating. We are shown the core of the story, a haunted house story (sections of which are quite creepy) first through the lens of the people behind the camera documenting it (we get no insight into the actual characters thoughts) then we get another lens because we aren't actually seeing the movie, but reading a book about the movie (in that the book portrays itself as nonfictional discussion of the movie, sometimes in academic terms), and then there,s a further lens placed over that in the footnotes we get by the editors and the man who goes mad while reading House of Leaves, his footnotes being a whole other story, also scary, as it's a first person account of a man going insane. There're layers and layers, and without the "padding," it would be just another haunted house story. Which he could have done. He had enough material concerning the story of the house to write a book about that only, but then it would be just another horror story and nothing special.

I need to write a review on the book, as it is definitely one of the most fascinating things I've read, maybe the most fascinating since I read Moby Dick. I can easily see why someone wouldn't like it, as it is always easy to see with strange literature, but I can't imagine the amount of time that went into creating this labyrinthine creation.

P.S. How much of Blair Witch Project was comprised of experts and stuff? Wasn't it like the first ten minutes, at most?

Couldn't agree more, wasn't the section on Navidson's nightmares just terrifying? And Johnny Truant is quite a character. And so is his mother. MZD is just fantastic at what I think is great writing, HoL was one of the most original works I've read in a long time and his character development is just amazing.

I see where the comparisons to David Foster Wallace come from as I'm reading Infinite Jest right now and the way they develop characters is quite similar, not all in one setting but sprawled throughout the novel.

[mgv1208]

I am open to suggestions if you wish to make them. Contemporary literature isn't my strongest area so I'm not entirely married to those novels, especially the ones by Eggers, Franzen, and Roth. Mostly, I was just trying to establish a baseline, or a concrete line of data points, from which to speculate further. No doubt the canon is still in flux, and most of the contenders aren't even on my radar yet. I'm guessing that some very fine work is being done in India, China, and South America right now but they aren't making the same kind of waves as the novels and plays I mentioned.

Some people think that Rushdie or Delillo should make the cut, but I feel like they haven't done significant work in over a decade. Rushdie peaked in the 80s with Midnight's Children and the Satanic Verses. Delillo peaked in the 90s with Underworld.

Martin Amis is an abortion and I read Will Self's Great Apes in college. There was nothing special about it. I don't know how Great Britain can claim these men as it's best writers. They used to be a nation of titans, but now they are all pigmies grimacing at each other in a funhouse mirror. The gall they have to call poets like Ted Hughes and Philip Larkin great!

Why the hate for martin amis?

[Kafka's Crow]

Why the hate for martin amis?

Martin Amis is generally regarded, even in Britain, as a writer who has not produced anything of worth since his first couple of novels back in the '80s. Only he can come up with this stupid idea of comparing American with the British Literature. As far as hurling abuse at Larking or Ted Hughes is concerned, all I can say is, you will never be able to appreciate them as we will never be able to appreciate people like Delillo, Updike or any other of the hundreds typical American writers. As I said earlier, I am willing to give everybody a chance as I am one of Tim Burton's boys, I am different!

As far as Rushdie is concerned, his type of literature is nothing new or unusual any more. Even the greatest of them all, the grand father of métèque writing, G V Dessani, was back in print in 2007 after 3 decades of mysterious absence. This is where they all came from. If Russian novelists "came out of Gogol's Overcoat", Indian métèque writers came out of Dessani's H Hatterr. The genre is more open now. Calling Rushdie ineffectual since the Midnight's Children is like calling Eco inconsequential since The Name of the Rose. They are both going on and even have acquired the dubious title of prolific writers.

[JBI]

Martin Amis is generally regarded, even in Britain, as a writer who has not produced anything of worth since his first couple of novels back in the '80s. Only he can come up with this stupid idea of comparing American with the British Literature. As far as hurling abuse at Larking or Ted Hughes is concerned, all I can say is, you will never be able to appreciate them as we will never be able to appreciate people like Delillo, Updike or any other of the hundreds typical American writers. As I said earlier, I am willing to give everybody a chance as I am one of Tim Burton's boys, I am different!

As far as Rushdie is concerned, his type of literature is nothing new or unusual any more. Even the greatest of them all, the grand father of métèque writing, G V Dessani, was back in print in 2007 after 3 decades of mysterious absence. This is where they all came from. If Russian novelists "came out of Gogol's Overcoat", Indian métèque writers came out of Dessani's H Hatterr. The genre is more open now. Calling Rushdie ineffectual since the Midnight's Children is like calling Eco inconsequential since The Name of the Rose. They are both going on and even have acquired the dubious title of prolific writers.

Who is you, I am Canadian :p. Our academy is far more British than American in so many ways.

[Kafka's Crow]

Who is you, I am Canadian :p. Our academy is far more British than American in so many ways.

In the Shadow of the Empire! Even if American Empire doesn't exist and the Dawn of the American Century was a false dawn (and thank f**** for that!) still the empire of the huge American publishing industry would cast its shadow on the nearby countries whose publishing industries can't compare with the size of the American behemoth.

[JBI]

In the Shadow of the Empire! Even if American Empire doesn't exist and the Dawn of the American Century was a false dawn (and thank f**** for that!) still the empire of the huge American publishing industry would cast its shadow on the nearby countries whose publishing industries can't compare with the size of the American behemoth.

Do you think the British crap is any different? Besides, we were getting more of your novels before Nafta anyway.

[Kafka's Crow]

Do you think the British crap is any different? Besides, we were getting more of your novels before Nafta anyway.

You are absolutely right there and this has been my contention since the beginning of this discussion. Our tastes are controlled by the market forces, what Adorno and Horkheimer called "Culture Industry." I admire the writers who rose in their native publication environments without linguistic and commercial support that the writers in English language enjoy, hence my mentioning of Gunter Grass et al, A writer has to be really great to break the confines of linguistic bonds and prove himself worthy of being translated into another language (English in our case) and reach us but think of the ones who never reached us because they were never translated and were never approached by our publishing industry who care about nothing but money, "...wool comes not to market/ sheep bringeth no gain with usura"

[AuntShecky]

The US has Pynchon and DeLillo, the two best novelists working today...So, what more needs to be said?

The last I heard Mr. Philip Roth was still with us.


^^^
As far as younger authors go, does anyone rate Michael Chabon as a young quality American author?

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is meant to be excellent for example? As is The Yiddish Policemen's Union.

Yes, indeed.
Also, Richard Powers.
Just finished a short but extremely imaginative novel by a British author named Jim Crace. What happened to him?

[TheFifthElement]

Yes, indeed.

Just finished a short but extremely imaginative novel by a British author named Jim Crace. What happened to him?

He's still around and writing. His last novel, The Gift of Stones, was published this year and he has another due out next. I haven't read anything by Crace but hear good things about him. What was it you just read? I would like to read Being Dead, it sounds interesting.

I think the problem with threads like this is that they too often deteriorate into nationalistic chest beating. The classic 'my worst literature is better than your best literature' rubbish which is impossible to quantify. Plus contemporary literature is always difficult to discuss across cultures as although there is more cross over between British and American literature it is still more often the case that it's the populist works that cross over first, which are barely representative of 'best', and the 'great' literature takes time to percolate, so a 'great' writer tends to be old before they've made that cultural leap.

Plus I see there's a tendancy to focus on those writers who are shameless self-promoters - the likes of Amis, Self and Roth - rather than those writers who are quietly crafting quality works and talking about literature rather than themselves. Hence the sad paucity of female writers mentioned in this thread. As always.

I'd love it if people would be willing to share their experience of great writers from either culture. I have seen excellent works from both, and would love the recommendations of others. It is much easier for me to keep up with contemporary British literature as that's where I live, but I've come across some excellent US writers too and would love to read more. My two-penneth:

British: David Mitchell, Hilary Mantell, Ali Smith, Damon Galgut, Tom McCarthy, Jeanette Winterson, Penelope Lively.
I also hear Julian Barnes is good, but I read A Sense of an Ending and wasn't wowed. Similar experience with Zadie Smith, but I think she falls in the 'shameless self promoter' category.

American: Joyce Carol Oates, Barbara Kingsolver, Ann Patchett, Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo.

[prendrelemick]

In my very Limited experience the Americans just have it at the moment. My only experience of contempory works is through a book club I attend bi-monthly. I have noticed that the ordinary non superstar American writers are more Literary and accomplished than ours. Perhaps the publishers only send the better stuff across the Atlantic, I don't know. I have also noticed that it is the American women writers that most impress our group - and me.

[Kjetil]

The US has Pynchon and DeLillo, the two best novelists working today...So, what more needs to be said?

Just that it is hugely debatable if Pynchon and DeLillo are the two best novelists working today.

Even if they're great, You must be incredibly well read to be in a position to make that judgment.....and be sure there is nobody in Guatemala, or Nigeria, or Poland who are more deserving?


For my part, I abandoned Gravity's Rainbow after repeated attempts, concluding that since it is clearly not constructed to appeal through its plot or characters, it seems to need approaching either as an exercise in existential anguish (if you see it as a breaking up of all integrative contexts and thus emulating what Hegel described as "the night of the world"), or as a form of cheap mysticism ( if you see the connecting lines the story establishes as forming some sort of tentative integrative context, at least). Despite my best intentions, I was unable to stick with either.

With Underworld, My attempt was killed by its much-admired first chapter, which I am sure is poignant to americans but which to me came over as an orgy of meningless namedropping and obsessiveness over Baseball. Which I am aware plays a large part in the american psyche, but which to many of us non-americans is just another fringe sport with no emotional connotations of any kind.


Maybe it's just me, and I haven't given up yet.

[Paulclem]

Just that it is hugely debatable if Pynchon and DeLillo are the two best novelists working today.

Even if they're great, You must be incredibly well read to be in a position to make that judgment.....and be sure there is nobody in Guatemala, or Nigeria, or Poland who are more deserving?


For my part, I abandoned Gravity's Rainbow after repeated attempts, concluding that since it is clearly not constructed to appeal through its plot or characters, it seems to need approaching either as an exercise in existential anguish (if you see it as a breaking up of all integrative contexts and thus emulating what Hegel described as "the night of the world"), or as a form of cheap mysticism ( if you see the connecting lines the story establishes as forming some sort of tentative integrative context, at least). Despite my best intentions, I was unable to stick with either.

With Underworld, My attempt was killed by its much-admired first chapter, which I am sure is poignant to americans but which to me came over as an orgy of meningless namedropping and obsessiveness over Baseball. Which I am aware plays a large part in the american psyche, but which to many of us non-americans is just another fringe sport with no emotional connotations of any kind.


Maybe it's just me, and I haven't given up yet.

Having read this, I decided to try White Noise by Delillo. I'm enjoying it very much and would be happy to give Underworld a try afterwards. The discussio about US and UK authors has prompted me to start tocompare some modern examples from each. I've just read The Sense of an Ending by the UK's Julian Barnes. It's a short book, but I felt it approached it's themes in a very English middle class public school way - which by no means meant I was disappointed, but left me musing on how our literary landscape still retains that disproportionate class awareness. I would have liked to have read similar themes completed with a different class reference; I'd like this mainly because of the relevance and a comparison wouldbe good.

White Noise is also very American, rooted as it is in small town eighties America with lots of popular cltural references and reflections. In its own way it's just as bound within a middle American context - it concerns the family and friends of a college professor - but it is a more complex and reflective novel. I'm still reading it. I think I'm going to find the comparisons interesting.