What is THE great British Novel?

[Wilde woman]

Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. Who's more British than King Arthur?

Although, after reading JBI's post, I concede that Malory borrows from a rather French chivalric tradition.

[Niamh]

Hichhiker's guide -- the one with all the rain (can't rember whioch one that is) I think that is distinctly british, wierd, full of rain and yet bizzarley amusing.

Good thinking! And theres the whole thing about Tea.

I think Wild Woman has hit on something. and Kilted does have a point regarding Scott.
If we are thinking that line, than Brideshead revisited is also discounted.
I would go with Tom Jones by Feilding. I think it satirically portrays the british quite well!

[_Shannon_]

Brideshead Revisited or The Heart of The Matter... though I also think a strong case could be made for The Lord of The Rings...

[GX4146]

Brideshead Revisited and Mrs Dalloway

[kelby_lake]

[QUOTE=Brian Bean;684913]

Good nomination, I think.
Film-wise, it's probably be Brief Encounter as romanticised England of the '40s QUOTE]


What makes Brief Encounter the greatest British film ever made is the fact that it isn't at all romanticised even though the story might be described as romantic. It is an amazingly accurate almost documentary portrayal that shows exactly how people were in 1945 when it was made. For my money, Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson give the finest performances that I have ever seen on the screen and all of the supporting cast are absolutely perfect, but without the sensitive writing of Noel Coward, the fabulous black and white photography of Robert Krasker and briliant direction of the great David Lean,it would just be another "Woman's picture".

No, I just mean from a modern perspective, that sort of stern morality and refinedness you get in Brief Encounter. Loved it.

Good point from kilted- I suppse the majority of people will choose English novels, but I didn't want to stop people picking seminal works from Wales, Scotland, and Ireland simply because I didn't know much about them.

[kilted exile]

Just to clarify I am not oposed by any means to the choice of an english novel - england after all does make up a large component of the UK. What I am opposed to however is a "manor house" type story. I would not disagree out of hand with choices like Defoe's Moll Flanders or the works of many other victorian writers however.

This is just why I think we need to define what britishness is before we can come up with a novel we think best encapsulates it. (who knows the novel best encampassing "britain" may not have even been written by a brit.)

[Emil Miller]

This is just why I think we need to define what britishness is before we can come up with a novel we think best encapsulates it. (who knows the novel best encampassing "britain" may not have even been written by a brit.)

I don't think Britishness can be defined in any meaningful sense. After all, The Act of Union with Scotland was just a convenient device for getting around the dual monarchy situation. Personally, I am in favour of Scottish independence and ditto for the Welsh but, by the same token I would welcome English independence,.The idea of Great Britain holds little attraction for me and in France I am L'Anglais, in Germany I am Der Englander and in Italy L'Inglese. Up until 1945 I would have been proud of my English heritage but not subsequently; for an answer to that it is necessary to read my book Pro Bono Publico.

[Chris Marie]

"Brave New World" is a great British novel by Aldous Huxley.

Douglas Adam's books,esp. Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy are great British novels.

[wessexgirl]

I don't think Britishness can be defined in any meaningful sense. After all, The Act of Union with Scotland was just a convenient device for getting around the dual monarchy situation. Personally, I am in favour of Scottish independence and ditto for the Welsh but, by the same token I would welcome English independence,.The idea of Great Britain holds little attraction for me and in France I am L'Anglais, in Germany I am Der Englander and in Italy L'Inglese. Up until 1945 I would have been proud of my English heritage but not subsequently; for an answer to that it is necessary to read my book Pro Bono Publico.

Isn't this post dangerously close to politics? There are many statements I would like to address, but I fear we would be straying off-topic, (literary question) and into the realms of current (and past) political situations.

[Scheherazade]

Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome.

[Hank Stamper]

Isn't this post dangerously close to politics? There are many statements I would like to address, but I fear we would be straying off-topic, (literary question) and into the realms of current (and past) political situations.

i would have said it sounds a bit more like self-promotion!

i think the concept of Britishness is mostly bound up in the victorian era when the novel form became increasingly popular, and so is defined by ideas of empire and male hegemony and the misguided opinion that the British race was superior to everybody else, etc

im not sure Britishness really has any meaning today, apart from the olympics.. and even then it is pretty tenuous

so when i think of ideas of Britishness it is definitely (for me) confined to a historical viewpoint which I think probably stretches from the late eighteenth century right up to the end of world war II

[sofia82]

Very interesting point mentioned by JBI
To some extent I agree. We cannot identify something as pure literature of a country ... all the oral and even written literature are influencing each other not only the western literature but also the eastern too (a kind of intertexuality). Once I had a project about Chaucer Boccaccio and One and Thousand Nights. There were the same or similar stories in three books ... of course Chaucer got influenced by Decameron but there are some hints that there are other influences. On this point I agree with JBI, but any country needs to make itself identified by something called literature ... it is an identity for that. Something interesting... I think you heard about Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (Maulana) and there are some countries claiming he is their poet and not the others. There are classifications of this kind, even we have Irish literature, Scottish literature ... British ... but let it be what is the problem.
One more thing, now we have english literature and English literature ... english as those authors who are not from any english speaking countries but colonial world or just writing in English. And English literature as those written by an English author (British, Canadian, Australian, American ...) ... we are good classifiers in anything

[Emil Miller]

Isn't this post dangerously close to politics? There are many statements I would like to address, but I fear we would be straying off-topic, (literary question) and into the realms of current (and past) political situations.

Unfortunately there is a tendency for literary topics to stray into political and other areas and this one was already off-topic with the re-defining of British into regional literature. The original post asked " What is THE great British novel ?" Members can choose anything from the UK's constituent parts but have chosen to begin a debate about individual countries contributions rather than refer to them collectively as British literature. However, what is your choice for THE great British novel Wessex ?

[Mariamosis]

Popular consensus will probably go for Dickens or the Brontes, but I will like to suggest Austen or Hardy, and of those I prefer Hardy.

I would go for Dickens AND Hardy

[Mariamosis]

Why not get more to the grain? "America is nothing but a bunch a Bible-preaching, Burger-bulged-belly belching, redneck gun freaks who can't seem to pay their debt." Or, something like that.

I have to agree with this statement, and I am from the US. (and the southern states at that!) Ahem... although not to get into political views and such...