The last major British novelist?

[sixsmith]

I was reading an interview with the British novelist Will Self where he was ruminating on which contemporary (post war) english language novelists will be read 100 years hence ;viz canonised i suppose. (he noted that literary forecasting is impossible but nevertheless thought it was important because it allows us to think about the virtue of our literary culture). He thought that, of the Americans, Bellow and Roth were likley starters and probably De Lillo. This seems about right to me. (with the addition of Cormac McCarthy) However when he got to the British novelists, he suggestions seemed a little less certain. He though Ballard and Grey might survive and possibly Martin Amis but was dismissive of McEwan, Rushdie, Swift.

It got me thinking about British fiction and the potential lack of a major British post war novelist. At first i thought i may be blinkered by an American-centric, Bloomian view of contemporary fiction (or the American tendency to self-aggrandizement). But then standing back a little, i honestly couldn't think of a British novel that i have read which stands up to the key works of their American counterparts. Personally i don't think any of the British authors Self mentions would even get a look in (with the possible exception of Ballard for flat out vision). Notwithstanding the supposed modern renaissance of the Amis/Rushdie/McEwan years, James Wood has said that the last major English novelists were Woolf, Lawrence and Green. (with the possible exception of Naipul who i haven't read). Just wondering if others had some broad thoughts on this topic.


(BTW i realise that English fiction isn't comprised solely of British and America novelists, it's just a comparison that peaked my interest. I'm also painting with a broad brush here, too broad most probably but again, it seemed a ripe topic )

[Lokasenna]

I suspect that history will consider J. R. R. Tolkein as THE author of the last century, and he's certainly going to survive. Evelyn Waugh will also endure. As for the post-war period... I can't honestly see any of them being read in a hundred years time.

[amarna]

Not really a broad thought, but what's about the Nobel Prize winners William Golding and Doris Lessing?

[LitNetIsGreat]

I think it is a fair point that James Wood makes when he says that Woolf, Lawrence and Green were the last great British novelists, though I can't help think that we must be missing someone obvious.

Not to go too much off track but do people really think Comac McCarthy will be read so far into the future? Based upon my experience with The Road I certainly don't think much of this writer, I felt his writing to be quite poor indeed. I must be missing something or more likely it is just a personal dislike, but even so I can usually stand back and appreciate something even if I don't like it personally. However this is not so with this writer based upon what I have seen of him, it my be going too far to say that I felt his writing to be amateurish, but he feels not too far off this mark to me.

[kelby_lake]

I suspect that history will consider J. R. R. Tolkein as THE author of the last century, and he's certainly going to survive. Evelyn Waugh will also endure. As for the post-war period... I can't honestly see any of them being read in a hundred years time.

All the really good writers seem to be dead At least, for the British.

[amarna]

Barbara Cartland.

[sixsmith]

Not to go too much off track but do people really think Comac McCarthy will be read so far into the future? Based upon my experience with The Road I certainly don't think much of this writer, I felt his writing to be quite poor indeed. I must be missing something or more likely it is just a personal dislike, but even so I can usually stand back and appreciate something even if I don't like it personally. However this is not so with this writer based upon what I have seen of him, it my be going too far to say that I felt his writing to be amateurish, but he feels not too far off this mark to me.

McCarthy is one of my favourite authors but it took me a good while to reach that conclusion. When i first read "All the pretty horses" i was of a similar opinion to yourself. The florid prose and aversion to punctuation can be a bit much but he won me over with "Suttree". Definitely a guy whose work you could hate.

Not really a broad thought, but what's about the Nobel Prize winners William Golding and Doris Lessing?

Don't know much about Lessing. Golding is interesting because he seems almost the forgotten man though i think his reputation has suffered due to his propensity for unsophisticated allegory.

[DisPater]

Ian Mcewan, for sure.

[JCamilo]

Well, I would wonder if not having great novelists is not something to give credit instead of something bad. Kudos for however abandoned this format first...

[JBI]

The last outstanding one was probably Greene, unless you count Rushdie and Naipual, though I don't personally consider them "British Novelists", in the sense that their best work seems to be in the novels that have the least resemblance to the tradition of English novels, notably Midnights Children, and The Enigma of Arrival (though A Bend in the River is pretty good as well).

[Lokasenna]

I think it is a fair point that James Wood makes when he says that Woolf, Lawrence and Green were the last great British novelists, though I can't help think that we must be missing someone obvious.

I'm not even sure about them, you know. I haven't read any Green, but I certainly don't rate Woolf or Lawrence highly. Somehow, I can't help but feel they are prolifically studied simply because they are the most controversial writers (which is not an indicator of quality) of a fairly dreadful period. I think history will neglect them relatively soon...

That said, I am a medievalist, so I probably would say that...

[LitNetIsGreat]

I'm not even sure about them, you know. I haven't read any Green, but I certainly don't rate Woolf or Lawrence highly. Somehow, I can't help but feel they are prolifically studied simply because they are the most controversial writers (which is not an indicator of quality) of a fairly dreadful period. I think history will neglect them relatively soon...

That said, I am a medievalist, so I probably would say that...

No, no. I have had little contact with Greene too, but Woolf is certainly much more than controversial. Her writing is highly intricate stuff which you have to delicately unravel to get to the heart of her work. She is actually quite a fascinating writer but you have to be able to gain the merit from her work very slowly, bit by bit. You have to have a lot of patience with Woolf and there is rarely much that "goes off" but she seems to concentrate on the little observations of daily live, but nevertheless they add up to a lot.

[wessexgirl]

I don't think Greene is a "heavyweight" in the sense of being controversial or difficult Lokasenna. He's very easy to read. There may be more substance to his straightforward style, but he's certainly not a hard read. He was a journalist and screenwriter after all, so the style is not at all longwinded. I've only read a few of his books, but they were enough to make me want to read more. I've read Lawrence too, although not for years, but he is readable, whereas for me Woolf definitely is not.

[Janine]

D.H.Lawrence is seeing a resurgance of interest, and I believe his work will indeed still be read 100 yrs from now, due to the sheer humanistic and complex aspect of it. Woolf is very intricate and complex, too and therefore, I believe she will be of interest years from now. Why wouldn't they be; but then again we can't predict what it will be like on earth 100 yrs from now, can we?

[stlukesguild]

I suspect that history will consider J. R. R. Tolkein as THE author of the last century...

Ha ha ha... Nothing like a good laugh after a day at work. (That was a joke... wasn't it?)

...and he's certainly going to survive.

He will survive for the foreseeable future in a manner not unlike Alexander Dumas (The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, etc...) as the writer of adventure tales that appeal especially to young readers and the unversed... but are barely recognized as "classics" by subsequent writers, critics, and the well-read.

I certainly don't rate Woolf or Lawrence highly. Somehow, I can't help but feel they are prolifically studied simply because they are the most controversial writers (which is not an indicator of quality) of a fairly dreadful period. I think history will neglect them relatively soon...

And I would have to respectfully disagree. Shock value rapidly dissipates. Almost no one is shocked by T.S. Eliot's Wasteland, Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Impressionism, Cubism, or Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. The innovations that they wrought have all been so absorbed by the larger culture that if anything, we actually find it difficult to imagine what was so disturbing. Woolf and Lawrence undoubtedly deserve their reputation as writers of real merit. But then I thought we were discussing Post-WWII British literature. The suggestion that the whole of Modernist literature is a fairly dreadful period is absolutely absurd to me. Even if we are limited to British novels (and thus ignore Proust, Mann, Hesse, Faulkner, Genet, Camus, etc...) we find any number of marvelous writers who have certainly made a lasting mark upon literature... James Joyce being the most obvious, but also Woolf, Kipling, Lawrence, Henry Green, Joseph Conrad, Aldous Huxley, and Samuel Beckett.

The original question asked for ideas as to just who might be THE post-war British novelist. On this account I will have to admit that I am far more versed at poetry and I could throw out a number of names of post-war British poets of whom I am certain. The post-war British novel, however, is not so strong... at least from my reading. Graham Greene seems the most obvious contender... but I certainly wouldn't ignore Golding.