Busy Day

9 comments on “Busy Day”

1. ed says:
   February 23rd, 2007 at 10:31 am

   By coincidence I happen to be re-reading “Money” now. It is so very good and, I see on this pass, incredibly influential. He is
   more than a master stylist, he is a style maker. He is also one of the funniest of contemporary novelists. Take Money, London Fields and The Information and it’s easy to give him the title, GLA – however ridiculous such a thing might be. Other contenders ignored by the article are, for me, Beryl Bainbridge and Iain Sinclair.

2. Sara says:
   February 23rd, 2007 at 3:43 pm

   Good luck with the job, George. I’ve heard they can sometimes become desirable – am even considering it myself after a fair run of trying out your “freedom to read” option.

3. david says:
   February 23rd, 2007 at 7:07 pm

   Top British writers? Any number of “mystery” or “detective” writers. Names like Reginald Hill, Val McDermid, Minette Walters, etc. shoul not ddddd
   should not be any harder to come by than Rankin. Problem with Martin Amis is that so many of his books are awful. Only about a 50%
   chance of getting a good read.

4. August says:
   February 23rd, 2007 at 7:17 pm

   I read the “If not Amis, then who?” link, and of course the thing I latch on to is the dismissal of Harold Bloom’s use of “sublimity” as a criterion for greatness. “Sublimity” is, of course, not the transcendental hoo-haa that the author of that article (and most post-1960 critics and academics) make it out to be, but in fact an actual specific stylistic effect that’s not hugely difficult to identify once you perform the oh-so-difficult task of actually looking up what the word means in a critical context.

   Oh the joys of the literary world.

5. paradise says:
   February 24th, 2007 at 10:45 am

   I think the fact that most of the authors mentioned in the piece are of a previous generation and produced their best work years ago is very unfortunate – but only in the sense that it reflects badly on the writer of the article – not on the state of British literature. Ian McEwan gets only a passing mention but has in the last few years come to maturity and deserves more than that. Jeanette Winterson apparently doesn’t deserve a mention…

6. susan says:
   February 24th, 2007 at 11:48 am

   Helen Dunmore. Barbara Trapido. Hilary Mantel. Jeanette Winterston. Caryl Phillips. Kazuo Ishiguru.
   David Mitchell. Graham Swift. Julian Barnes. Tim Parks. Pat Barker. Petery Ackroyd.
   Zaidie Smith. John Banville. Kate Atkinson. Philip Pullman.

   I can think of loads of excellent contemporary British writers!

7. LM says:
   February 24th, 2007 at 1:44 pm

   #

   # August says:
   February 23rd, 2007 at 7:17 pm

   I read the “If not Amis, then who?” link, and of course the thing I latch on to is the dismissal of Harold Bloom’s use of “sublimity” as a criterion for greatness. “Sublimity” is, of course, not the transcendental hoo-haa that the author of that article (and most post-1960 critics and academics) make it out to be, but in fact an actual specific stylistic effect that’s not hugely difficult to identify once you perform the oh-so-difficult task of actually looking up what the word means in a critical context.

   Oh the joys of the literary world.
   

   I don’t care that much for Bloom, but why is it that no critics can ever actually deal with what he actually says? It is always clear that the essay writers haven’t read the book. For example, this guy claims that Bloom doesn’t list any authors past Beckett as canonical because there are no canonical authors in the chaotic age.

   This is totally unture. In fact, Bloom has a GIGANTIC list of post-Beckett and living authors’ books which he says are guesses at what will become canonical. His only claim is that it is too early to declare most of them canonical, that it takes time to see how people sort out in the history of literature… which is something I’d think most everyone would agree with.

8. August says:
   February 24th, 2007 at 1:55 pm

   Jeanette Winterson, as much as I love her, is a one trick pony. She reads like a more literary Chuck Pihlaniuk, and hasn’t written a “new” book in a long, long time.

   A.S. Byatt always deserves more attention than she gets, though. People latch on to Possession like it’s the only thing she’s ever done, but it’s really one of her weaker novels (I tend to recommend The Biographer’s Tale instead, which is in many ways just a more mature approach to the same issues, or the Potter Family books, which are both grandly intellectual and intensely emotional).

9. ed says:
   February 24th, 2007 at 4:06 pm

   Yeah, agree on Barnes and Ishiguru. Banville too, except that he’s Irish. Winterson is just silly.

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