I’m not a great reader of novels – the
interactions and fate of fictitious characters pale against those of the real
people I find in histories…..And, if I want good prose, I find it in essays,
travelogues and short stories – although I grant you that it’s only in stories
(short and long) that the inner life of people can be treated in depth…..
Perhaps that’s why I’m so partial to
short stories – produced by the likes of William Trevor, Carol Shields, Alice
Munro, Vladimir Nabakov, Joseph Miller and……Joseph Roth
Seven years ago, however, one post
here did actually pay tribute to about 75 novels which had taken my fancy – only one third of which, interestingly, were British….And, of those,
most were Irish or Scottish since I have found their style of writing much more
lively than that of English novelists…..It’s not just the older generation I’m
referring to (such as Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Edwin Muir and Robin Jenkins) but also
the younger writers (such as Andrew Greig, James Meek and James Robertson on
the Scottish side – and Sebastian Barry and John McGahern on the Irish).
Too many contemporary English writers
seem to be unable to shake themselves out of their limited middle-class
environment – eg Ian McEwan, although this is not something you could say about
his acerbic mate Martin Amis. Sebastian Faulks and Louis de Bernieres are two
exceptions who deal with big issues – the latter giving us “Birds without
Wings” about the tragic exchange of population in early 20s Anatolia. And
Lawrence Durrell still thrills me – despite the reputation he has unfairly been
given for “over the top” writing……
When I was a teenager in the late 50s,
it was the modernist fiction of Aldous Huxley and HG Wells which grabbed my
fancy – with Evelyn Waugh for light relief (books such as “Scoop”). Joseph
Conrad I read when I wanted something more exotic - and DH Lawrence for the
emotional side of things.
The 60s brought the “angry young men” with
writers such as Alan Sillitoe, John Bratby and Kinsgley Amis – the 70s the
university realists – eg Malcolm Bradbury and Howard Jacobson
By the 80s EM Foster and Thomas Hardy
were big – as films brought their books to life. On the contemporary front, Fay Weldon's journalistic prose made the woman's case....
There’s a nice little overview of the
writing of the 1945-90
period here; and a more substantial survey
here. It’s always interesting to see what foreigners make of British literature
and I found the analysis and set of notes of The
Desperado Age – British literature at the start of the third millennium
(2006) revealing – if a bit forced. The author is Lidia Vianu (2006) who was
then Professor of English literature at Bucharest University.
Lists of personal favourites are rather self-indulgent
and pointless – unless including some sort of justification for the
choices….which might just persuade us to give some of the texts a whirl….
It’s in that spirit that I now update that earlier
post.
In 2010 I hadn’t quite adjusted to my
Romanian base – so had missed a baker’s dozen of superb books - Miklos Banffy’s Transylvanian Trilogy (originally written in the 1950s but only widely
available from 2010); Olivia Manning’s
Balkan
Trilogy (written in the 60s
but receiving a new lease of life after the film); and Gregor von Rezzori’s brilliant three
semi-autobiographical books drawn
from his time in Romanian Czernowitz (now in southern Ukraine) – first written
(in German) between the 50s and 70s but issued by NYRB only recently.
Rebecca West’s
massive and stunning Black
Lamb and Grey Falcon – a journey through Yugoslavia was first
published in 1941 and is actually four books in one – about Serbia, Croatia,
Bosnia and Macedonia – but received a huge boost from the 90s Yugoslav
conflagration. It’s not, of course, a novel but, 75 years on, it is a gripping
read - and still repays study.
I would stand by my 2010 list – with
the embarrassing exception of Paul Coelho! And I also don’t know how Jason
Godwin crept onto the list…. Otherwise the mix of South American “magic
realism”; French romanticism and nihilism; Irish, Israeli and Egyptian realism;
and Scottish whimsy stands up well……
My tributes to the likes of John
Berger and William
MacIlvanney demand their addition – as do JM Coetze and Svetlana Alexievitch ps this post - and some earlier this year - are in the tradition of blogs such as A CommonPlace Blog where older people try to identify the books and journals they have enjoyed and would recommend to others
