Chill message of Booker shortlist

The contempt of publishers for middle-class life and values is diminishing the novel

THIRTY OR EVEN 40 YEARS ago, as an apprentice scrivener on the margins of Grub Street, the Secret Author used to beguile his leisure with “surveys” — fat and (usually) academically-fathered conspectuses of the state of Eng. Lit. The starting point was The Modern Age (1961), a fine old Leavisite endeavour that made up Volume 7 of the Pelican Guide to English Literature. From there one moved on to such ornaments of the craft as Lorna Sage’s Women in the House of Fiction (1992) and Malcolm Bradbury’s The Modern British Novel (1993). Long after the primal urge had passed, there was still a certain amount of satisfaction to be got out of Richard Bradford’s combative The Novel Now (2006) and various writings by the Cambridge academics David James and Rod…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, November 2024

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