Nothing is happening in British literature

i agree with both views i think, and here’s how:

i can’t think of examples where i haven’t been excited by a *writer*, and the things that make me excited about them, want to read them urgently, do not reside in a publishing house, say.

however, the knowledge that a publishing house or collective is doing *interesting things* and publishing, effectively funding or working together to allow more writers to do more, might be exciting, without me necessarily liking everything they do, and possibly even disliking some of it.

having just passed a bookshop with the new joanna walsh in the window, i guess she exists at an emergent point on a vector out of “new, interesting and difficult to discover in the common run of things” and into the periphery “general awareness”.

xyzzz likes Joanna Walsh and thinks that author readings are ridiculous, so I am not sure how to tell him that when I attended a Joanna Walsh reading it was dire.

In general I think this is a conversation about wider narratives rather than texts, the lack of a prevailing narrative about British Literatry Fiction that I think existed in the 80s and 90s with the writers mentioned above. It's possible that those narratives are imposed in hindsight but in the case of Amis, McEwan, Rushdie etc I think not.

It occurs to me that the one book that is likely to be a huge literary and publishing event and generate considerable excitement, including on ILX, is the third volume of Hilary Mantel's Cromwell trilogy. I can't think of many other current British writers who have that level of profile and are still producing their best fiction.

Joanna Walsh rules - I think co-running the #ReadWomen twitter account might have helped her get to that emergent point quicker xxp

I can't for the life of me find this article I started reading - linked to by a New Socialist writer on their patreon, I think - which explored what the author saw as the reactionary and anti-modernist impulse in Folk Horror writing, suggesting that adherents fail to see this because the nationalism of Folk Horror is surly and defeated from the get-go. Anyway I have no strong opinion either way, and didn't actually finish the article, but it would be useful here as a discussion of a clear trend of the kind Fred B is looking for - the writer even tied it into starting to see more Folk bands being formed around that time and etc.

Pinefox that is why I don't attend readings nothing good ever comes out of them. It makes good ppl sound bad.

She closed down that #readwomen account didn't she? It was a really annoying account, didn't rate the other person who ran it and the whole thing starts falling to pieces once you mention Gertrude Stein.

Actually I'm not sure Fred's looking for a clear trend, I think he is just saying there aren't any books coming out in Britain that are interesting enough for him to bother about! Which is a fully legit position, you have to have techniques to discern what you'll find time for and goodness knows there's enough writing from all around the world, no reason why anyone should pay particular attention to what's going on in Britain.

No reason why they shouldn't, of course.

'When I said "should", I meant - "shouldn't". ... So you can put that in'.

-- Tim Hopkins

Yeah that sounds like me.

:(

I will stop going on about Eley Williams one day but I have seen her read several times and she's never short of excellent.

ANYWAY.

IF Britain doesn't currently have much going on in literature (which you can make your own mind up about given what's upthread), where does? And what is it?

"There's nothing worth reading" doesn't lead to a very interesting conversation I don't think - as with ppl on ILM who say "there's no good albums released this year", the only possible answer is "look harder", since it's pretty much impossible that amongst the hundreds and hundreds of books released every year in the UK there wouldn't be something to enjoy.

"Nothing's exciting me right now" feels like a more interesting premise to me because it takes into account not just the books you've happened to pick up but also the entire ecosystem of recommendations, reviews, publications, etc. Also because I guess trendspotting sorta challenges people to look into things and perhaps make connections which they previoussly hadn't thought of. Or bring up new avenues that the OP wasn't aware of! I'm thinking of something like deej's "what music is exciting you right now?" thread on ILM.

I want to know who's making the coolest experimental fiction less so I can read the books and more so I can befriend them and form weird underground societies

Do you have a history of successfully accomplishing this?

brief flickers at the tail-end of university, but the cambridge crowd were in retrospect either moribund or too far up prynne's arse

The headline was what was picked up on:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/aug/17/will-self-i-read-as-many-as-50-books-at-once

But what I really liked was this admission:

The book I wish I’d written
I just wish I’d written better books – better in every respect: more impassioned, deeper, more resonant – books that would perhaps have changed others’ lives the way Kafka’s did mine.

Not a novelist myself but can relate to the part about reading 50 books at once.

i think this might be the new socialist article daniel is talking about above?: https://newsocialist.org.uk/the-brexit-novel/

interesting part of a Mike McCormack interview about the role of the editor in fostering a new generation of writers. I was particularly interested as we've talked about the reduced role of the editor in publishing, in relation to how something like Lanchester's Capital gets published. The conditions for allowing exciting literature to take place do seem to be, as James and Tim have both said, independent publishing houses willing to take risks, and also, perhaps, willing to keep the role of editor at a level of importance it had in the past.

He is generous in his praise for other writers, and talks about others’ experimentation. “It passed people by a little bit, and it’s a tribute to the artistry of the book, just how canny an experiment Donal Ryan’s first book was. It was so seamlessly done that people forgot. This is novel as montage, I think there are 21 narrators.” And then there’s “Claire Kilroy’s latest book The Devil I Know. That was brilliant. She depicted the Celtic Tiger as a cartoon, as almost Looney Tunes, and critics were unsure of it, but I thought she nailed it and it was a brilliant book.” Then there’s Lisa McInerney, “ there’s something surging and powerful about what she does, it’s nearly a life force all itself. And Rob Doyle, his two experimental books are something to laud. And Claire Louise Bennett, with Declan Meade at Stinging Fly, is doing brilliant work. Such a terrific writer.

He points out that “this generation of Irish writers are having their first editorial screening and tuning with Irish editors. A gifted generation of writers are being fostered by an equally gifted generation of young Irish editors. I think it’s an important moment. These editors have grown up with the idea of Ireland as a place which is hospitable to experimental literature. They know their Beckett, their Joyce, their Flann O’Brien, so the bejesus isn’t frightened out of them when they get an experimental manuscript. In England, you’ve no business going with an experimental manuscript. People just don’t want to know.”

So what changed?

“I think we found the old ways of speaking to ourselves and of ourselves did not work, didn’t provide a complete picture of who we were. Ryan’s first book, that narrative montage which painted all its cross cutting voices, its medley of voices as a choral piece: it depicted one of the most coherent pictures of rural Ireland.

“I think there was this gathering notion that the old narrative techniques weren’t fully capturing who we were and what we were about.” Writers are being “fostered by very inquisitive and able editors. The willingness to experiment found generous editors.”

I'd like to thank Tim for his post about Dostoevsky Wannabe - I read A Hypocritical Reader a few weeks ago and loved it. Terrific cover art.

I was thinking about getting something from them as well, as you say, the cover designs are superb.

brb moving to ireland

In search of an editor?

😭

tbh though yes

Plenty is happening in Danish Literature:

https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/09/30/the-danish-tolstoy/

Things must be really popping off after that Nobel Prize just the 101 years ago.

Read that book this summer, it really is a masterpiece. Perhaps the best Danish book I ever read

I mentioned Sophie Collins above and here is a review of her collection:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/oct/05/who-is-mary-sue-by-sophie-collins-review-correcting-sexist-narratives

My girlfriend bought that on a trip to London, is it worth reading?

From the quotes I'd say so I've yet to pick it up.

Have you read Josephine Klougart btw? There is a copy of this in the 2nd hand bookshop nearest to me.

http://deepvellum.org/product/of-darkness/

*Jospfine

Fingers not working today :)

Yeah, read her first two books, though not that one. Nope, don't like them. But she's probably a pretty good representation of a certain kind of Danish literature.