Two attacks on the way English fiction has stopped being relevant has come to light in recent days. One is Gabriel Josipovici's article that appeared in Guardian, the other is Jason Cowley's article that appeared in New Statesman.
The first attacks Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan and Julian Barnes as "prep-school boys showing off," and the other attacks them "writers who have been anointed as the propagators of the great tradition of British fiction seem to be intent upon destroying all that is good in that tradition."
On my part I think recent novels haven't held a mirror to British or even Indian society as it is (Rushdie writes about an India that does not relate to present realities of culture, trends and economic status.). British novels have tended to look within at the expense of looking without.
Read and be the judge yourself.
1 comment:
I haven't read the criticisms, but I find the point of criticizing funny...we read fiction because we want to read a story. A better story than vampires vs. werewolves perhaps, with lots of emotions and moral conundrums and the like, and learn some insight about humans that the author has.
If I want to read about Indian or British society, why don't I just read the columnists in the daily newspapers?
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