What are some major British post-modern novels?

Answer 1

[I must really want to respond to your question, for this is my third try. Each of my previous responses have been zapped one way or another.]

I heartily endorse bilbiophile's answer to your question, both her brief characterizaton of post-modernism and especially her annotated list. There's a lot of good reading there, some of it challenging. If these titles are new to you, I would recommend that you begin with Graham Swift's Waterland. It think it's a fine novel, and its sort of a bridge between a conventional bildungsroman and post-modernism.

I recommend most of Swift's work, including Last Orders, which--having won the Booker Prize--has been the subject of considerable critical controversy.

Thomas Pyncheon is probably the most demanding of the authors (and, by the way, isn't he American?).

But the post-modern novel that I most highly recommend is, technically speaking, not British, though the author was educated in England and has lived and worked in London for much of his adult life. The novel is Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, and in my opinion it is the most outstanding novel of the last quarter of the 20th century. Set in his native India, it deals with children born on the first day of India's independence. It's a page-turner, filled with humor and pathos, subtlety and historic authenticity, fascinating characters and caricatures. It is far better than his more controversial Satanic Verses, though i found that also to be an enjoyable and provocative read.

And, just for fun, when you read Midnight's Children, you might also want to try John Dollar by Marianne Wiggins, Rushdie's wife during the furor over the Satanic Verses and a fascinating wirter herself. John Dollar, a fast read, is often called the female counterpart of Lord of the Flies. It does deal with a group of young women abandoned on a more or less deserted island, and its themes are related to those of Lord of the Flies, though I do not find it an exact counterpart by any means.

And, finally another winner of the Booker Prize is probably a more popular and more readable post-modern author than most of the ones mentioned by bibliophile. He is Ian McEwan. But his great novel, in my opinion, is Atonement, rather than the pleasant Booker-Prize winning Amsterdam. Atonement begins with a 1935 dinner-party setting, not unlike a Virginia Woolf novel, but a grotesque series of mistakes leads into a darker world. The second and third sections of the book follow two of the young characters into their later lives, focusing on their experiences of WW II and of -- perhaps atonement -- for what happens on the estate in 1935.

McEwan's post-modern realism is described, rather accurately I think, in this introduction to a Guardian review of Atonement:

McEwan's "novels' psychological acuity derives, always, from their fidelity to a precisely delineated reality. Needless to say, the more disturbing or skewed that reality (in the early stories and novels, most obviously), the more finely McEwan attunes his readers to it. Moral ambiguity and doubt are thereby enhanced - rather than resolved - by clarity of presentation. This is why the themes of the novels (with the exception of the enjoyably forgettable Amsterdam ) linger and resonate beyond the impeccable neatness of their arrangement. McEwan is, in other words, a thoroughly traditional original."

Answer 2

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
What are some major British post-modern novels?

Answer 3

I'm a fan of Thomas Pynchon and William Burroughs and Ernest Hemingway. Do they qualify or has the definition changed as I've entered my dotage? I really suck at categories in both literature and music. You should read those people and Henry Miller and Charles Bukowski too, but only because they are remarkable writers. John Fante is another as is Kenneth Patchen but I'm still not entirely sure I'm answering the question you meant to ask. What about Malcolm Lowry? Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Louis-Ferdinand Cèline? Or are you looking for people like Richard Brautigan and Tom Robbins? I'm really not trying to be obtuse, honestly. What do you need us for anyway? Go look, preferably somewhere old and dusty and funky. Check sh!t out. Gamble. Be your own post-modern man. Either that or buy a little book called The Rough Guide to Cult Fiction and wow all your friends with your insider knowledge. Whatever you do, don't treat it like medicine to be dutifully taken. Romp in the glorious fields of genius.

Answer 4

Postmodern British Literature

Answer 5

A.S. Byatt - Possession
Gustave Flaubert - Parrot
Graham Swift - Shuttlecock
D.M Thomas - The Swallow
John Fowles - The French Lieutenant's Woman

Hope that is enough for now, they should keep you busy.

Answer 6

reading is much better the book will keep u thinking and you get more detail in what people are thinking therefore you get more imagination

Answer 7

Reading the reserve instead of viewing the movie is the ultimate way to see what the writer planned. Reading uses your thoughts, hones your reading skills, and can improve your vocabulary

Answer 8

There will be many disagreements as to which postmodern British novels constitute "major" works, but here are a few that I feel capture several aspects of postmodern thinking in British Literature. Postmodernism really is literature that reflects myth, cultural bias, political beliefs and the meaning and experience of the author and/or character reflected in the literature.

Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes

The story of a grouchy scholar's search for the truth about Gustave Flaubert. Oddly enough, events that occur in the man's life echo the details of Flaubert's life with eerie similarities.

Changing Places by D. Lodge

Phillip Swallow and Morris Zap are two professorial exchangees between State University and the University of Rummidge. They exchange class rosters, but little do they realize they will be swapping colleagues, students, and wildly enough, wives. A satire of academic life in the mid-60's.

Chatterton by Peter Ackroyd

This novel revolves around the mystery of Chatterton, a poet who committed suicide in 1770. Charles Wynchwood, a writer discovers evidence that Chatterton faked his own death, and continued writing poetry that was attributed to famous authors. An elderly novelist, Harriet Scrope, has employed Wynchwood to write her memoir, hoping that he won't reveal the fact that all her novels are plagiarized. The events continue to spiral in surpising ways, revealing truths about art, immortality, immorality, and plain human nature.

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

If you're a conspiracy buff, then look no further than this tongue-in-cheek story of Oedipa Maas, who, after being left a considerable inheritance by her deceased boyfriend finds herself embroiled in a world-wide conspiracy...or is she? A satire that involves the triad of Military-Industry-Government, its dry humor makes this a good read that will leave you looking over your shoulder. Are they following me?

Crash by J.G. Ballard

If you want a jaw-dropping example of postmodern contemporary British fiction, this is it. Ballard is a good, but very strange writer, and this novel is no exception. A story of a subculture that has evolved that has a sexual obssession with fatal car crashes, this piece explores the icons of technology, a culture of violence, and the strange behaviors and thoughts of humans in general. I really loved this book, even though some parts made me shiver with revulsion. Graphic, but well-written.

The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles

Charles Smithson falls in love with Sarah Woodruff, who has been abandoned by her French lover. A social commentary on Victorian behavior from a contemporary author. This novel will sound reminiscent of Ondaatje's "English Patient," but Fowles is much more daring with his statements than Ondaatje.

Waterland by Graham Swift

Tom Crick is being fired from a 30 year teaching job at an English prep school. His final lecture is not only about the legendary English Fens, but includes his own tragic family history. Organic, lyrical, and engaging, this is a pleasurable postmodern must-read.

Angels and Insects by A.S Byatt

This postmodern piece is actually two novellas. The first, "Morpho Eugenia" explores Darwin and paradise with plenty of sexuality thrown in. It reads like a gothic fairy tale in which humans are compared to insects throughout the text. Shipwrecked naturalist William is taken in by a wealthy family, where he proceeds to fall desperately in love with their eldest daughter Eugenia. In the second novella, "Conjugal Angel," a group of mediums gather to call up spirits. One woman is still in love with her dead beau, and Emily calls up the spirit of her deceased brother who is immortalized in a Tennyson poem. There are many critics who don't have many complimentary things to say about the second novella, but I enjoyed Byatt's beautiful writing throughout.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Last but not least the dystopian novel by one of Britain's greatest postmodern authors. Youthful violence and social redemption come together to create this shuddering social commentary. The story of Alex who was abandoned by his friends to be arrested. He is sentenced to 14 years in prison, but when given an opportunity to change himself, he can't help but take it. A hiliarious, albeit, disturbing look at authoritarianism, technology, and violence, a book not to be missed.

These are the best I can come up without thinking too long on it, I hope these help you, or at the very least send you in the right direction.

Answer 9

in british libraries