return to worldwidereview.com,
the home of critical reviews
From: J Category: Art Date: 26 February 2007 Time: 06:44 AM Review: I think you are right blp. Class divisions make it really hard to make a believable British universe, we are so acutely aware of them, that any attempt to encompass all UK life will always sound false notes. But then you think of Jane Austen or something, and although they only depict the middle/upper classes there is a wholeness there, same with Conrad (more the everyman there). What about Dickens? I know these are not contemporary, just thinking round the subject. Moving abroad, Toltstoy and Dost, seem pretty good at dreaming up a whole society, but we wouldn't know if old Dost got criminal slang wrong would we? As time passes, authenticity retreats as important? But definitely the American literary voice seem less hounded by these problems, the myth of one nation under dog, melting pot etc, is convincing enough to glue together a literary world. Everyone can speak American ( though waddabout Black people etc?) without us immediately deciding who they are. Letting the novelist decide