London Calling

 London Calling

Recently I paid homage to the Brits in flicks like The King’s Speech, but my Anglophilia is equally strong, if not moreso, on the literary side.

 Well yes, if it were not for England we would not be the US of A, but also gave us the bedrock of books and theater, William Shakespeare. One might only read Harold Bloom’s fascinating The Anatomy of Influence to digest just how impactful the bard has been on literature around the world (Bloom would argue more than even the Bible).

 In the past century the UK spawned lions ranging from Virginia Woolf, Evelyn Waugh, George Orwell, C.S. Lewis and Graham Greene to more recently A.S. Byatt, Martin Amis, Iris Murdoch, Margaret Atwood, Salmon Rushdie, and Ian McEwen (my favorite). Post-war angst and the eternal class clash of Upstairs/Downstairs has left a residual effect of sarcasm, sex and satire that doesn’t quite exist the same way in American literature.

One could look at British novelists as taking a more interior view, while American novelists look more outwardly. AKA our cousins across the pond tend to be navel gazers, and we lean toward looking at the other guy.

 A very recent case in point:  The London Train, by Tessa Hadley. A New York Times Book Review pick and a quick read as the crow flies. Parallel stories of unhappy middle to upper class well educated Welsh whose unfulfilled lives are intertwined by happenstance on a train. The novel, which I recommend, is well written, with acute observations and characters ranging from a house (actually two houses) to a Polish druggie and a handful of depressed Welsh academics.  The plot, which I will not deign to reveal, hating that about book jackets myself, features the same class conflict and questions of race, employment, relationships and family that the earlier mentioned authors have perfected before. I would almost ask, do British novelists ever explore areas outside of these themes?

 Do American novels take on much greater challenges? I would venture to say that yes, the David Foster Wallace/Franzen frenzied approach is much different, more Tom Wolfian, an almost modern day Henry Fielding swing through life.

 That being said, there are days when class/relationships/houses and dogs/horses and gardens are just the escape I need from a more Tom Jones-like existence. So I will continue to explore the Brits (and the Irish – namely John Banville, Joseph O’Neill, Colm Toibin and Colum McCann).

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