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Realists: ‘The Movement’, Kingsley Amis, David Lodge

Stefan Collini

in Common Writing: Essays on Literary Culture and Public Debate

A new generation of writers in the 1950s was seen as reacting against both the literary romanticism of their predecessors and the dominant class associations of the literary world. This chapter ... More

A new generation of writers in the 1950s was seen as reacting against both the literary romanticism of their predecessors and the dominant class associations of the literary world. This chapter examines the group of writers known as ‘the Movement’, especially the poetry of Philip Larkin and the novels of Kingsley Amis. It reconsiders Amis’s career and the difficulty of doing justice to his combination of originality and offensiveness. It then assesses the work and career of David Lodge, often seen as the successor to both Graham Greene and Kingsley Amis, with particular emphasis on the autobiographical character of so much of his writing.Less

The King’s English by Kingsley Amis: A publisher’s project

Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade

in English Usage Guides: History, Advice, Attitudes

The famous English novelist Kingsley Amis also wrote a usage guide, called The King’s English, published posthumously in 1997. This title refers to his illustrious predecessor Henry Fowler, who is ... More

The famous English novelist Kingsley Amis also wrote a usage guide, called The King’s English, published posthumously in 1997. This title refers to his illustrious predecessor Henry Fowler, who is frequently quoted in the book and even has an entry of his own—unusual for the genre. In this chapter I will argue that Amis’s The King’s English is not a typical usage guide. Though it does offer language advice, most of the entries read like brief linguistic—often humorous—narratives rather than typical usage items. His section on Americanisms, is an example of this; and he also published instances of usage advice elsewhere, as on the once controversial hopefully. This chapter therefore argues that the book was actually a publisher’s project, aiming to profit both from Amis’s reputation when he was still remembered well by the public and from the growing market for usage advice literature at the time.Less

Quartet: Wallace’s Wittgenstein, Moran’s Amis

Stephen Mulhall

in The Self and its Shadows: A Book of Essays on Individuality as Negation in Philosophy and the Arts

This chapter begins by examining Wittgenstein's influence on David Foster Wallace's first novel, The Broom of the System. It then considers Richard Moran's study of self-knowledge, Authority and ... More

This chapter begins by examining Wittgenstein's influence on David Foster Wallace's first novel, The Broom of the System. It then considers Richard Moran's study of self-knowledge, Authority and Estrangement, where he cites the protagonist of Kingsley Amis' second novel to explore the ways in which a human being might suffer the conflicting demands of realism about oneself and responsibility for oneself — an exploration in which Moran draws upon both Wittgenstein and Sartre. The discussion then turns to David Foster Wallace's 1999 collection Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. It contained a piece called ‘Octet’, which was divided into five sections, each of which adopted the formal structure of a ‘pop quiz’.Less

Quartet: Wallace’s Wittgenstein, Moran’s Amis

Stephen Mulhall

in Fictional Characters, Real Problems: The Search for Ethical Content in Literature

This chapter combines a critical evaluation of the nature of David Foster Wallace’s understanding and use of Wittgensteinian philosophical themes in his fiction (both early and late) with a ... More

This chapter combines a critical evaluation of the nature of David Foster Wallace’s understanding and use of Wittgensteinian philosophical themes in his fiction (both early and late) with a discussion of Richard Moran’s use of an example from Kingsley Amis’ fiction to develop a Wittgensteinian reading of issues of ethical selfhood. The immediate connection between these two apparently disparate conjunctions of philosophy and literature is the concept of sincerity or authenticity and the possibilities it introduces of acknowledging oneself in relation to others or, as we see here of equal importance, failing to do so. The broader project of this chapter is to find solutions to the problem of accommodating philosophy in literature and literature in philosophy without losing something essential to the practice of either mode of textual production.Less

Ruptures: Metafiction and Postmodernism

in Solar Flares: Science Fiction in the 1970s

Metafiction refers to fiction that is aware of its own fictionality. Coined in 1970 by the critic and novelist William Gass, metafiction took to extremes the tension between realism and the real in ... More

Metafiction refers to fiction that is aware of its own fictionality. Coined in 1970 by the critic and novelist William Gass, metafiction took to extremes the tension between realism and the real in the nineteenth-century novel. Examples of metafiction within the science fiction genre include Philip K. Dick's post-1974 novels such as Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974) and Joanna Russ's The Female Man (1975). The strategies of metafiction and the undecidability between fiction and reality were symptomatic of postmodernism, whose definition also proved problematic. This chapter focuses on postmodern science fiction writers such as Richard Cowper, Christopher Priest, Robert Sheckley, Barry Malzberg, Richard Brautigan, Tom Robbins, Kurt Vonnegut, Philip José Farmer, William S. Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, Robert Shea, Kingsley Amis, Angela Carter, Emma Tennant, John Sladek and Frederik Pohl. It also examines the television programme Welt am Draht (World on a Wire/World on Wires and cyberpunk.Less

The Fifties and the Beginning of the Liverpool Scene

in A Gallery to Play to: The Story of the Mersey Poets

Between 1956 and 1958, Britain saw the emergence of a new and controversial ‘angry generation’ fuelled by three closely connected events. John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger opened at the Royal ... More

Between 1956 and 1958, Britain saw the emergence of a new and controversial ‘angry generation’ fuelled by three closely connected events. John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger opened at the Royal Court in London on May 8, 1956, followed by the publication of Colin Wilson's book The Outsider. Both men would be linked with Kingsley Amis, who created a new anti-hero, described as a ‘thoroughly cross young man’, in his novel Lucky Jim. The Angry Young Men, primarily concerned with intellectual restrictions, appeared on the scene around the time of the Suez Crisis and vanished after Harold Macmillan's election victory in 1959, a period also characterised by the rise of Elvis Presley and rock 'n' roll. In Liverpool, John Lennon formed a group called the Quarrymen, while Roger McGough came home from Hull University.Less