A while back, the combined might of Steve Connor, John Mullan and Alex Clark huddled together on the BBC to debate the death of theory. All are veterans of the 1980s: when fiction about writing fiction and ideological subversion were all the rage. Sales and a sizeable readership were old hat. The better you were, the more PhD theses you inspired. However, as the three declared that day, that era seems to be passing. Three-digit sales figures don’t make for much of a pension pot. And so rather than letting the James Pattersons of this world have all the fun with story, pace and plot, a new breed of novelist is evolving.
Most noticeably David Nicholls’ One Day has been revving up steam recently and reshaping ideas of the literary
and the popular. John le Carre kept the flame alive through the 70s and the 80s, Nick Hornby and his brother-in-law Robert Harris continued it through the 90s and now the new-boy Nicholls is
starting to make the literati fear a revolution from below. Adulatory press in the Telegraph,
commendations on The Review Show and a forthcoming film mean One Day is the sort of book that can no longer be ignored.
The rise of Ian McEwan is another good case in point. The Sussex-educated and UEA creative-writing tutee trailed for decades behind the postmodern prowess of Amis and Rushdie. Style had trumped
story; character had been relegated by cerebral peacockery. But then came Enduring Love, Amsterdam, Atonement and the success shows no signs of stopping. Recently
Solar garnered significantly more praise than The Pregnant Widow, not to mention McEwan’s enviable sales figures and Atonement’s no-expense-spared cinematic adaptation.
Equally, Howard Jacobson is not the usual Booker winner and Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall was much zippier than the ponderous efforts of previous victors.
In the Review Show round-up of 2010, Sarah Churchwell admirably kept mentioning the importance of story and narrative. And if I were to have a punt at what 2011 will bring, it is that story,
narrative and character will continue their comeback. The sterile dichotomy between the popular and the literary should break and break soon. For my money, Nicholls has reinvigorated a dying breed.
Who knows, the way things are going the Booker might find a worthy winner in him before the decade is out.
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