Best modern British lit?

[klmama]

Dc will take a semester of modern British literature this year.  I know all of the "classics" dc should read up through Lord of the Flies.  What about more recent works that you or your dc have enjoyed? 

[hornblower]

Off the top of my head 

Kazuo Ishiguro
Salman Rushdie 

AS Byatt 


oh & Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall 

[Farrar]

You could look at Booker Prize winners from the last couple of decades - not all Brits, but mostly. Tends to be stuff that is modern lit classics.

[Mom-ninja.]

I would consider Harry Potter as modern Brit lit. 

[Laura Corin]

Off the top of my head 

 

Kazuo Ishiguro

Salman Rushdie 

AS Byatt 

 

 

oh & Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall 

 

Yes.  Also Ian McEwan.  For choice, I would go for:

 

Kazuo Ishiguro - Remains of the Day (set in the 1930s)

Salman Rushdie - Midnight's Children (set in the 1940s)

AS Byatt - Possession (set in 1980s plus 19th century)

Ian McEwan - Saturday - (post 9/11) or Atonement (pre-war)

Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall ( 16th Century)

 

Other ideas:

 

JG Ballard - Empire of the Sun (WWII China under Japanese occupation)

Julian Barnes - Flaubert's Parrot (all over the place)

Jeanette Winterson - Oranges are Not the Only Fruit - (mid-century)

Zadie Smith - White Teeth (published 2000)

[Laura Corin]

You could look at Booker Prize winners from the last couple of decades - not all Brits, but mostly. Tends to be stuff that is modern lit classics.

 

Yes and no.  The jury changes each year and some years are.... not good.  I read the whole shortlist three years running a few years ago and they were very uneven.

[Stacia]

Agreeing w/ what others have already listed, including Kazuo Ishiguro. The Remains of the Day is truly a pitch-perfect novel.

 

I'd suggest Helen Oyeyemi. Fabulous, fabulous writer. Personally, I love her book Mr. Fox. But Boy, Snow, Bird would be a great one to analyze. Her recent book of short stories (What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours) is also great.

[6packofun]

Agreeing again with Ishiguro.  A modern British novel I consider to be of classic quality even though it is lesser known is Nation by Terry Pratchett.  Just excellent.

[6packofun]

I might add Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (because I like it, lol) and maybe Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy if that suits.

 

Gotta do Rebecca by du Maurier, but that may be older than you're looking for.  :)

[eternalsummer]

I like Ishiguro but I think it is a pretty specific taste.  Never Let Me Go is good :)

[Laura Corin]

I like Ishiguro but I think it is a pretty specific taste. Never Let Me Go is good :)

Ishiguro is interesting, because each of his books is quite different. Never Let Me Go is not a favourite if mine, just because dystopian novels don't appeal, but his writing is always luminous.

[eternalsummer]

Of the ones I've read, he has a writing style that feels quite deliberate and also somewhat understated.  My mom can't tolerate him :)

 

I love dystopian lit, but for me Never Let Me Go was not about the dystopia at all; it was just a setting used to magnify the parts of human nature he wanted to talk about.  The dystopia itself was kind of roughshod and incomplete (though a compelling enough idea); the idea at the end

 

(spoiler)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 - we all complete, and no one ever has enough time - was the core of the book, imo.

 

Similarly, Le Guin (my favorite author in the whole world) criticized Ishiguro's The Buried Giant for not being, among other things, a complete enough fantasy; she found it not fully realized as fantasy.  I think she just misses the point with Ishiguro.

 

 

And that is all I have to say about that, hah :)  Avoiding answering customer service inquiries late at night!

 

Wolf Hall was good too.  

 

 

[klmama]

Thanks for all the suggestions!  

[Mom-ninja.]

P.G. Wodehouse books