What would make up a Great British Novel?
Middlemarch has been largely agreed as the best British novel of all time. It's true that townmanship, class, gossip and the outdoors are all features of a Great British Novel. But what specifically would set this apart from it's American counterpart?
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>But what specifically would set this apart from it's American counterpart?
the violence would be either Islamic or soccer related as opposed to blacks on crack or tfw no gf's shooting up a school
self loathing
Who agreed to that? I'm pretty sure the best one is Great Expectations.
>But what specifically would set this apart from it's American counterpart?
muh aristocracy and class divide
The Great American Novel is an exclusively American ideal, Britain has a literary canon.
There's no such thing as the 'great ----- novel'
I mean, sure, but it's mildly interesting to think about and discuss.
One of the great aspects of Middlemarch (like The Way We Live Now) is that it is already a great American novel. Will Ladislaw is pretty much your ideal 19th century Bostonian, and Casaubon clearly represents fossilized European ideals.
One thing that clearly sets Middlemarch apart, however, is the focus on landed inheritance in the Dorothea-Will-Casaubon plot. Of course, by rejecting the inheritance, Dorothea and Will confirm their incipient Americanism.
Great "Insert Country" Novels are about the landscape and the people who live within it and the great social struggles of the time and whatnot.
For Russia you have Tolstoy and Turgenev, but decidedly not Dostoevsky; he doesn't focus on the landscape enough. For Britain Middlemarch is one, but pretty much all Dickens is too - the focus on London, the characters, and the social struggle combined. The Great American Novel I see as the Grapes of Wrath, but you can choose Huckleberry Finn too. I would distinctly argue that novels like To Kill a Mockingbird are NOT, as they have a distinct lack of landscape.
And by landscape we mean to say....
The British novel is ultimately about the dominance of Plot over Theme... That is to say, the more feminine, civilised, present-tense life dominating the masculine history and culture.
You could argue that American novels trade in notions of Theme over Plot, and that the role of an historical inheritance (historical and cultural, not economic) play a much larger role, in order to compensate for its colonial status.
An American novel without a sense of deep history counts for a lot less... Grapes of Wrath and Huckleberry Finn are examples of fine plots with poor themes, and this seems to undercut their status. Thematic requirements are probably why myths and movies are so much more important than the 'great american novels'.
Inbreeding
Some people have pointed out that in Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, the actual Plot is separate from the Story which actually begins with Butch.
>Plot is Matriarchal, and a Thematic story is Patriarchal.
Tarantino is retelling the plot of his life with his mother through Jules, Vincent and Ringo Orange. This is a more British way of spinning a good yarn.
He's telling the story of his father through Butch and his Thematic struggle to honour his father. This is the American way of telling a story.
Also consider that Biblical parables rely very much on notions of Theme > Plot... This kind of thing resonates very strongly in the American mind.
I think that Psalms and Proverbs are actually more popular in British life for their straightforward qualities, but I may be wrong in suggesting that.
If the Booker Prize has anything to say about it, then it means an unwavering refusal to do anything new or exciting with prose.
Paradise Lost already is that
>Middlemarch has been largely agreed as the best British novel of all time
According to who?
Some survey of foreign critics, apparently
Though honestly it's definitely between Great Expectations and Middlemarch