British minimalism / realism

Sam Beckett I guess ....if he's British. Martin Amis tried it with 'Yellow Dog'. Has Will Self had a go at it?

Suppose it depends on what you mean by "minimalist / realism". You had the "kitchen sink" writers in the 50s, 60s – Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim, Stan Barstow, A Kind of Loving, Alan Sillitoe, Saturday Night & Sunday Morning, Keith Waterhouse, Billy Liar and so on. But then you've got Malcom Lowry, Under the Volcano, and Patrick Hamilton, Hangover Square. Check out BS Johnson too, Christy Malry's own double entry.

Then you have the Scots like Trocchi, Warner, Kelman (his first collection of stories, An Old Pub Near the Angel is in that dirty realist style), Welsh, Hird.

Check out Frank O'Connor too. Irish, but still.

Rather than that pared-down, skin and bone style, our established writers tended to mimmick the other, "great american" novel school of writing like Roth and Bellow, but without the good parts. If there are writers out there doing it / have done it, I confess my ignorance.

Hope that sort of helps....

I'd agree that most of those writers you mention are realists....in the anti-romantic sense. But they're also very literate and wordy. Hard to imagine an English Bukowksi....maybe we're carrying too much baggage.

@ chuck: that's an interesting comment. I'd like to hear more about what do mean when you say baggage. I'd have said that a certain amount of baggage (and the desire to escape it) is what makes minimalism possible, at least for some of the American authors that have been mentioned here.

(PS, thanks for the suggestions everyone, this is great)

I guess I mean historical baggage. All the writers that have gone before....Skakespeare, Dickens, Conrad, Joyce. Being English it's hard to break free from that. I'm not sure many Americans can actually make a clean break either.

I was thinking more in cultural terms but yes, that's probably a good point. On one hand we have this incredible wealth of culture behind us and where we can find inspiration. On the other hand the weight of that can be crippling, particularly for younger writers looking to find their own voice.

Mind you, when its put like that minimalism looks even more appealing. Its quite liberating when you strip everything back. At least that's how I think about it.

I think the biggest cultural changes came with World War II. It affected everything in literature from subject matter to style. Look at 'Brideshead Revisited'. Waugh was revolutionary in a way but only in his choice of subject. He was still a stylist. The so-called angry young men were all trying to write good literature.

Do you see minimalism as an attempt to escape from structured prose?

It seems to me that there comes a point where that approach turns into graphic art...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/8305617.stm

I wouldn't say that adopting a minimalist style is a deliberate attempt to avoid or escape structured prose. One could just as easily avoid structure by adopting a florid and descriptive style.

If anything, minimalism lays the structure of the prose bare. I should mention by the way that I'm coming at this from the perspective of a poet. I've only started writing prose fairly recently, so I guess the notion of minimalism is fairly ingrained in the way I approach writing.

Thanks. I like writing prose myself. I just enjoy capturing and arranging the words. I'm past caring whether it's old-fashioned or not. Even Burroughs looks like an established literary figure to me now. I guess poetry is by definition more minimal.

dink

good game
no that's Forsyth
;o)