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Middle Class Literary Smugness
Aug. 31st, 2016 10:57 pmNov 2015
The Last Word - Hanif Kureishi - Faber & Faber, 2015
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This book is a perfect example of everything that is wrong with so much of British literary fiction. It is set in a narrow middle-class social milieu that ignores the vast majority of the country, has main characters who are both smug and utterly unlikeable, thinks it's funny when it's not, is obsessed with class and sex but has nothing new to say about them, and has a plot that is tedious in its predictability. About the one thing to be said in its favour is that there is no post-modern self-referentiality. Though since one of the main characters is a much-lauded but fading mixed-race writer, even that may not be entirely true.
( Read more... )
The Last Word - Hanif Kureishi - Faber & Faber, 2015
*
This book is a perfect example of everything that is wrong with so much of British literary fiction. It is set in a narrow middle-class social milieu that ignores the vast majority of the country, has main characters who are both smug and utterly unlikeable, thinks it's funny when it's not, is obsessed with class and sex but has nothing new to say about them, and has a plot that is tedious in its predictability. About the one thing to be said in its favour is that there is no post-modern self-referentiality. Though since one of the main characters is a much-lauded but fading mixed-race writer, even that may not be entirely true.
( Read more... )