A Gallery of People From the British Working-Class

When the movement for literary realism grew up in the United States toward the end of the last century, under the shadow of Zola, it was seen to be a very democratic affair. Literature, of course, frequently seeks to renew itself by looking for reality. This time real life was the life of the streets, the slums, the life of working people and the immigrant ghetto. The muse was in the American kitchen, where Whitman said she belonged; and it was more real not only because literature, by taking on these themes, was expanding itself but because there was a note of reformist endeavor about the whole enterprise. The method of reportage developed-the method of reiterating facts until they got on your conscience.

Now, in England, the working classes are being reclaimed as literature in much the same way. "In Pursuit of the English" is reportage; it is an account of life in a working-class rooming house in the drab period of 1949-50, when the English still suffered from rationing and the housing shortage, when the War Damage people were still trying to set old houses to rights after the blitz, and when the spiv and the sharp-practice landlord were very much in evidence.

In front of this back cloth a relatively ordinary set of events takes place-a girl in the next flat gives in to her boyfriend, a marriage upstairs breaks up and the wife throws herself down two flights of stairs to get rid of her pregnancy, two old people downstairs are evicted by the landlord and landlady (who tell some effective lies in court)-and all this is presented for us in a factual, open style that conceals its art.

There are many remarkably well-rendered passages, and Doris Lessing, who is an impressive social novelist, exercises all her professional gifts to put the tale across. In particular she renders working-class conversation and cross-talk with a masterful touch. Better still, she can define their basic attitudes: "Rose would listen to Churchill talk with a look of devotion I entirely misunderstood... 'Why should I care? He makes me remember the war, for one thing. I don't care what he says about Labor. I don't care who gets in, I'll get a smack in the eye either way. When they come in saying Vote for Me, Vote for Me, I just laugh. But I like to hear Churchill speak, with his dirty V-Sign and everything he enjoys himself, say what you like.'"

What this book most resembles is Clancy Sigal's "Weekend in Dinlock," another tour de force about the English workers-in that case, Yorkshire miners-which appeared in the United States a few months ago. Sigal is an American living in England, and Doris Lessing, an Englishwoman who grew up in South Africa; both see their materials with a freshness that the English writer born and bred in England would miss. Both have also a powerful underlying romanticism about the English working classes-a belief that they are the salt of the earth, coupled with an irritation that they won't stand up and fight for their rights.

Published in March 5, 1961

By Malcolm Bradbury

On The New York Times On The Web

http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/04/01/specials/bradbury-lessing.html?_r=1

Other interesting articles written by Bradbury: [Next] [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]

Página creada y actualizada por grupo "mmm".
Para cualquier cambio, sugerencia,etc. contactar con: bargasca@uv.es
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Bárbara Gasquet Carrera

Universitat de València Press
Creada: 06/110/2008 Última Actualización: 06/11/2008