CONTEMPORARY BRITISH FICTION
As is required in every critical review, it is necessary, before any argumentation, to locate the given author inside his correspondent literary orb, in this case Contemporary British Fiction.
The so threatening and yes-no-discussed Death of the Novel, which has scared and alerted both writers and readers with its “supposed” gradual advancement since the lack of originality and worthless mimetism of Victorian models of Post War's social narrative, has experimented in the second half of the century an alleviating receding, or delay, thanks to the appearance of EXPERIMENTAL REALISM ; a fresh breath for the dying naturalistic genre of the 50`s which has let Novel evol and prolong its existence, if ever was in danger of extinction.
A mixture of decimononic realistic elements and a critical message in its content, treated with very modern and shocking formal experiments (personal and licentious narrative techniques, cohesion between Reality and Imagination, introduction of parody, possibility of multiple readings, etc.), has given as result a very complex and ambiguous hybrid, closer to Poetry than to the less flexible Narrative genre seen till that moment, in which, Exaltation, Fantasy and Subconscious will be its Leiv Motifs.
This cross-roads - image that David Lodge took to represent that situation of the novel in The Novelist at the Cross-roads -, has encouraged writers to move towards three directions :
a.Non-Fiction Novel
b.Problematic Novel (dealing with narrative self-consciousness and the problem of Creation)
c. Fabulation
Will be the last path which leads to a Generic Renewal of old narrative specimens, -traditionally degraded to the level of subliterature and even to be read as literature for children because of their lightness, their scarce seriousness and their absence of artistic values-, being mere entertainment contained in a series of fixed and unchangeable models.
This “regeneration” has allowed old fossils such as thriller, romance, science-fiction, historical novel, etc., to acquire artistic quality and literary “honour” thanks to the personal contribution of the author, who has revised, reinterpreted and rebuilt the chosen genre through experimentalism and surprise. Expectation and boredom are not conceivable from these daring projects, among which will be mentioned :
-the morbid romance of Ian McEwan and Angela Carter,
-the parodying variations of John Fowles,
-Doris Lessing`s use of Science-Fiction as reflection of reality,
-the metafictive humour of David Lodge and Malcolm Bradbury,
-the social commitment of Salman Rushdie.
