‘Great’ writers who are no longer read (by so many)

[Katzelmacher]

I think you are pretty wide if the mark here . Not sure I would describe Nevil Shute as “far right” .I’ve read quite a few of his books - he’s more of a one nation conservative . Most of his heroes and heroines are fairly ordinary people - often engineers - who end up doing quite heroic practical things. I also think you completely underestimate his popularity. Many of his books are still in print published by Vintage Classics a highly regarded publishing house . Many of the authors mentioned on this site like Hemingway and Lawrence still sell pretty well - virtually all their work is still in print . Indeed there’s a major new biography of Lawrence Just published . It is completely inaccurate to say they are no longer read.

Nice try, but I wonder when you last read anything by Shute?

The man’s work (and it’s astonishing that so much of it is still in print) routinely has to be ‘expurgated’ to remove his enthusiastic use of ‘the n word’. That might have been explained by the period in which he was writing but most of Shute’s stories contain an insidious right-wing message (capitalists good, trade unions bad) that betray a mindset formed in the wake of the 1926 General Strike.

Shute also famously left britain in 1950 ‘because it’s not the country it was’. In reality, he was only doing a Waugh and seeking refuge from the Cripps-Attlee terror (which was shortly to end). Like several english rightists , he chose to settle in Australia, attracted by the ‘whites only’ immigration policy of that country. He was hostile to ‘Europe’ and, if he was still alive today (which thank the Lord he’s not sir, as Bernard Levin might say), he would doubtless be an enthusiastic backer of Brexit and britain’s current regime.

[Katzelmacher]

The novel is definitely in decline . The 19th century was its heyday . Who is there to compare with Austen, Dickens , The Brontës , Eliot? But people’s desire to be moved , engaged , stimulated by great works of art has perhaps never been greater . And there’s a lot more of us….If only I could knock out a Bleak House ….

The novel has been ‘in decline’ ever since it began.

People in the mid-nineteenth century lamented the success of gaudy populists like Dickens and longed for the days of ‘proper novelists’ like Fielding.

Controversial, but I’d say the novel is alive and well in some parts of the world, even if it’s moribund in the english-speaking parts of it. Michel Houellebecq is the greatest contemporary writer and he’s knocking out some brilliant, prescient stuff about the struggles we’re all going through now. Sadly, some people can’t see this because they’re too busy being offended by him. Admittedly, he’s not for those with weak stomachs; but it might be worth strengthening your stomach to reap the benefits.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Nice try, but I wonder when you last read anything by Shute?

The man’s work (and it’s astonishing that so much of it is still in print) routinely has to be ‘expurgated’ to remove his enthusiastic use of ‘the n word’. That might have been explained by the period in which he was writing but most of Shute’s stories contain an insidious right-wing message (capitalists good, trade unions bad) that betray a mindset formed in the wake of the 1926 General Strike.

Shute also famously left britain in 1950 ‘because it’s not the country it was’. In reality, he was only doing a Waugh and seeking refuge from the Cripps-Attlee terror (which was shortly to end). Like several english rightists , he chose to settle in Australia, attracted by the ‘whites only’ immigration policy of that country. He was hostile to ‘Europe’ and, if he was still alive today (which thank the Lord he’s not sir, as Bernard Levin might say), he would doubtless be an enthusiastic backer of Brexit and britain’s current regime.

Read about 6 of his books back in the 80’s / 90’s - never came across the ‘n’ word once . I don’t think anything of what you say makes him “far right” . There was plenty of racist language and indeed attitudes in the Labour Party and Union movement in the fifties , sixties and seventies . Indeed some unions actively campaigned against non white Commonwealth recruitment. I would still place him on the Churchill / Macmillan wing of the Tories.

[Andrew]

Shute is still in print (in Vintage paperback, no less) but I’ve never read anything by him. Not sure why, I’ve always had more appealing things to read. He is another author who would be considered far right (or should we say ‘nascent mainstream’?) today, but I don’t think anyone reads him anymore and his name will mean nothing to most people under 70.

I'm a long way under 70 and I've read quite a few of his books. I like his style and wouldn't consider him "far right" at all. But as I'm a border-line Fascist that's not quite the compliment it should be.....LOL!

[Katzelmacher]

Read about 6 of his books back in the 80’s / 90’s - never came across the ‘n’ word once . I don’t think anything of what you say makes him “far right” . There was plenty of racist language and indeed attitudes in the Labour Party and Union movement in the fifties , sixties and seventies . Indeed some unions actively campaigned against non white Commonwealth recruitment. I would still place him on the Churchill / Macmillan wing of the Tories.

I wonder where he would’ve placed himself?

If you were reading him in the 80s/90s, you were almost certainly reading ‘corrected’ texts.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_Disdained

I don’t think anyone ever claimed Shute as a ‘great’ writer, anyway.

[Barbirollians]

I find the idea that people are no longer read because they are dead white men and have been " cancelled " as specious. Writing can just fall out of fashion - for example I have been trying to read The heat of The Day by Elizabeth Bowen and heavens it seems very dated .

On the other hand, other novels written at around that time or even just before seem much more modern and although they are set in the 1930s/40s etc their characters live on - Patrick Hamilton's Hangover Square for example.

As for those DWM - Dickens, Trollope , Tolstoy etc - they still seem to be very much read.

[Sir Velo]

I think this would make for a long list. Some are still famous as ‘names’ (Walter Pater, George Borrow, Charles Reade, Charles Kingsley and, perhaps most obviously, George Meredith) but their works are read by no-one apart from research academics and they are mostly out of print, though available freely online.

If you peruse the "What Books are you reading now" thread you will observe that the name of George Borrow has figured quite prominently recently. I cannot speak for his other readers but I do not fall under the "research academics" category. Moreover, if you care to make a journey to Wales you will find a number of inns and hotels which bear eponymous witness to his continued popularity in the principality. "Lavengro" has recently been published in a new edition by Penguin Classics; the "Bible in Spain" is long overdue a revival; only the theologically oppressive title prevents it being celebrated for what it is - one of the liveliest and most entertaining of all 19th century travelogues.

[mikealdren]

As part or the older generation - Romeo and Juliet and A Pattern of Islands for 'O' level (there's a novel you don't see nowadays and if you did, it would be cancelled!) - I've just re-read Wells History of Mr Polly which I recently read was his masterpiece and which I hated at school. I found the first few pages very hard work but once I got over the style, the story held up reasonably well, the idea of an ordinary man who achieved nothing but finally found some form of contentment held my attention this time around. Not a masterpiece by any means but worth reading again. I can certainly see why we disliked it so much as teenagers!

[Stanfordian]

Walter Scott & John Buchan spring to mind as out of favour novelists.

[eighthobstruction]

....as a non catholic, non irish son of a undomineering father -and very much a home full of light , good sounds and hobbies....(not a priest in sight) -I found Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man very heavy going.... having nothing in common with this book was my epiphany....(A level 69)....

[Ein Heldenleben]

As part or the older generation - Romeo and Juliet and A Pattern of Islands for 'O' level (there's a novel you don't see nowadays and if you did, it would be cancelled!) - I've just re-read Wells History of Mr Polly which I recently read was his masterpiece and which I hated at school. I found the first few pages very hard work but once I got over the style, the story held up reasonably well, the idea of an ordinary man who achieved nothing but finally found some form of contentment held my attention this time around. Not a masterpiece by any means but worth reading again. I can certainly see why we disliked it so much as teenagers!

That was another set school book - can’t understand why the teachers thought thirteen years olds would be interested in it…didn’t really enjoy any of the prescribed texts till Brighton Rock . Poetry I had no problem with..

[french frank]

I suppose George Gissing is still in print in Penguin classics, and so still 'read'. But I don't hear of many people reading him. Where would Ed Reardon have been without him? I have six titles by him, including By the Ionian Sea - a travelogue I much enjoyed.

[Katzelmacher]

I suppose George Gissing is still in print in Penguin classics, and so still 'read'. But I don't hear of many people reading him. Where would Ed Reardon have been without him? I have six titles by him, including By the Ionian Sea - a travelogue I much enjoyed.

Imo, as a novelist (he doesn’t seem to have attempted poetry) he is vastly superior to Thomas Hardy whose bucolic faux-tragedies have enjoyed an inexplicable popularity for the last hundred and fifty years.

Of Gissing’s vast output, I think only two novels - New Grub Street and The Odd Women - have been consistently in print.

Everything else seems to be available for free download online, but you might struggle to find Workers in the Dawn (his first novel) and Isabel Clarendon (which I’d be interested in reading, because in the opinion of some, it is the most depressing novel in the english language).

[Katzelmacher]

I always maintain that with Shakespeare, if Macbeth is your GCSE set text, you might want to explore further. If it’s Romeo or The Dream, you’ll probably have had enough.

On the subject of R&J - why do ‘educators’ think that this is a suitable text for ‘young people’? Afai, every kid who has ever expressed an interest in drama has at some point been forced to perform in a production of Romeo and Juliet (I was Prince Escalus - it confirmed my view that, contrary to popular belief, WS was more than capable of writing lousy parts; Friar Laurence is another such).

[Katzelmacher]

As part or the older generation - Romeo and Juliet and A Pattern of Islands for 'O' level (there's a novel you don't see nowadays and if you did, it would be cancelled!) - I've just re-read Wells History of Mr Polly which I recently read was his masterpiece and which I hated at school. I found the first few pages very hard work but once I got over the style, the story held up reasonably well, the idea of an ordinary man who achieved nothing but finally found some form of contentment held my attention this time around. Not a masterpiece by any means but worth reading again. I can certainly see why we disliked it so much as teenagers!

I think there was a point at which ...Mr.Polly was a popular ‘O’ level text, but its popularity seems to have been restricted to teachers and exam boards. I know several people who were made to study it and they all loathed it. I think it’s wrong to ‘study’ a book that the author only intended as a pleasant diversion. Apparently, Diary of a Nobody had much the same effect on ‘O’ level classes - a shame, as it’s a likeable book.