What do you consider "The Great British Novel"?

blacbird said:

Shakespeare wrote zero novels.

caw

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So?

little_e said:

So?

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There's also the issue that Shakespeare wrote 30+ plays, some of which were better than others (Much Ado About Nothing + The Tempest > everything else, imo) so we're going to need to be more specific as to which of his plays - if we're including plays under the 'great British novel' heading - ought to be considered the most influential.

Seconding Vanity Fair, love me some Thackeray.

I'd also add Brideshead Revisited (Evelyn Waugh), Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte), Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) and the lesser-known Gormenghast series (Mervyn Peake).

I don't see any reason to include plays under novels. Especially not plays that were written long before the novel was invented. By all means start a Great British Plays thread, though.

Well, if we're taking this in a similar sense as the concept of the "Great American Novel"--meaning a book that had great influence on literature and/or is seen as quintessentially British . . .

I'd have to say Wuthering Heights or Pride and Prejudice.

But I'm just an American with an inferiority complex. Cough, gothicangel, cough. (Because it's difficult to convey tongue-in-cheek well with just words, I'll add: )

I second Shakespeare, and nominate Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

This American loves novels with a bit of British feel, especially those during Britain's Colonial days, no matter who wrote them...

Lawrence of Arabia, Lord Jim, The Man Who Would be King, Zulu, Khartum, Fifty days in Peking, and many others.

I think with Fantasy, many of the early SF/F writers were heavily influenced by British novels, or style.

blacbird said:

But, this being my thread, harken back to the criteria set up in the OP. It isn't about "my favorite" British novel. It's about the really seminal works, those that established something new and lasting for subsequent writers.

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By this criteria, I'd go with BethS with The Lord of the Rings. There's nothing much like it in British Fiction before then. Lord Dunsanay doesn't really come close. It's the seminal work in Fantasy. It's quintessentially British. It established something new and lasting well past today for subsequent writers all over the globe.

Americans arguably defined great SF. But Tolkien owns the origination of great epic Fantasy.

Wind in the Willows. Although the characters are animals they have (stereo)typically British personalities, from the eccentric millionaire Toad to the thoughtful but private Badger. It's influential, long lasting, well loved and original.

ULTRAGOTHA said:

By this criteria, I'd go with BethS with The Lord of the Rings.

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At last! Thank you.

And yes to everything you said about it.

The problem with most of Blackbird's suggestion is hat while all great books in their own way, are all representative of a Britain that has not existed for quite some time (unless you believe the Disneyland version of Britain)

Lord of the Rings: completely changed the face of fantasy. Of course, it was also written as an attempt to give Britain its own mythology and is quintessential British.

Sherlock Holmes is exceedingly British (like Kipling's cakes ) but I'm not sure how much influence it has? Hmm

Frankenstein? Again though, a Britain that hasn't existed for some time, though very influential.

Maybe 1984? Something by Kipling? The Picture of Dorian Grey?

Really, I don't think you can point to one novel and say yes, this, this is the book that influenced everything that came after, this is the book that defines Britain . Not with a Brit novel, not with an American. Books and stories do not exist in a vacuum. They all influence what comes after. (Well okay, all the good ones)

Cath said:

Seconding Vanity Fair, love me some Thackeray.

I'd also add Brideshead Revisited (Evelyn Waugh), Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte), Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) and the lesser-known Gormenghast series (Mervyn Peake).

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I read Vanity Fair. Its one of my favorites but I wouldn't put it in contention as the Great British Novel. The novel is often convoluted. Thackeray goes on extraneous tangents that go on for 8-10 pages. He's done that with the four novels I've read. The narrator takes on a very strong opinion of his own and opines forever on society etc. not directly related to the plot.

I love all that stuff but it dilutes the story line - it distracts from the characters and the story - and as a result puts a large distance between the reader and the characters. The emotional investment in the story is lost because you can't wait till he stops going on and on. Several times I thought "can we please get back to the story."

It's a lot harder to choose the Great British Novel. Discussion about the Great American Novel centered around works that not only spoke in the American voice, but defined what it means to write like an American -- to cast off the shackles of European, and specifically British writing, since the language is the same.

But Britain has a long history of literary works, a canon that developed over time. It's hard to point a finger at any one particular work and say, aha, there's the novel that changed British literary history.

I might vote for Dickens as the "Great British Novelist," but there's no single work of his that stands out head and shoulders among the others, no defining book, imo.

You're right, Zulu and Fifty-Five Days in Peking were not novels but original screen plays. Khartoum, the book by Alan Caillou, was a novelised version of the book I read before I ever saw the movie. I did not know that until I just looked it up...

I stand corrected...

crunchyblanket said:

There's also the issue that Shakespeare wrote 30+ plays, some of which were better than others (Much Ado About Nothing + The Tempest > everything else, imo) so we're going to need to be more specific as to which of his plays - if we're including plays under the 'great British novel' heading - ought to be considered the most influential.

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If we want to consider only one, I'd just go with Hamlet.

I consider the exact 'form' of the novel less important than the idea I take the question to represent, of a seminal work of literature which is taken to embody the 'soul' of the people. To me, when I think of England, I think of Shakespeare, the man my English teachers credited with being the father of the English language.


But if not that, I put in a vote for LOTR and the Wind in the Willows. WitW is at least my favorite of the books I know were written by Brits, and an impressive work.

blacbird said:

It's not too hard, for example, to choose The Great Spanish Novel, is it?

caw

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What is The Great Spanish Novel then?

Middlemarch

blacbird said:

Don Quixote. No other real contenders.

caw

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Agreed.

Though I do appreciate the nomination of Middlemarch.

BethS said:

I'm surprised no one has mentioned The Lord of the Rings. Surely it should at least be in contention?

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But of course. I would add Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell as another great work of British myth-making.

Trollope's Palliser series, for sure. And Vanity Fair. And Bleak House. And all of Austen. Middlemarch, massive. And, because the microcosmic comic is too often overlooked, I would add E. F. Benson's Lucia series.

And now Mantel's Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, more myth-making and -breaking.

Watership Down.