Why are British authors lagging behind us Americans?

Before I begin my review of Saturday by Ian Mcewan, I'd like to take this opportunity to discuss why Amercian authors are so much better than their British counterparts. My wife is British, born and raised, and she is defiantly passionate about defending her fellow countryman's work. Last night after supper we discussed the issue again ( we've talked about it a lot recentyl, since she is writing a novel herself). She thinks that British authors are better because of a more refined and educated writing style. Personally I think the boys over here are much better and here's why.


First off let's take a look at some famous British authors since the start of the nineteenth century. I know there are none worth taking any serious note of. Well there are but let's start with the Americans. Ooooo let's think, there's Norman Mailer to begin with whose work the Naked and the Dead fully summmarised the Second World War. There's Truman Capote, whose works are generall regarded as masterpieces. Tom Wolfe, John Irving, Joan Didion, Phillip Roth, Cormac Mccarthy, Arthur Miller, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Harper Lee, Gore Vidal. The list goes on and on. Those are only a few of the most famous great ones.

The British list is tiny, and few are even worht mentioning aprt from Orwell, Pinter, and Greene. So why is it that we the Americans are so much better than them. It's simple really. Confidence. As my wife is English I go over there a lot to visit her relatives and they come over here a lot too. Whenever I'm there I can't help but be astounded by the shyness and lack of confidence of all the men there. How is a country supposed to revert back to its former state of literary glory, if the men are scared to write about sex and politics?

My wife said there's a maturity in British authors. Okay, let's take an example, Mailer versus McEwan. So maybe they're from seperate genres, and they have very different styles. But McEwam is held as one of Britain's finest writers of the past two decades, and Mailer is one of ours. There's no contest. It's a victory to Mailer. It may seem unfair that I've compared one America's greatest writers with McEwan. But that's exactly what this contest has become. America's authors are simply more out-spoken, more talented, more creative, and downright more convincing than their British counterparts. I won the argument with my wife.

Introduction

So you're probably wondering what I intend to do with this blog. Well it's all in the title really, but if that didn't help you out, I intend to write non-biased, non-bullshit book reviews. Personally I'm fed up with the reviews you get in the papers. In fact I hate most critics, it's so easy for them to make judgments but have they actually ever done anything. No. Now I know what you're thinking "Isn't a review being a critc?" Maybe, but my intention is to provide more comprehensive book reviews. Ones which actually tell you if you want to read the book or not.


By the way this whole blogging experience is strange to me, but all my friends have been chatting away about it at the local watering hole. Yes our converstiona really is that thrilling. So being a forty two year old middle class accountant, I decided hey why not write something interesting for once. It beats looking at number all day. So this is just the initial introduction, but tomorrow or later today. I'll post my first review.


I thought I'd kick off with Saturday by Ian Mcewan. (Yawn).

See you then