This trenchant book argues that the cultural attempt to erase class during the period from Margaret Thatcher to Tony Blair has only generated its return as a troubling subterranean element in British literature and theory. Driscoll critiques the way postmodern theory idealizes contemporary British literature as a space of fluid, flexible decentered subjects, arguing that beneath this ideology are clear evasions of class. Offering critical readings of canonized middle-class authors from Martin Amis to Graham Swift, Driscoll makes the compelling argument that the contemporary British novel, assisted by "class blind? postmodern literary theory consistently works to control the problem of class.

Autorentext
LAWRENCE DRISCOLL is Professor of English at Santa Monica College, USA.

Inhalt
Introduction: Questions of Class in the Contemporary British Novel 'Unworkable Subjects': Middle-Class Narratives in Pat Barker, Ian McEwan, and Kazuo Ishiguro 'Our Economic Position': Middle-Class Consciousness in Zadie Smith and Will Self Classless Fictions?: Middle-Class History/Working-Class Subjects in Martin Amis, Peter Ackroyd, and Hanif Kureishi We're all Bourgeois Now: Realism and Class in Alan Hollinghurst, Graham Swift, and Jonathan Coe A Class Act: Representations of Class in British Cinema and Television