Trans-Atlantic rivalries

Everyone remembers an inspiring teacher. The teacher who sticks in my mind was a bearded sage who loved Hardy and celebrated Winterval. I know in hindsight that he was a self-indulgent charlatan; but his wide-reading and enthusiasm were enthralling. That last quality made him a good teacher as well as a memorable one: it encouraged pupils to read beyond the plain texts set by stolid examiners, and allowed them to think for themselves, just a little bit.

But his enthusiasm could be his undoing. He had a weakness for making drastic announcements about the ‘state of fiction’ or the ‘role of the author’, which even his enraptured students recognised as absurd. One of these statements was that: ‘American novelists have owned post-war English literature. The British Isles have nobody to match the giants Bellow, Updike and Roth. Except perhaps Martin Amis — and even he is half-American’. 

It’s a drunken parlour game (or the last resort of bored literary editors): to choose the ‘Five Greatest Authors in English Since 1945’.