In Their Own Words—British Novelists: Nothing Sacred (1970-1990)

The third and final (to date) installment in the BBC's titular series on 20th-century British literature, Nothing Sacred draws from a wealth of rare televised archival material. The U.K. media are obviously far more respectful of writers than their U.S. counterparts, as evidenced by the BBC's popular Book Programme, as well as an attempt to make the Booker Prize ceremony into an Academy Awards–like TV spectacle. Eye-opening material presented here includes the young Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children being read by a pre-stardom Ben Kingsley, Martin Amis as himself in an amusing skit, and Hanif Kureishi offering a devastating denunciation of political correctness. Yet the chronology is selective and scattershot; feminism, imperialism, leftism, and Thatcherism gave most writers big juicy issues, but “punk” and New Wave culture—where truly nothing was sacred—are ignored. An otherwise lucid dissertation on the Satanic Verses affair has Rushdie vanishing under armed protection, but the irony that his life wound up guarded by the same Thatcher establishment he loathed is not probed. Other featured authors include Fay Weldon, Angela Carter, Ian McEwan, John Berger, Penelope Fitzgerald, Margaret Drabble, and James Kelman. The other titles in the In Their Own Words—British Novelists series are Among the Ruins (1919-1939) and The Age of Anxiety (1945-1969). Worth considering for academic collections, this is a strong optional purchase elsewhere. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)