Representations of Britain in the

Contemporary British Novel

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Text Extracts

British Cultural Studies MA Programme

Contents

Julian Barnes .................................................................................................................... 4

From England, England .............................................................................................. 4
Kazuo Ishiguro ............................................................................................................... 11
From The Remains of the Day .................................................................................... 11
Writing the City .............................................................................................................. 16
Peter Ackroyd ................................................................................................................. 17
From Hawksmoor ....................................................................................................... 17
Penelope Lively .............................................................................................................. 20
From City of the Mind ................................................................................................ 20
Notes ................................................................................................................................. 24

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Julian Barnes

From England, England

Text A

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Julian Barnes

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Julian Barnes

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 Julian Barnes

Text B

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Julian Barnes

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 Julian Barnes

Text C

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Julian Barnes

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 Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro

From The Remains of the Day

Text A

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Kazuo Ishiguro

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Kazuo Ishiguro

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 Kazuo Ishiguro

Text B

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Kazuo Ishiguro

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 Writing the City

Writing the City

Text A
That day, too, I had came not knowing my destination. It was Eights Week. Oxford
submerged now and obliterated, irrecoverable as Lyonnesse 1, so quickly have the waters
come flooding in Oxford in those days, was still a city of aquatint2. In her spacious and
quiet streets men walked an spoke as they had done in Newmans 3 day; her autumnal
mists, her grey springtime, and the rare glory of her summer days such as that day
when the chestnut was in flower and the bells rang out high and clear over her gables
and cupolas, exhaled the soft airs of centuries of youth. It was the cloistral hush which
gave our laughter its resonance, and carried it still, joyously, over the intervening
clamour. Here, discordantly, in Eights Week4, came a rabble of womankind, some
hundreds strong, twittering and fluttering over the cobbles and up the steps, sight-seeing
and pleasure-seeking, drinking claret cup, eating cucumber sandwiches; pushed in punts
about the river, herded in droves to the college barges. [] (Harmondsworth: Penguin
Books, 1962: 29-30)
Text B
After that the train tooted its whistle and came out of a tunnel.
It ran along a viaduct among the roofs of a city. Rainclouds covered the sky and the
day was so dull that lamps were lit in the streets. They were broad streets, and crossed at
right angles, and were lined with big stone buildings. I saw very few people and no
traffic. Beyond the rooftops were rows of cranes with metal hulls among them The train
travelled toward these and crossed a bridge over the river. It was a broad river with stone
embankments, cracked khaki-coloured mud on the bottom and a narrow black stream
trickling zigzag down the middle. This worried me. I felt, and still feel, that a river should
be more than this. I looked down into a yard where two hulls stood. They were metal
cylinders with rusty domes on top, and a rattle of machinery inside suggested they were
being worked on. The train entered another tunnel, slowed down, came into a
marshalling yard and stopped. Through the windows on either side I saw lines of goods
trucks with railway signals sticking out of them. The sky was darker now. (London:
Paladin, Grafton Books, 1987: 17)
Text C
Oxfords main tourist attractions are reasonably proximate to one another and there are
guide books a-plenty, translated into many languages. Thus it is that the day visitor may
cling back into his luxury coach after viewing the fine University buildings clustered
between The High and the Radcliffe Camera with the gratifying feeling that it has all
been a compact, interesting visit to yet another of Englands most beautiful cities. it is all
very splendid: it is all a bit tiring. And so it is fortunate that the neighbouring
Cornmarket can offer to the visitor its string of snack bars, coffee bars and burger bars in
which to rest his feet and to browse through his recently purchased literature about those
other colleges and ecclesiastical edifices, their dates and their benefactors, which thus far
have fallen outside his rather arbitrary circumambulations. But perhaps by noon hes
had enough, and quits such culture for the Westgate shopping complex, only a pedestrian
precinct away, and built on the old side of St Ebbes, where the city fathers found the
answer to their inner-city obsolescence in the full scale flattening of the ancient street of
houses, and their replacement by the concrete gains of supermarket stores and municipal
offices. Solitudinem faciunt: architecturam appellant.
But further delights there are round the corners even as the guide book say. From
Cornmarket, for example, the visitor may turn left past the Randolph into the curving
sweep of the Regency houses in Beaumont Street, and visit the Ashmolean there and
walk round Worcester College gardens. From here he may turn northwards and find
himself walking along the lower stretches of Walton Street into an area which has, thus
far, escaped the vandals who sit on the Citys planning committees. Here, imperceptibly
at first, but soon quite unmistakably, the University has been left behind, and even the
vast building on the left which houses the Oxford University Press, its lawned

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 Peter Ackroyd

quadrangle glimpsed through the high wrought-iron gates, looks bleakly out of place and
rather lonely, like some dowager duchess at a discotheque. The occasional visitor may
pursue his way even further, past the red and blue lettering of the Phoenix cinema on his
left and the blackened-grey walls of the Radcliffe Infirmary on his right; yet much more
probably he will now decide to veer again towards the city centre, and in so doing turn his
back upon an area of Oxford where gradual renewal, sensitive to the needs of its
community, seems finally to have won its battle with the bulldozers. (London: Macmillan,
1991: 15-16)

Peter Ackroyd

From Hawksmoor
Text A
And so let us beginne; and, as the Fabrick takes its Shape in front of you, alwaies keep
the Structure intirely in Mind as you inscribe it. First, you must measure out or cast the
Area in as exact a manner as can be, and then you must draw the Plot and make the
Scale. I have imparted to you the Principles of Terrour and Magnificence, for these you
must represent in the due placing of Parts and Ornaments as well as in the Proportion of
the several Orders: you see, Walter, how I take my Pen? And, here, on another Sheet,
calculate the positions and influences of the Celestiall Bodies and the Heavenly Orbs, so
that you are not at a Loss on which Dayes to begin or to leave off your Labours. The
Designe of the Worke, together with every several Partition and Opening, is to be drawne
by straight-edge and compass: as the Worke varies in rising, you must show how its Lines
necessarily beare upon one another, like the Web which the Spider spins in a Closet; but
Walter, do this in black lead and not in inke I do not trust your pen so far as yet.
[] Draw the erect elevation of this Structure in face or front, then the same object
elevated upon the same draught and centre in all its optical Flexures. This you must
distinguish from the Profile, which is signifyed by edging Stroaks and Contours without
any of the solid finishing: thus a book begins with a frontispiece, then its Dedication, and
then the Preface or Advertisement. And now we come to the Heart of our designe: the Art
of Shaddowes you must know well, Walter, and you must be instructed how to Cast them
with due Care. It is only the Darknesse that can give trew Forme, for there is no Light
without Darknesse and no Substance without Shaddowe (and I turn this Thought over in
my Mind: what Life is there which is not a Portmanteau of Shaddowes and Chimeras?) I
built in the Day to bring News of the Night and of Sorrowe, I continued, and then I broke
off for Walters sake: No more of this now, I said, it is by the by. But youll oblige me,
Walter, to draw the Front pritty exact, this being the Engraver to work from. And work
trewe to my Design: that which is to last one thousand years is not to be praecipitated.
(1985: 5-6)
Text B
And this is the Creed which Mirabilis schoold in me: he who made the World is also
author of Death, nor can we but by doing Evil avoid the rage of evil Spirits. Out of the
imperfections of this Creator are procreated diverse Evils: as Darkness from his Feare,
shaddowes from his Ignorance, and out of his Teares come forth the Waters of this World.
Adam after his Fall was never restord to Mercy, and all men are damned. Sin is a
Substance and not a Quality, and it is communicated from parents to children: mens
Souls are corporeal and have their being by Propagation or Traduction, and Life itself is
an inveterate Mortal Contagion. We baptize in the name of the Father unknown, for he is
truly an unknown God; Christ was the serpent who deceivs Eve, and in the form of a
Serpent entered the Virgins womb; he feigned to die and rise again, but it was the Devil
who was truly crucified. We further teach that the Virgin Mary, after Christs birth, did
marry once and Cain was the Author of much goodnesse to Mankind. With the Stoicks
we believe that we sin necessarily or co-actively, and with Astrologers that all Humane

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events depend upon the Starres. And thus we pray: What is Sorrow? The Nourishment of
the World. What is Man. An unchangeable Evil. What is the Body? The Web of Ignorance,
the foundation of all Mischief, the bond of Corrupcion, the dark Coverture, the Living
Death, the Sepulture carried about with us. What is Time? The Deliverance of Man.
These are the ancient Teachings and I shall not Trouble myself with a multiplicity of
Commentators upon this place, since it is now in my churches that I will bring them once
more into the Memory of this and future Ages. For when I became acquainted with
Mirabilis and the Assembly I was uncovering the trew Musick of Time shich, like the
rowling of a Drum, can be heard from far off by those whose Ears are prickt.
Text C
The phrase DONT FORGET was printed across its top, suggested that the lined paper
had been torn from a standard memorandum pad. Four crosses had been drawn upon it,
three of them in a triangular relation to each other and the fourth slightly apart, so that
the whole device resembled an arrow:

X X

X
X
The shape was familiar to Hawksmoor; and suddenly it occurred to him that, if each
cross was the conventional sign for a church, then here in the outline was the area of the
murders Spitalfields at the apex of the triangle, St Georges-in-the-East and St Annes
at the end of the base line, and St Mary Woolnoth to the west. Underneath had been
scrawled in a pencil, This is to let you know that I will be spoken about. And there
followed another line, so faint that Hawksmoor could hardly read it, O misery, if they
will die. Then he turned the page and he trembled when he saw the sketch of a man
kneeling with a white disc placed against his right eye: this had been the drawing which
he had seen issuing from the hand of the tramp beside St Mary Woolnoth. Beneath it was
printed in capitals, THE UNIVERSAL ARCHITECT. And he wondered at this as,
surreptitiously, he placed the letter in his pocket. (1985: 166)

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 Peter Ackroyd

Text D

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 Penelope Lively

Penelope Lively

From City of the Mind

Text A
And thus, driving through the city, he is both here and now, there and then. He carries
yesterday with him, but pushes forward into today and tomorrow, skipping as he will
from one to the other. He is in London, on a May morning of the late twentieth century,
but is also in many other places, and at other times. He twitches the knob of his radio:
New York speaks to him, five hours ago, is superseded by Australia tomorrow and

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presently by India this evening. He learns of events that have not yet occurred. He is
Matthew Halland, an English architect stuck in a traffic jam, a person of no great
significance, and yet omniscient. For him, the world no longer turns; there is no day or
night, everything and everywhere are instantaneous. He forges his way along Euston
Road, in fits and starts, speeding up, then clogged again between panting taxis and a
lorry with churning wasp-striped cement mixer. He is both trapped, and ranging free. He
fiddles again with the radio, runs through a lexicon of French song, Arab exhortation,
invective in some language he cannot identify. Halted once more, he looks sideways and
meets the thoughtful gaze of Jane Austin (1775-1817), ten feet high on a poster,
improbably teamed with Isambard Kingdom Brunel5 and George Frederick Handel, all of
them dead, gone, but doing well live and kicking in his head and up there guarding the
building site that will become the British Library. And then another car cuts in ahead of
his, he hoots, accelerates, is channelled on in another licensed burst of speed. Jane Austin
is replaced by St Pancras.
Thus he coasts through the city, his body in one world and his head in many. He is
told so much, and from so many sources, that he has learned to disregard, to let
information filter through the mind and vanish, leaving impressions a phrase, a fact, an
image. He knows much and very little. He knows more than he can confront; his wisdoms
have blunted his sensibility. He is an intelligent man, and a man of compassion, but he
can hear of a massacre on the other side of the globe and wander as he listens if he
remembered to switch on his answering machine. He is aware of this, and is disturbed.
The city, too, bombards him. He sees decades and centuries, poverty and wealth,
grace and vulgarity. He sees a kaleidoscope of time and mood: buildings that ape Gothic
cathedrals, that remember Greek temples, that parade symbols and images. He sees
columns, pediments and porticos. He sees Victorian stucco, twentieth century concrete, a
snatch of Georgian brick. He notes the resilience and tenacity of the city, and its
indifference.
He sees, too, that the city speaks in tongues: Pizza Ciao, Kings Cross Kebab, New Raj
Mahal Tandoori6, Nepalese Brasserie. And he hears another clamour, a cacophony of
sound that runs the whole gamut from Yiddish to Urdu, a global testimony reaching from
Moscow to Sydney by way of Greece and Turkey and remote nameless birthplaces in
Ireland or India or the Caribbean. The resonances of the place are universal. If the city
were to recount its experience, the ensuing babble would be the talk of everytime and
everywhere, of persecution and disaster, of success and misfortune. The whole place is a
chronicle, in brick and stone, in silent eloquence, for those who have eyes and ears. For
such as Matthew. Through him, the city lives and breathes; it sheds its indifference, its
impervious attachment to both then and now, and bears witness. (1991: 5-6)

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 Penelope Lively

Text B

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Penelope Lively

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Notes

1 Lyonesse was in Arthurian legend, the mythical birth-place of the legendary Sir Tristram, said
to have been submerged by the sea.
2 Aquatint is a technique of etching copper to produce an effect resembling the tones of water-

colour.
3 Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890) was an important promoter of the Oxford

Movement whose aim was to reform the Anglican Church and restore it to the ideals of the High
Church of the 17th century.
4 The Eights Week is the week (usually in April or May) when the traditional boat races (in

boats of eight rowers) between the universities of Oxford and Cambridge take pace on the River
Thames.
5 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859) was an English designer of many bridges, railway

lines and tunnels and steamships.

6 Tandoori is a northern Indian way of cooking meat or vegetables.

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