Youth Culture and the Post-War British Novel: From Teddy Boys to Trainspotting
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Overview
From the Teddy Boys of the post-war decade to the heroin chic of “Cool Britannia,” the many subcultures of Britain’s teenagers have often been at the forefront of social change. Youth Culture and the Post-War British Novel is the first book to chart that history through the work of some of the most influential contemporary British writers.
In this vivid work of cultural history, Stephen Ross explores:
· The manic teenage vision of Absolute Beginners
· The Angry Young Men of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
· Skinheads and Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange
· Irony and authenticity in the 1980s – from Amis to Kureishi
· Heroin chic, disaffection and Trainspotting
Examining the cultural contexts of some of the most important and popular post-1945 British novels, the book covers such themes as crises of masculinity, multiculturalism and inter-generational conflict, and in doing so casts new light on British writing today.
Charts the story of how the post-war British novel has responded to changing youth cultures, from the Angry Young Men of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning to the heroin chic of Trainspotting.
A vivid and readable chronicle of how post-1945 British fiction reflected changing British youth cultures, from the Angry Young Men to heroin chic
Novels covered include Sillitoe’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, Doyle’s The Commitments and Welsh’s Trainspotting
Brings together cultural history and literary close reading to introduce students and readers to the contexts of these widely studied novels
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter One – Angry(-ish) Young(-ish) Men: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and Absolute Beginners
Chapter Two – Can the Skinhead Speak? A Clockwork Orange
Chapter Three – Youth Culture Goes Metastatic: The Rachel Papers and The Buddha of Suburbia
Chapter Four – Sojourn in Babylon: The Commitments, Brixton Rock, and East of Acre Lane
Chapter Five – Rave and Heroin: Trainspotting
Works Cited
Index
Youth Culture and the Post-War British Novel is a lively contribution to a growing area of postwar and contemporary literary studies. Ross’s style is at once accessible and engaging, and his book offers new ways of thinking about the importance of youth culture to a range of novels from the latter half of the twentieth century.
This is a nimble and user-friendly study tour of British youth culture navigating a series of iconic post-WWII novels. From Ted to Mod, Droog to Punk, Rude Boy to Sick Boy and Renton, Stephen Ross ably takes on All the Young Dudes, providing a highly engaging and well-researched context for reading novels that, in his words, “think with and about” changing forms of generation, style, class, masculinity, sexuality, and nationality.
In Stephen Ross’s important, compellingly readable account, he shows how fiction not only thinks about youth culture but thinks with it, to address anxieties about authenticity, masculinity, and generational identity.
- Title: Youth Culture and the Post-War British Novel: From Teddy Boys to Trainspotting
- Author: Stephen Ross
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
- Print Publication Date: 2018
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 264
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781350067875, 9781350067851, 1350067857, 1350067873
- Resource ID: LLS:9781350067875
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T10:08:15Z
Stephen Ross is Professor of English at the University of Victoria, Canada. He is Past-President of the Modernist Studies Association (2015/16), General Editor of The Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism Online and co-editor (with Derek Ryan) of The Handbook to the Bloomsbury Group (Bloomsbury, 2018).