Educational Media Reviews Online

This is the third of a three part documentary series covering the transformation of the British novel in the 20th Century from the years 1919 to 1990.

Part 3, Nothing Sacred, covers the British novel from the tumultuous 60s to the fall of the Berlin wall in the late 80s. The 60s and 70s were a time of great upheaval as underlying assumptions of the British understanding of class, race, and the place of women were questioned. The novels of Angela Carter and Penelope Fitzgerald exemplify this questioning in terms of the place of women. Against the strikes and political unrest of the 70s, Martin Amis and Ian McEwan explore the dark side of sexuality and adolescence. Multiculturalism and colonial injustice were additional topics of discussion which Salman Rushdie and Hanif Kureishi explore in their novels. James Kelman takes up the notion of language and explores the interior lives of those sharing the Commonwealth who don’t speak like the upper classes. The new economics of the 80s and the accompanying consumption transformed the English landscape. Martin Amis and Jeannette Winterson both comment on what that means for Britain in their novels. On the heels of this new wealth and the Berlin Wall falling, new understandings are required as Salman Rushdie’s, Satanic Verses, are interpreted by some as a literal attack on Islam.

This documentary is well done and accomplishes its goal. Each novelist tells their own story as seen or heard on archival footage from the British Broadcasting Company (BBC). The effect is that the viewer sees history through the eyes of the authors as well their highlighted novels. Commentary provided by current British novelists and literary scholars adds additional information as well as analysis. The BBC archival footage is of good quality as are the additional photos from representative archives and news clips. It is especially instructive to hear novelists talk about their novels and in many cases see them respond in interview situations. The viewer is given a true sense of the transformation of the novel as its authors used the medium to reflect changes within their culture and the world.

This documentary would be especially instructive for the study of British literature and particularly the study of the British novel. Each author speaks about their work in a separate chapter, making the documentary useful for the classroom where the introduction of an individual novel or author may be desired.

Additional archival material is available on the BBC Archive web site.