Book contents
- The British Novel of Ideas
- The British Novel of Ideas
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Dedication
- Introduction The British Novel of Ideas
- Part I 1850–1900
- Part II 1900–1945
- Part III 1945–1975
- Chapter 13 The Psycho-political Novel of Ideas and the Second World War
- Chapter 14 Naomi Mitchison
- Chapter 15 George Orwell
- Chapter 16 Rebecca West
- Chapter 17 George Lamming
- Chapter 18 Doris Lessing
- Chapter 19 Iris Murdoch
- Part IV 1975–Present
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 17 - George Lamming
Colonialism and Rumination
from Part III - 1945–1975
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2024
- The British Novel of Ideas
- The British Novel of Ideas
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Dedication
- Introduction The British Novel of Ideas
- Part I 1850–1900
- Part II 1900–1945
- Part III 1945–1975
- Chapter 13 The Psycho-political Novel of Ideas and the Second World War
- Chapter 14 Naomi Mitchison
- Chapter 15 George Orwell
- Chapter 16 Rebecca West
- Chapter 17 George Lamming
- Chapter 18 Doris Lessing
- Chapter 19 Iris Murdoch
- Part IV 1975–Present
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
George Lamming’s novels (1953–1972) are legible as novels of ideas in at least three senses. All six devote substantial space to exchanges of ideas or solitary philosophical reflection. All feature characters who allegorize ideas or serve as vehicles for their enunciation. And all are narratively propelled by figures intensely devoted to an aspiration, cause, model, or imagined destiny. Lamming’s own remarks on his attraction to the novel of ideas, along with his representation of Toussaint L’Ouverture in the nonfictional Pleasures of Exile, underscore how in Lamming ideas are not (as has been asserted of other novels of ideas) decorative or disconnected from mundane existence. Rather, they emerge from the enduring matrix of colonialism in a way that renders obsessives different in degree, rather than kind, from (post)colonial subjects whose daily experience shapes them in less evidently striking ways.
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- The British Novel of IdeasGeorge Eliot to Zadie Smith, pp. 292 - 307Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024