Notes on a Scandal, now a major motion picture, refracts the Blair era onto the 'much smaller scale' of a school, argues Joel Rickett
There must be something in the air. Last week's debate at the RSA found novelist Blake Morrison, literary agent Caroline Michel and the Bookseller's Joel Rickett discussing the zeitgeist novels of the Blair era.
Morrison, who has argued before in these pages that satire about Blair is looking increasingly tired suggested that while most novelists "don't want to be remembered as zeitgeist novelists", it often does the writer "no harm" - just look at F Scott Fitzgerald or Christopher Isherwood. He went on to mention Ian McEwan, Jonathan Coe, Kazuo Ishiguro and a host of others, including what he called that "composite creature Zadie Monica Ali Smith - that is to say three people, Zadie Smith, Ali Smith and Monica Ali".
He detects a shift from the "magical realist moment" of Blair's 1997 victory, a slide towards realism which reflects the government's slide towards pragmatism.
Before the debate, Caroline Michel was sure all the panel would be mentioning the same writers: Ian McEwan, Jonathan Coe, and Morrison himself, whose South of the River Michel is in the middle of reading and which is "so right" in its portrayal of the Blair years. She suggested "the emergence of so many strong, original eloquent women writers during the Blair years" - what she called "Blair's literary babes" - revealed "the true spirit of the era", and looked to forthcoming books from Rose Tremain and Jeanette Winterson to capture Blair's reign definitively.
Joel Rickett brought the debate "back down to earth" with some sales figures, pointing out the number one bestseller of the Blair years had yet to be mentioned.
"Is the Da Vinci Code a fitting testament to the sceptics anyway of the Blair years?" he continued. "All style, little substance, shallow characters, leaving little lasting impression on the culture and obviously being entangled in legal proceedings over plagiarism."
The next six places on the list were given over to JK Rowling, who had transformed the market for children's books, suggesting Jacqueline Wilson, Philip Pullman and Mark Haddon as worthy representatives. For Rickett, Captain Corelli's Mandolin summed up the heady summer of 1997, while Notes on a Scandal refracts the Blair era onto the "much smaller scale" of a school. He agreed that Ian McEwan had dominated the recent literary scene, and noted David Cameron's attempt to "absorb and use the McEwan brand to give him some cred points".
Perhaps it's a little early to tell, but as Lisa Jardine argued on the Today programme, it is part of the critic's job to find clues to an era in a novel written at the time. On the desk here at the Guardian, we reckon it's Ian McEwan, Zadie Smith, Monica Ali, JK Rowling and perhaps Meg Rosoff's How I Live Now. Over to you.
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