Contexts of British Prose After 1925 - GRE Subject Test: Literature in English

The only one of these novels not set in a fictional dystopia is James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, an incredibly experimental work that vaguely follows various characters through a dreamlike, nebulous plot.

Burgess’ dystopian novel concerns a troubled teenage boy who speaks in a distinctive fictional slang (Nadsat) and perpetrates violent crimes in his society. This character, Alex, is later imprisoned and punished through the use of movies and aversive conditioning. Love and religion do not play important roles in the novel.

Considered one of the best works of English historical fiction in the last century, Mantel’s trilogy is set during the English Reformation and follows the rise of the Church of England and the machinations of historical characters such as Thomas Cromwell, Anne Boleyn, Cardinal Wolsey, and Henry VIII.

The novel, written by Virginia Woolf in 1927, is a classic example of modernist stream-of-consciousness. Although the plot centers around a family’s vacations to a Scottish island, it is much more concerned with consciousness, emotions, and perceptions than with fast-paced action or plot.

This author is Salman Rushdie, whose other works include Midnight’s Children and The Moor's Last Sigh. Rushdie’s work is known for its frequent use of magical realism, Indian settings, and historical subject matter. In 1989, Iran called for Rushdie’s assassination in response to the author’s portrayal of Islam in his writing.

Set in the fictional and futuristic World State dictatorship, Huxley’s novel is darkly dystopian and concerns a society where natural reproduction no longer occurs. Instead, babies are grown in scientific labs and separated into artificial castes, where they are conditioned and raised to have only a certain level of intelligence. The novel centers on the relationship between two characters, Lenina Crowne and Bernard Marx, and the various ways in which they defy societal expectations and rules. The only subject not covered in this novel is gender identity.

The author is Pat Barker, and the novels are Regeneration, The Eye in the Door, and The Ghost Road. The works concern the lives and mental illnesses of several English soldiers (including Sassoon and Owen) in a psychiatric hospital during World War I.

Angela Carter was well known for her fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and plays, but one of her best known works of fiction is The Bloody Chamber, a short story collection that presents familiar fairy tales with an unfamiliar (and often feminist) twist.

All of the above books except A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess, feature some form of adultery or romantic secrecy.

All of the above novels feature important love affairs. In Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, there are several significant acts of adultery or romantic secrecy. In Kazuo Ishiguro’s dystopian Never Let Me Go, the three main characters are involved in a love triangle. In Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, one of the two protagonists pursues the mountaineer he is in love with. In Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, the infamous Henry VIII pursues romantic dalliances with various women.

Only Zadie Smith’s White Teeth has not won the Booker Prize. Anne Enright’s The Gathering won in 2007, Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries won in 2013, Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North won in 2014, and Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss won in 2006.

The Remains of the Day (1989)is a novel by British author Kazuo Ishiguro. It concerns Lord Darlington’s butler Stevens and his relationship with a housekeeper in the days leading up to World War II.

Arundhati Roy won the 1999 Man Booker for The God of Small Things (1997), Kiran Desai won the Booker in 2006 for The Inheritance of Loss (2006), Salman Rushdie won the Booker in 1981 for Midnight's Children (1981), and Yann Martel is Canadian.

The Remains of the Day was published in 1989, and it won the Booker Prize that same year. It is Kazuo Ishiguro’s third novel.

Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan. He moved to England with his family when he was five years old and is considered an English author.

Never Let Me Go (2005), The Buried Giant (2015), An Artist of the Floating World (1986), and The Unconsoled (1995) are all by Kazuo Ishiguro. The Inheritance of Loss (2006) is by Kiran Desai.

Zadie Smith wrote White Teeth (2000),a novel about two London families, race, immigration, love, and religion.

Kiran Desai is the author of Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard (1998), Hilary Mantel is the author of Bring up the Bodies (2012), A.S. Byatt is the author of Morpho Eugenia (1992), and Kate Atkinson is the author of Emotionally Weird (2000).

White Teeth, Zadie Smith’s first novel, was published in 2000 and won the Whitbread Book Award for a first novel, the Guardian First Book Award, and the Commonwealth Writers First Book Prize the same year.

The Autograph Man (2002), On Beauty (2005), NW (2012), The Embassy of Cambodia (2013) are all by Zadie Smith. Possession (1990) is a novel by the English author A.S. Byatt.

I, Claudius (1934) is a novel by the Latin/Greek translator and historical fiction author Robert Graves.

Kingsley Amis is the author of Lucky Jim (1954) (he was also Martin Amis's father), Ian McEwan is the author of First Love, Last Rites (1975), Thomas Hardy is the author of Jude the Obscure (1895), and Graham Greene is the author of The Third Man (1950).