The manner in which Transgressive British Fiction writers attempt to convey their messages varies greatly from that of the American Transgressive. Much like the colloquial, biased critiques of everyday brits, British Transgressive authors such as Martin Amis, Angela Carter, and JG Ballard speak with a refined, wordy, well-educated voice. Inversely, alike to the Birtish critique of "stupid americans", American Transgressive authors such as Chuck Palahniuk generally speak with a more informal, day-to-day voice.

This is not to say that one is more affective than the other, however. The brits carefully craft and engineer their novels to have deep, under-the-surface meaning while the Americans unpack their messages right in front of your face.

Simply take the pace of Martin Amis' Money in comparison to that of Palahniuk's Fight Club. Fight Club is a fast paced, boom-boom-boom story while Money is dreadfully slow. Fight Club enables its reader (for the most part) to engage in its text quite easily (either by word choice, or by speed). Money does not only drag us through a bleak, hopeless story, but it travels with such monotony to the point where it hurts to read. Either way, we hurt. We cringe when we hear Palahniuk speak of biting through his intestines to save his life. We groan when John Self spends yet another day wasting away his life through foolish, taboo acts. Although these styles may be significantly different, they typically accomplish the same goal: we feel an array of negative emotions that we would rather not have had to feel, but are happy and willing feeling. (Christ that was wordy.)

Throughout Nights At The Circus, Angela Carter establishes an ironic tone in her voice. The work is said to encompass feminist ideas, which I agree with, while some call it "post-feminism". Her allusions to feminism are said in a snide, swift manner, which could potentially enable somebody to view her work as "post-feminist". I simply believe that this is her attempt at embracing feminist writing in a different style, which should not necessarily deem it "post".

On page 67, I quote, "We girls began to dream of putting up our hair and letting down our skirts and all the delicious mysteries of growing up." By italicizing "growing up", Carter refers to the conventional adolescent girl. At a certain age, she will "grow up", let down her skirt, put her hair up, and live life like an ordinary girl. Had "growing up" not been italicized, the sentence would be read completely differently. The girls would dream of literally growing up (aging) opposed to growing up as a commodified woman. A "slave to her husband" who will let out her skirt and fix her hair so she can seem pretty while she scrubs the scum and chest hair from the bathtub.

Of course, if Carter would to put it as bluntly as I did, the post-feminism label would not be relevant; but since she puts relevant intellectual effort and creativity into her writing she is deemed post? I'm not buying it. Carter's Nights at the Circus is a piece of feminist satire, bold enough to break feminist boundaries, but light enough not to destroy them.

selfspeare

When reading Money, I like to imagine the character of John Self as a distorted stand-in who embodies the worst qualities of Amis himself. Although Amis establishes a self-titled character in his story in what I believe is an attempt to stray these ideas away, some similarities between the personal lives of Self and of the real Martin Amis leave it hard for me to believe that there is no connection. In an interview with Amis online, he reveals that he spent a year living in the United States. This might have lead Amis to believe he was partly American. The same can be said about Self, who is half american and immediately feels comfortable with the country, in contrast to traditional british protagonists who go to the US and are horrified by its excesses. The fact that Amis speaks to his audience through the lens of a fictional (but strikingly familiar) character applies to Shakespeare's belief that “All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players.”.

Shakespeare's protagonists are always fully-drawn characters, while his minor characters are often one-dimensional representations of gossip, sinfulness, long-windedness, etc. In the same way, Amis's protagonist directly engages the audience and "breaks the fourth wall," whereas his minor characters, whose names usually consist of puns, are representations of vices or characteristics. Shakespearean acting also implies that certain characters will develop a relationship with the audience through asides, while other characters will ignore the audience. In terms of Money, the puns and vices used by Martin act as a way of developing characters by ignoring the audience: their names say enough alone.

Self's character is extremely actor-obessesed. He often notes certain actions and they take and movements they make with their bodies such as Spunk's "actor-stare". What is ironic about this is that within the movie he is making, each character is casted in a role that he finds embarrassing or uncharacteristic compared with his usual work. I am unsure of the significance of this, but would like to ask the class and Robin what you guys think.