1982, Janine (Canons)

By: Alasdair Gray

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Synopsis: Introduced by Will Self. An unforgettably challenging book about power and powerlessness, men and women, masters and servants, small countries and big countries, Alasdair Grays exploration of the politics of pornography has lost none of its power to shock. 1982, Janine is a searing portrait of male need and inadequacy, as explored via the lonely sexual fantasies of Jock McLeish, failed husband, lover and businessman. Yet there is hope here, too, and the humour, imaginative and textual energy of the narrative achieves its own kind of redemption in the end. A great writer, perhaps the greatest living in Britain today. Will Self 1982, Janine has a verbal energy, an intensity of vision that has mostly been missing from the English novel since D.H. Lawrence. New York Times Made me realise that contemporary fiction would still be a vivid and vital way of interpreting the world . . . 1982, Janine revived my flagging impetus to continue writing myself. Jonathan Coe Alasdair Gray is that rather rare bird among contemporary British writersa genuine experimentalist . . . The influence of James Joyce, and . . . Laurence Stern, is very evident, but Gray does not seem merely derivative from these masters. He is very much his own man. David Lodge

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