John Sutherland

Intergenerational conflict is a perennial feature of society and capitalism. One side has the youth, the other side has the lions share of the wealth, and the good things wealth can bring.In the last few years that friction has reached to dangerous heights. Call it war. And, like all war, it has the risk of doing severe damage.In this fiery polemic the author of the best-selling The War on the Old has switched sides, and now examines the conflict as it must appear to the young.For the first time since the Second World War, younger generations can expect less fulfilled lives than their elders. They may not be their betters, but in the second decade of the twenty-first century they surely are better heeled.Traditionally societys way of controlling the young has been to send them off to war, or conscript them. They would either die, or learn duty. Now we send as many as 50% to university, from which they emerge encumbered with debt. As Orwell observed, there is nothing like debt for extinguishing the political fire in your belly.The War on the Young is lively, provocative and ranges wittily, and at times angrily, over many casus belli from the standpoint of the nations young people. Things are not getting better. This is a timely and highly readable look at a ticking generational time-bomb.

Amid the flames of the culture wars, politicians have taken up arms over controls on literary culture, spurred on in part by universities triggering canonical texts. Jonathan Swifts Battle of the Books has flared up again. But is triggering utter wokery or responsible pedagogic practice?Through dozens of case studies of triggered works, from Romeo and Juliet to Gender Queer, John Sutherland explores the recent phenomenon of triggering and its consequences for university English departments and literature itself. He maintains that what is routinely overlooked in the heat of polemic is that triggering is categorically different from traditional institutional (religious, educational, dictatorial) controls on literature. Triggering is in essence an alert. Done responsibly it does not erase or meddle; it stimulates curiosity and thought. It honours the fact that great literature is great because it is, as Franz Kafka says, powerful.In this characteristically nuanced and calmly objective study, the witty literary critic guides us through the increasingly rocky terrain of triggering. His advice rings clear: literature matters, to us and what we make of our world, and it must be handled with critical care.

The war on the old has been declared.In the post-Brexit world, intergenerational conflict has become a visible phenomenon. There is an overwhelming sense of blame from younger generations: it was the wrinklies, the grey-haired plutocracy, who voted Leave; who are overburdening hospitals, shutting the youth out of the housing market and hoarding accumulated wealth.By 2020, we are told, one in five Britons will be pensioners, and living a longer retirement than ever before. A good thing, politicians add, through gritted teeth. The truth is that for them, the old are a social, economic and political inconvenience.John Sutherland (age 78, and feeling keenly what he writes about) examines this intergenerational combat as a new kind of war in which institutional neglect and universal indifference to the old has reached aggressive, and routinely lethal, levels. This is a book which sets out to provoke but in the process tells some deep and inconvenient truths, revealing something British society would rather not think about.

Un recorrido que nos convertirá en escritores y lectores más preparados y conscientes de nuestros propios recursos.Son muchas las personas a quienes les apasiona la literatura, que disfrutan escribiendo o leyendo, y desearian saber mucho mas de este atractivo arte, pero a veces los terminos utilizados en las teorias literarias les resultan oscuros, incluso antipaticos. ¿Pueden ayudarnos conceptos comonarracionogeneroa la hora de enfrentarnos a la pagina en blanco? Sin duda alguna. Si se exponen de manera amena y con ejemplos estimulantes, las teorias sobre la literatura permiten sacar todo el provecho a nuestra experiencia como lectores, y nos facilitan la tarea de escribir. El popular autor y critico John Sutherland muestra cuales son los grandes temas literarios y las formas en que han sido tratados a lo largo de la historia. Al mismo tiempo, se acerca a las problematicas de los autores actuales, y explica con sencillez las teorias criticas en boga. En este recorrido por la literatura descubriremos la dificultad de definir un clasico, la importancia de la ambiguedad en la creacion de un texto literario o las distintas maneras en que se puede identificar el estilo.

Love, sex, death, boredom, ecstasy, existential angst, political upheaval - the history of literature offers a rich and varied exploration of the human condition across the centuries. In this absorbing companion to literatures rich past, arranged by days of the year, acclaimed critics and friends Stephen Fender and John Sutherland turn up the most inspiring, enlightening, surprising or curious artefacts that literature has to offer. Find out why 16 June 1904 mattered so much to Joyce, which great literary love affair was brought to a tragic end on 11 February 1963 and why Roy Campbell punched Stephen Spender on the nose on 14 April 1949 in this sumptuous voyage through the highs and lows of literatures bejewelled past.