Understanding Alan Sillitoe (Understanding Contemporary British Literature)

"Understanding Alan Sillitoe" offers a lucid appraisal of the life and works of the well-known contemporary British writer hailed by critics as the literary descendent of D.H. Lawrence. Known primarily for his novels "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" and "The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner", Sillitoe has written more than 50 books over the last 40 years, including novels, plays, collections of short stories, poems, and travel pieces, as well as more than four hundred essays. In this comprehensive study of the major novels and short stories, Hanson reveals Sillitoe's artistic influences and the dominant thematic concerns of his works. Hanson brings her analysis with an account of Sillitoe's early life and his beginnings as a writer during the war years in Nottingham. She carefully examines such literary influences as Lawrence, Victor Hugo, Robert Tressell, Israel Joshua Singer and Robert Graves. Focusing on "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", "The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner", "Men, Women and Children", "Her Victory", "Leonard's War" and "Snowstop", Hanson also considers four dominant themes of Sillitoe's works: the "new" existentialism that grew out of British culture during the 1950s and 1960s; the question of identity in the "love" stories; the use of madness as a necessary step toward freedom; and the complex and defiant characterization of women. Hanson contends that by realistically looking at universal issues and articulating the dilemmas of those unable to do so themselves, Sillitoe has been able to achieve popular and critical success.