Literary Snobbery, Stan Barstow and John from Glasgow

One of the joys of posting here on Life Twice Tasted is the response that comes by many means and  from unexpected places. It is always good to see - as I can on my blogsite  - the way that readers range around the site and take a look at other, earlier posts as their interest is piqued.

So this week I spot three new brilliant sequential comments from John Haggerty of Glasgow on a post I wrote in August 2011 called Stan Barstow my Dad and Gregory Peck,  Click there if you want the full story including John's comments…

 Part of my discussion on this post was about literary snobbery. Among other things I said... ' ...These mean,  mistaken and ill conceived  phrases manage to combine the regional. literary, linguistic and class snobbery that still has a stranglehold on the British literary world. As a writer of some ‘regional literary novels’ myself I too have encountered this same frustrating prejudice . American literature celebrates fiction from its non-metropolitan regions and is much more deep, rich and  substantial for it...'

In his comments John Haggerty extends the discussion and,  among other insightful things, moves onto the field of music :

'....The Northern folk music scene has given us musicians as diverse as Anne Briggs and Kathryn Tickell. Kathryn's album, NORTHUMBRIAN VOICES, is a living testimony to that rich tradition. Anne has become part of British folklore. Is it possible to contextualise Barstow's work against this wider setting? Perhaps we need to rethink our notion of regionalism in the light of writers such as Ted Hughes, Alan Garner and Shelagh Delaney. It may be helpful to look at American (South and North) and Commonwealth writers. Maurice Gee, the New Zealand novelist, has put his own region on the world map. Dunedin, Wellington, Auckland are all very much Maurice Gee country. Gee's place-haunted novel GOING WEST is the kind of work any Barstow reader would relish....'

If your interest is piqued, go to the page and read it in full complete with John Haggerty’s comments. Click Stan Barstow my Dad and Gregory Peck,  You might even add your own comments!

wx