Jennifer Johnston’s Works
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2595-8127.v1i1p101-110Abstract
Jennifer Johnston’s works of fiction have, almost unanimously, met with extraordinary praise and pronounced admiration. Shadows on Our Skin (1977) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, if that is anything to go by. The Old Jest (1979) won the Whitbread Award for Fiction, and The Invisible Worm (1991) was shortlisted for the Sunday Express Book of the Year. The comment on the cover of her latest novel, Two Moons (1998), states that Jennifer Johnston “is recognised to be one of Ireland’s finest writers” - an appreciation underpinned by numerous articles about her oeuvre. Yet what in the face of al! this eulogy may be surprising is that none of the studies written so far has anything to remark on the glaring deficiencies in the novels. Critics may have turned a blind eye to the artistic shortcomings in Johnston out of admiration for her person. Still, it is rather odd that she should seem from their comments to be among the most consummate of stylists and artists.
References
Benstock, Shari. “The Masculine World of Jennifer Johnston”, in: Thomas F. Staley (ed.),
Twentieth-Century Women Novelists. Totowa/N.J., 1982, p. 192. Ibid., p. 216.
William Golding, “A Moving Target”, in: W. Golding, A Moving Target. London, 1982, p. 170.
Huxley, Aldous. Crome Yellow. Frogmore, St. Albans: Panther, repr. 1977, pp. 17f.
Jennifer Johnston, The Captains and the Kings. London: Coronet Books, repr. 1979, p. 139.
---. The Old Jest. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1979, p. 11,
---. The Christmas Tree. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1981, p. 129.
---. The Railway Station Man. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1984, p. 1.
---. Fool's Sanctuary. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1987, p. 132.
---. Shadows on Our Skin. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1977, p.97.
Kosok, Heinz. “The Novels of Jennifer Johnston”, in: M. Diedrich & Ch. Sch” neich (eds.),
Studien zur englischen und amerikanischen Prosa nach 1920. Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchgesellschaft, 1986, pp. 98-111.
MacMahon, Sean. “Anglo-Irish Attitudes: The Novels of Jennifer Johnston”, Eire-ireland, X, 3 (1975), p. 141.
Mortimer, Mark “The World of Jennifer Johnston: A Look at Three Novels”, The Crane Bag, IV, 1 (1980), pp. 88 & 94.
Rilke, Rainer Maria. The Notebook of Malte Laurids Brigge. Oxford, New York: OUP,
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