Literary Scenes in Britain, Nashville and Amsterdam: An Essay by Avery Oslo

BritPANK is coming! It’s like Christmas in July, but instead of milk and cookies, Santa’s sipping Irn Bru and eating…toad-in-the-hole? Laver bread? Champ?

This special issue is necessary, like tea or like air because modern British literature is one of the few ways Britons can understand themselves, and one of the few ways the rest of the world can understand Britain. Britain’s literary reputation has become synonymous with colonialism and British relationships with “the other” (however you want to define that loaded phrase), the trauma of war, and inner-city violence. This is what Britain teaches in schools and Universities, and what it has exported to the rest of the world. No one here doubts the necessity of unpacking the colonial ideologies of a Rudyard Kipling novel or analyzing Victorian society through Jane Eyre, or even just re-reading Trainspotting and Porno for their insights into the parts of Scotland tourists never get to see. But Britain has written so much more!

Remarkably diverse offerings have come out of Britain, from the fantastical (J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, Phillip Pulman), to the literary (Jackie Kay, Doris Lessing, Jeanette Winterson) to the classics everyone must read at some point in order to be a well-rounded human (Virginia Woolf, Sir William Golding, Oscar Wilde – who was Irish but who gets counted because 1. He’s awesome and 2. BritPANK is counting Ireland, so it’s kosher). It’s almost amazing that the association with British literature still hinges on colonial themes, misty moors, and drunken pub-stabbings. These tropes will not die.

But should Britain bemoan the fact that we all understand Britain’s literary tradition through tropes and stereotypes?

The most pervasive stereotype about Britain’s literary scene today is that it is introspective and insular, forever analyzing itself. No man is an island, but it seems many British writers use the excuse of living on one to try their darndest to be one, anyway. Those writers who play nice with others often do so within their region. Britain’s cities tend to have their own literary scenes and there is little interaction on a national scale.

But people speak about this as if it were a bad thing.

What if we think about the British literary scenes’ weaknesses as their strengths? These pockets of city-centered literary tradition create the sense of regionalism readers crave in their literature. In the latest short stories and novels to come out of the UK, there is a clear trend toward geographically specific dark humor and violence that is telling of the conflict between Britain’s past and future. In uncertain times of globalization and recession, both readers and writers crave the intimacy created by the products of this insular culture of the scenes.

And Britain’s scenes aren’t alone in this trend. The microcosmic literary scenes of two other cities with which I am familiar, Nashville and Amsterdam, operate in much the same way. To confirm my sense of these literary trends, I’ve asked a well-known local writer of each city about their impressions of their literary scene. New York Times bestseller Eric Wilson of Fireproof fame is Nashville’s representative, while YA and literary novelist Dina Nayeri Viergutz is my consultant for Amsterdam.

Though both cities boast of a vibrant community of artists with a large international makeup, the literary scenes within are still representations of the people of a region. Nashville is known as the Athens of the South. It stands for Southern American values. Despite the glittery rhinestones of Music Row and Nashville’s anomalous voting patterns within its state and region, the citizens of Nashville are considered friendly and homey salt-of-the-earth types both within and without the city limits. This pervasive stereotype has shaped the literary scene there. Nashville’s writers have historically produced and still currently produce a lot of distinctive Southern literature. Even the novels of local genre authors like M.M. Buckner are informed by the regional culture. For example, the setting of many of Buckner’s sci-fi novels is that of a dystopic world dominated by mega-corporate interests and ruined by climate disasters.  Such a world is a nightmare for everyone, but especially for Nashvillians who prize their slow-paced and unique city with a small town vibe and its colorful local businesses.

Nashville is also known as “Music City” because of all the live music venues and recording studios, music labels (mainly country, gospel, and indie), and musicians that make it their home. The city’s infrastructure fosters a lot of overlap between musicians, songwriters and fiction writers. They are often asked to read and/or perform during local art galleries’ monthly art walks. “This cross-pollination adds an interesting element,” says Wilson. “…the creativity here is electric.”

Meanwhile, Amsterdam is also known for embracing art in all of its forms, yet may be the direct opposite of Nashville. This capital’s literary scene reflects these differences in myriad ways. Many consider Amsterdam to be the unofficial capital of Europe, drawing millions of visitors every year. Despite being just barely larger than Nashville, Amsterdam’s reputation is built on its sophisticated and cosmopolitan approaches to modernity. Citizens of Amsterdam can drink in the sleekest chrome bars, eat traditional Dutch dishes prepared and served in the trendiest ways, and dodge stoned tourists while they cycle to work in their suits at high-speed. Anyone in Amsterdam has affordable and easy access to capitals like Brussels, Paris and London, and so Amsterdam’s regional identity is conflated with international scope.  The regional identity of both Amsterdam and its writers is pan-European – or even global.

English-language writers of Amsterdam, like Iranian-born French/American expat Dina Nayeri Viergutz, are the norm rather than the exception in Amsterdam. Dutch writers have infrastructure in place, but the English-language writers can never quite circumvent the linguistic barrier and so have produced a makeshift culture of collegiality for themselves that is separate from the rest of the art community in Amsterdam. As a result, writing produced in the capital of the Netherlands is very international and reflects the themes of transition, discovery, isolation, and intercultural relationships that characterize Amsterdam’s writers.

When asked about  how the scene of Amsterdam compares with that of other cities with which she is familiar, Viergutz replied “It leaves me hungry and alone, wandering the streets at 3am, piecing together character arcs while yearning to run into another creative soul… Maybe one with a fistful of freshly written pages begging to be read by canal-light.” How much do you want to bet that if you read her forthcoming novel, A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea, you will find these themes reflected within?

I examine the literary scenes of Nashville and Amsterdam while I’m supposed to be blogging about those of Britain because I have a point to make: Nashville and Amsterdam are two cities of comparable size with international reputations for affinity with the arts, yet couldn’t produce more different writers, writing, or literary scenes. This is because, like with Britain’s cities, they are characterized first and foremost by a pervasive regionalism that influences the literary output.  Each city’s writers create the type of literature that allows a unique yet comforting recognition of the self.

Britain’s literary scenes also create literature with regional flair, and this is why you should be as excited as I am about the London Calling issue. It will not be just more of the same British literature you were raised with in school. Rather, it will provide thought-provoking yet tacit education about the current aspirations and cultures of Britain’s regions. In just one issue of PANK, you’ll be able to guess at the difference between the proclivities of a Mancunian and a Geordie. You will learn how the Northern Irish truly feel about their troubled history now through their literature. You’ll be able to speculate as to the cultural divide between North and South. You will understand how Edinburghers see themselves, and what they have in common with the Welsh. All that in one little (okay, not so little) special issue of PANK.

Avery Oslo has lived in Scotland and Nashville, and now reads and writes among the classy riffraff in The Hague. Check out the blog or Twitter for more.

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Submit to London Calling, a special issue of British and Irish writing, here.