A Sinking Island

Book excerpt: The island, of course, is England. Having considered the modern writers of America in A Homemade World and Ireland in A Colder Eye, Kenner turns to the third of International Modernism's "three provinces." His judgment is often harsh -- he argues that in the last quarter of the twentieth century "there's no longer an English literature" -- but his book is a pure delight in its pungent, lively, and thoughtful amalgam of anecdote and critical analysis, detective work and celebration.