"The Undercover Revolution: How Fiction Changed Britian"

[bookslover]

This is an odd little book, in its way. Murray's purpose is to show how, beginning in the late 19th century, English novelists abandoned a Christian moral stance, due to their own backgrounds and beliefs, and contributed to the moral degradation of succeeding generations. He does an excellent job in describing the personal backgrounds and personal moralities of writers such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Thomas Hardy, George Bernard Shaw, and H. G. Wells, showing how their lives, and their reaction to Christianity, influenced the books they wrote.

However, Murray fails to demonstrate any of this, from the authors' writings themselves. Murray gives no examples, from any of these writers' works, as to how their attitudes filtered down to the popular level and influenced the culture. Considering that his book's subtitle is How Fiction Changed Britian, it would have been most helpful if he had used these authors' writings to give particular examples. I realize that Murray didn't have much room for such demonstration (the book has only 95 pages of actual text), but still, at least a few examples would have been helpful. Perhaps his final chapter, a 17-page discussion of how the Bible is not fiction, could have been shortened to make room for some of these examples.

This book is still useful, though, and is worth reading. I'm just disappointed that Murray did not drive home his main idea by using actual selections from these authors' works.

 

[JennyG]

I found the book mainly tantalising from its very shortness. It seemed to open up the gateway to a perfectly enormous, and also vitally important, subject, but without any hope in such a small compass of passing through and seriously developing it.
I know it's vitally important, just from considering my own inner experience of the influence of powerful fiction for good or evil. Influence in one direction or the other it's certain to have,- the moral neutrality of "good literature" I think is somewhat of a myth.
I didn't really find the book suffered much from any lack of concrete examples, mainly because I think its central thesis is beyond dispute! Unbelieving readers might not agree, but then neither would they be persuaded by any amount of such examples.

It's not really surprising Murray wasn't able to give a full, in-depth treatment, charting how literature has helped to slew the modern moral landscape. It would probably be at least a ten years' undertaking. He drew attention to it, which was better than nothing. I wish anyone else with his judgment and clarity was likely to take up the task.