Trawl
Template:Short description Template:DMCA Template:DMCA Script error: No such module "about".
Page Module:Infobox/styles.css has no content.Page Template:Infobox book/styles.css has no content.
| Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:InfoboxImage/data' not found. First edition (UK) | |
| Author | B. S. Johnson |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | John Holden |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Secker & Warburg (UK) |
Publication date | 1966 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 183 |
| Preceded by | Albert Angelo |
| Followed by | The Unfortunates |
Script error: No such module "Check for conflicting parameters".
Trawl is the third novel by the experimental British novelist B. S. Johnson. Published by Secker & Warburg in 1966, the book is an autobiographical novel based on a trip Johnson took on a fishing trawler to the Barents Sea. Although reviews of the novel were mixed, in 1967 Trawl was joint-winner of the Somerset Maugham Award.
Summary
Despite being a novel, Trawl has been described as containing no plot or invented characters.[1] It follows an unnamed narrator who takes a three-week journey on a fishing trawler to the Barents Sea.[2] As well as observing the activities carried out by the crew, the narrator also looks back at his life, metaphorically "trawling" through his past.[3] This includes recounting past love interests and his childhood as a wartime evacuee.[1]
Style
Trawl was described by Johnson as: "all interior monologue". The book features an absence of paragraphs, while the length of lines in the book is shortened, thus the book is printed in a long, narrow format.[4] When Johnson presented the work to Fredric Warburg of publishers Secker & Warburg, Warburg believed the work to be an autobiography rather than a novel. Johnson denied this, saying in response: "It is a novel, I insisted and could prove; what it is not is fiction."[1]
The novel is noted for differing from many of Johnson's other works in that it features a positive ending: when the trawler arrives home, the narrator finds his current love interest, Ginnie, at the dock waiting for him. Ginnie is based on his then-partner and future wife Virginia Kimpton.[1][5]
Reception
Reviews for Trawl were mixed. Positively, The Guardian said that Johnson had grown up as a writer, The Times found the book, "both entertaining and artistically satisfying", and the Evening Standard praised Johnson's courage as a narrator. However, Montague Haltrecht in The Sunday Times commented that Johnson was a sentimentalist, Hilary Corke complained about the symbolism of the narrator trawling through their memories, and Martin Seymour-Smith wrote of Trawl: "the effect is one of Dorothy Richardson writing about merchant seamen."[6]
In 1967, Trawl was joint-winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, given to writers to enrich their work through experience of foreign countries. He co-won with Andrew Sinclair's The Better Half.[7] Johnson won £500, on condition that the money should be spent on foreign travel.[8]
References
Page Template:Reflist/styles.css has no content.
- ^ a b c d Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Coe, Jonathan (4 June 2004). Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of B S Johnson. Picador (imprint). p. 19-21.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Trawl: B S Johnson". Pan Macmillan. Retrieved 28 March 2026.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Burrow, Colin (11 April 2013). "Fetch the Scissors". London Review of Books. Retrieved 28 March 2026.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."B. S. Johnson". New Directions Publishing. Retrieved 28 March 2026.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Guignery, Vanessa (May 2011). "A Fat Man on a Beach: Conflicting Horizons in B.S. Johnson's Work". Études britanniques contemporaines (40). Société d'Études Anglaises Contemporaines: 41–52. doi:10.4000/ebc.2364. Retrieved 28 March 2026.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Coe, Jonathan (4 June 2004). Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of B S Johnson. Picador (imprint). p. 226.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Somerset Maugham Awards". Society of Authors. Retrieved 28 March 2026.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Coe, Jonathan (4 June 2004). Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of B S Johnson. Picador (imprint). p. 232.
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Navbox/configuration' not found.
