If I recommended you an American novel called Stoner, what would you think? You’d probably assume it was some hallucinogen-inspired rubbish from the 1960s by someone who once met Allen Ginsberg. You wouldn’t think it was a plangent, devastating story about the failed life of an English literature academic. That’s because, if a campus novel like this were British, it would have been written by Kingsley Amis, Howard Jacobson or Evelyn Waugh. It would never have had such a terrible title and would also be comic rather than achingly sad. That’s the difference between British and American novels: American novels aren’t funny.

Perhaps Americans just take things more seriously

Perhaps Americans just take things more seriously

Moby-Dick, The Great Gatsby, The Scarlet Letter, The Secret History – none of these totemic American greats has a joke between them. Nor are the prevailing themes of US literature – slavery, colonialism, the fragility of the ‘American Dream’ – especially funny. That is not to say that our trans-Atlantic cousins aren’t funny. They have mastered the TV sitcom (Seinfeld) and elected Donald Trump. But when it comes to novels, they lose their sense of humour.

Perhaps Americans just take things more seriously. Britain is a nation of gentleman amateurs whereas the........

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