"As the books grew bigger and more ambitious, the situations in question sometimes became political ones, and so it became necessary to start painting in the social background on a scale which eventually became panoramic"
About this Quote
The key verb is “painting.” Coe frames social context as craft, composition, perspective - not a lecture. He’s arguing for the novel as an art of backgrounding: the way power is most persuasive when it’s not in the foreground. A “panoramic” scale suggests a widening lens that can be exhilarating (scope, richness, the satisfying click of systems revealed) and also perilous: the risk of turning characters into mere figures in a mural of “issues.” The sentence carries an implicit defense against the charge that political fiction is didactic. Coe’s subtext is that once narratives expand, they demand architecture: the scaffolding of institutions, economics, and ideology that quietly scripts “personal” choices.
Coming from a British novelist whose work often triangulates family life with Thatcher-era aftershocks and New Labour disillusionment, it reads like a practical manifesto. The social background isn’t optional wallpaper; it’s the room everyone has been standing in all along, finally lit wide enough to see.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Coe, Jonathan. (2026, January 15). As the books grew bigger and more ambitious, the situations in question sometimes became political ones, and so it became necessary to start painting in the social background on a scale which eventually became panoramic. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/as-the-books-grew-bigger-and-more-ambitious-the-160587/
Chicago Style
Coe, Jonathan. "As the books grew bigger and more ambitious, the situations in question sometimes became political ones, and so it became necessary to start painting in the social background on a scale which eventually became panoramic." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/as-the-books-grew-bigger-and-more-ambitious-the-160587/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"As the books grew bigger and more ambitious, the situations in question sometimes became political ones, and so it became necessary to start painting in the social background on a scale which eventually became panoramic." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/as-the-books-grew-bigger-and-more-ambitious-the-160587/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
