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1ABVR
Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was published in the 1920s and, looking back, seems to capture the spirit of American life in that the decade. So . . . what books do that for subsequent decades, from the 1930s down through the just-completed "Aughts?"
(A hat-tip, here, to Tyler Cowan, whose blog post put the idea in my head.)
Ground rules:
1. It has to be fiction, but it doesn't have to be a novel (could be a short story collection, published play script, or series of novels).
2. It has to be published in the decade, but it doesn't have to have sold well at the time. (See Gatsby)
3. It doesn't have to be representative of how most Americans lived during the decade . . . just capture the zeitgeist. (Gatsby again.)
4. Protests about decades being an arbitrary division of the past that don't correspond to actual cultural changes are duly noted, agreed with, and declared irrelevant to the current discussion. :-)
Edited to fix HTML, and a silly typo
(A hat-tip, here, to Tyler Cowan, whose blog post put the idea in my head.)
Ground rules:
1. It has to be fiction, but it doesn't have to be a novel (could be a short story collection, published play script, or series of novels).
2. It has to be published in the decade, but it doesn't have to have sold well at the time. (See Gatsby)
3. It doesn't have to be representative of how most Americans lived during the decade . . . just capture the zeitgeist. (Gatsby again.)
4. Protests about decades being an arbitrary division of the past that don't correspond to actual cultural changes are duly noted, agreed with, and declared irrelevant to the current discussion. :-)
Edited to fix HTML, and a silly typo
2ABVR
So . . . putting my money where my mouth is:
1930s -- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath. Hope, persistence, and migration in a society on the brink of collapse.
1940s -- Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead. The story of a man who is absolutely, unswervingly certain that His Way is the one and only True and Righteous Way. Sounds like the decade of WWII and the Cold War to me.
1950s -- Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny. A ringing endorsement of "the system, right or wrong." Queeg is, in the end, the hero. Sort of.
1960s -- Joseph Heller, Catch 22. A book about the Sixties before anybody knew what the Sixties were going to look like.
1970s -- Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Not great literature, but does capture the decade's mania for self-discovery and personal fulfillment.
1980s -- Tom Wolfe, Bonfire of the Vanities. Vast wealth, vast self-absorption, vast self-satisfaction.
1990s -- Tie: Joe "Anonymous" Klein, Primary Colors for capturing the surreal politics/media/celebrity soup that dominated the news . . . or Neal Stephenson Snow Crash for nailing the world-turned-upside-down feeling of the early Digital Age.
2000s -- J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Not the series, but that book specifically . . . a series of variations on the theme: "Things are more complicated than you realize."
1930s -- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath. Hope, persistence, and migration in a society on the brink of collapse.
1940s -- Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead. The story of a man who is absolutely, unswervingly certain that His Way is the one and only True and Righteous Way. Sounds like the decade of WWII and the Cold War to me.
1950s -- Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny. A ringing endorsement of "the system, right or wrong." Queeg is, in the end, the hero. Sort of.
1960s -- Joseph Heller, Catch 22. A book about the Sixties before anybody knew what the Sixties were going to look like.
1970s -- Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Not great literature, but does capture the decade's mania for self-discovery and personal fulfillment.
1980s -- Tom Wolfe, Bonfire of the Vanities. Vast wealth, vast self-absorption, vast self-satisfaction.
1990s -- Tie: Joe "Anonymous" Klein, Primary Colors for capturing the surreal politics/media/celebrity soup that dominated the news . . . or Neal Stephenson Snow Crash for nailing the world-turned-upside-down feeling of the early Digital Age.
2000s -- J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Not the series, but that book specifically . . . a series of variations on the theme: "Things are more complicated than you realize."
3readaholic12
My favorite college course in the 70's was an English elective called The Culture of the 60's. We read Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and Joan Didion's Slouching Toward Bethlehem. There may have been others, but these four resonate with me all these decades later. I think they capture pieces of the decade, but a few works about the Vietnam War, the space race and the cold war could round them out.
I realize I broke the groundrules, as these are not fiction, apololgies! But they are very good reads.
I realize I broke the groundrules, as these are not fiction, apololgies! But they are very good reads.
4Cecrow
Your picks largely define fiction bestsellers of their eras, but I'd expect choices that speak more directly to the cultural experience would be more in keeping with the Gatsby example for the 1920's.
As much as I enjoyed The Fountainhead, for the 1940's I think we should be looking for something more pointed to the war experience and its aftermath. For the 1960's I'd point to On the Road, though I can't bear to read it myself. 1970's, I think: Watergate, oil embargo, disco ...
As much as I enjoyed The Fountainhead, for the 1940's I think we should be looking for something more pointed to the war experience and its aftermath. For the 1960's I'd point to On the Road, though I can't bear to read it myself. 1970's, I think: Watergate, oil embargo, disco ...
5Lcanon
1970s: A Confederacy of Dunces.
I know it was written in the 1960s, but it's much more in tune with the disillusion of the 70s, in addition to literary fashion of the time. I've always thought that if Dunces had been published in 1966 (when it was originally rejected by the publisher) it would have sunk without a trace.
I know it was written in the 1960s, but it's much more in tune with the disillusion of the 70s, in addition to literary fashion of the time. I've always thought that if Dunces had been published in 1966 (when it was originally rejected by the publisher) it would have sunk without a trace.
7thorold
You could play at this endlessly:
- for the 1940s, what about Invisible man?
- for the 1950s, Breakfast at Tiffany's
- for the 1960s The women's room is probably much more important in hindsight than Catch-22, On the road, and the rest: 60's culture came and went, but the women's movement did actually change the world.
- for the 1970s, you could nominate Faggots or Dancer from the dance (according to whether you prefer savage satire or mind-numbing lyrical celebration) for gay culture on the threshold of the AIDS era.
...and for the 2000s, what about John Grisham's awful nostalgiafest A painted house, expressing the pious conviction that things used to be a lot simpler?
- for the 1940s, what about Invisible man?
- for the 1950s, Breakfast at Tiffany's
- for the 1960s The women's room is probably much more important in hindsight than Catch-22, On the road, and the rest: 60's culture came and went, but the women's movement did actually change the world.
- for the 1970s, you could nominate Faggots or Dancer from the dance (according to whether you prefer savage satire or mind-numbing lyrical celebration) for gay culture on the threshold of the AIDS era.
...and for the 2000s, what about John Grisham's awful nostalgiafest A painted house, expressing the pious conviction that things used to be a lot simpler?
