Because I have a partiality towards historical fiction (probably no big surprise), I decided to put together a book display featuring fiction set during the decade.
While I was getting the display ready, I'd remembered Richard Sharp's guest post about the '60s as an important new frontier for historical fiction (which is one of my favorite essays on this site) as well as the conversation it provoked. By now, a good part of the '60s fits the traditional 50-year-lookback definition for the genre, but some readers believe this time frame is just too recent. Whatever your feelings, I wanted to pull together a collection of novels evoking the diverse experiences of people living through the political and social changes of the era.
For a list of the titles as well as annotations, plus some groovy book covers, there's also an accompanying online exhibit.
A couple of the books were written at the time they were set, so the list has a good mix of historical and classic fiction. I've been observing how well the display is holding up and filling in gaps when it looks too picked over. Although it hasn't been as immensely popular as the Downton Abbey display I arranged earlier this year, it's seen a lot of checkout activity, so it's been doing its job at making the novels (and the era) more visible.
How interesting. I was born in 1959, so for me the Sixties are a series of disconnected images, solidifying toward the end of the decade. Growing up in Britain I was surrounded by concrete reminders of WWII and the attitudes and ways of living of society as a whole often seemed to belong firmly to the pre-War period (I think British TV series of the era often reflect the conflict between the old and the new at that time).
ReplyDeleteMy first inkling that I belonged to history in some way was seeing a Vogue cover in a waiting room: 1970 was emblazoned across the page, and the whole issue was about the forthcoming decade. Many things that were unacceptable in my 60s childhood were the norm by the time I stepped into the world of adulthood in 1980.
Your post has me thinking I should read more HF from the 20th century, to put my own experiences into context. I wish I could come see your library display!
The display will be up through late November - feel free to take a drive down :) I can't promise how much will be left on the shelves by then, though!
DeleteI was born in 1969, so I remember nothing of the decade. For me the Sixties are just close enough to make me feel like I missed something by not living through them.
There's a great song by folksinger Susan Werner, "Born a Little Late," that captures this very well.
My first feeling that I was a part of history dates from July 4, 1976, the bicentennial, since I remember standing in my parents' driveway holding a small flag we had around the house and pondering what it all meant. Deep thoughts for a six-year-old!
Your experience - looking back and seeing how history has changed over a short time - is fascinating. I enjoy reading HF set later in the 20th century for the same reasons you stated.
I often feel that I (and other people my age) are the last relics of an older British world that was disappearing from under our feet as we grew. And the last link with the war generation...my parents were children during WWII and their stories shaped me. I remember Dad pointing to demolished buildings and telling me those were bomb sites--imagine, in the 60s the cleanup was still going on. How can I not be interested in history?
DeleteFor this decade, can't forget Mockingbird.
ReplyDeleteA great book published in the '60s, yes. Since it's set during the Depression, it wasn't on my list for the display, but we have a separate exhibit up about bestselling books from the decade.
DeleteI was born at the end of 1954, and the first time I saw the term 'historical fiction' applied to something set in the '60s I got a big dose of cognitive dissonance. Likewise with the clothing I used to wear being 'vintage' now! But I do have a liking for books about the era; I remember it well but was too young to really participate in it so I really want to know more about what was going on.
ReplyDeleteFor me, I can tolerate the '70s as a timeframe for historical fiction, and I would enjoy reading more novels set at the time, but the '80s would be too recent. Plus, I could easily wait another few decades for shoulder pads, big hair, and Flashdance-style outfits to come back into fashion; I cringe at what I used to wear in high school!
DeleteTwo novels that made some sense of it all -- to me -- were Marge Piercy's Small Changes (1973) and Larry McMurtry's Moving On (1970), both written by novelists who experienced and witnessed what they were writing about. Joan Didion too, in Play It As it Lays (1970). And always, always, Erica Jong, and Fear of Flying (1973).
ReplyDeleteLeonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers (1966), adored by so many, who took it, like they took Stranger in a Strange Land as a bible and guide to life! I mean, like, you know, REALLY?
Richard Farina's, Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me (1966 -- he was related by marriage to Joan Baez) -- and Tom Robbins's Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976). John Fowles The Magus (1965). Portnoy's Complaint (1965)! Ooo boy, that one rivaled Fear of Flying for the most column space in those days.
Of course, the biggest influences in some ways, fictionally speaking, out of the 60's (influence, not chronological setting), were The Lord of the Rings ... and even, for the time, though no longer, Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land.
Does it seem to you that these novels and some others, written by people who were there, have a vitality of immediacy that the "historical" novels set in the periods don't?
I read Iles's Natchez Burning earlier this year. One feels that until the trilogy is completed judgment can't fairly be passed. But I read it before spending March in Mississippi (and Tennessee), and seeing a lot of the locations that are in the novel, including Natchez itself. The evil of so many generations, beginning even before Independence, is palpable. Iles is too young to have witnessed these things first-hand, but there are many people around who did, and surely he knows them.
Love, C.
Thanks very much for the great list of '60s novels. I've heard of most but not all.
DeleteFor my exhibit, I was unfortunately limited by titles the library had available and were attractive enough to be put out on a display table (meaning they had covers, weren't too ratty, etc). That cut it down a lot!
Natchez Burning has been recommended to me by a friend who lived through the '60s - she said it wasn't a period she wanted to relive, but it did make the experience feel immediate and real. I have a copy, waiting until I have a spare moment to get to it (it's long!). I also read The Pink Suit, and the historical atmosphere wasn't as strong as I'd hoped for... although the opening sequence packed a shocking punch, despite my knowing in advance what would happen.
Foxessa's comment made me think of A.S. Byatt's Virgin in the Garden series, which covers the 50s through, I think, the late 60s. Lots of stuff in there about the intellectual history of the period as well.
ReplyDeleteThanks for mentioning it - I read Still Life some time ago, when I was really too young to appreciate it. And although I enjoyed it, I must not have realized it was part of a series.
DeleteO yes! I love those Byatt novels. Even Possession would go on the list -- which makes a terrific bookend with Gail Godwin's The Odd Woman. If we start looking at British titles -- so very, very many, and so different in so many ways from those written by authors in the U.S. or even in Canada.
DeleteLove, C.
Possession is one of my favorite novels, and I read it so long ago that it should be time for a re-read (even though the ending, including the final sentence, is still very fresh in my mind!).
DeleteI re-read Possession last year...and was disappointed.
DeleteInteresting, and not too surprising either, since books speak to us differently at different times in our lives. And what seems fresh and inventive at one stage may seem old-fashioned now. I can see that happening with a novel written in such a formal style.
DeleteStill Life is the second in a quartet of novels (published at intervals of 7-10 years, so it's hardly surprising that they're not readily identifiable as part of a series). My personal favorite is Babel Tower, which to some extent fictionalizes the Lady Chatterley's Lover obscenity trial (one of my vague 60s memories, funnily enough, because my aunt allowed my slightly older cousin to read it and that got in the newspaper!)
ReplyDeleteI re-read Babel Tower for a paper when I was doing a course on literary theory and realized that the intellectual history developed in the novel practically paralleled the development of literary theory (Byatt was a professor of English, I think, so I believe that was deliberate). If you read her books enough you realize she leaves all kinds of little jokes and literary references in them.