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Original poster

60s literature - suggestions pls

37 replies

niceglasses · 24/04/2006 13:35

Am doing OU course and need some suggestions for some good 60s literature poetry/prose/UK/US. Its in relation to a sort of counter cultural question, so I suppose someone like Kerouac, but have never got on too well with him. Any ideas you cultural lot?

Many thanks in advance.........

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madmarchhare · 25/04/2006 14:26

Other Burrough stuff from 60S include The Soft Machine (61), The Ticket That Exploded (62) and Nova Express (64).

TinyGang · 24/04/2006 21:18

Oh and Billy Liar

TinyGang · 24/04/2006 21:17

Saturday Night Sunday Morning

Mercy · 24/04/2006 21:11

Not sure if 'Skinhead' by Richard Allen was written in the 60's (poss. early 70's)

It's really hard trying to think of non US literature from that era. What about Ken Tynan's 'Oh Calcutta' ? - was that 60's? John Lennon, Yoko Ono stuff?? Margaret Attwood 'The Edible Woman'?

What's the title of your dissertation?

(FAZ - glad you like Orton too, I used to be a bit obsessed by him/his lifestyle , not sure why Blush)

Cam · 24/04/2006 20:59

I would also say Play Power by Richard Neville (former editor of Oz magazine) but that was actually published in 1970.

There definitely was a counter culture expressed in books, art and music though, I can vouch for that personally

Cam · 24/04/2006 20:56

Neither of my suggested books was originally published in the 60's so scrub them Grin

sobernow · 24/04/2006 20:30

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

FinnyandZooey · 24/04/2006 20:19

There is an interesting children's book by Antonia Forest called 'The Thuggery Affair' which describes brilliantly a middle class nice girl's encounter with some naughty beatnik types. Hard to get hold of, though.

fullmoonfish · 24/04/2006 20:16

William Styron - the Confessions of Nat Turner (pulitzer prize in 196-something)
Joseph Heller - Catch 22
Robert Bolt - Man for All seasons
Alexander Solzhenitsen (sp?) - Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch
Norman Mailer - Armies of the night
Richard Brautigan - Trout Fishing in America.

Original poster
niceglasses · 24/04/2006 20:12

Written in the 60s. I suppose I'm looking for something to argue around the issue of whether there was a true cultural revolution. Many thanks again, am going to check as many of these out as poss.

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FinnyandZooey · 24/04/2006 20:10

I can't stick that sort of stoned stream of consciousness writing

It is one thing being on psychedelic drugs, quite another reading about someone else's boring old trip

Joe Orton is a God though.

Cappucino · 24/04/2006 20:09

\link{http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth60\doris lessing}

fab

Cam · 24/04/2006 19:18

niceglasses do you mean literature written in the 60's or written about the 60's?

Mercy · 24/04/2006 19:13

Joe Orton?

Cam · 24/04/2006 19:13

Reccommend Bukowski's Ham On Rye

and Burroughs Naked Lunch

zippitippitoes · 24/04/2006 19:10

just for moondog and so you get a taste of what to expect!!!

zippitippitoes · 24/04/2006 18:58

Grin from Beautiful Losers by Leonard Cohen

Spring comes into Quebec from the west. It is the warm Japan Current that brings the change of season to the east coast of Canada, and then the West Wind picks it up. It comes across the prairies in the breath of the Chinook, waking up the grain and caves of bears. It flows over Ontario like a dream of legislation, and it sneaks into Quebec, into our villages, between our birch trees. In Montreal the cafes, like a bed of tulip bulbs, sprout from their cellars in a display of awnings and chairs. In Montreal spring is like an autopsy. Everyone wants to see the inside of the frozen mammoth. Girls rip off their sleeves and the flesh is sweet and white, like wood under green bark. From the streets a sexual manifesto rises like an inflating tire, "The winter has not killed us again!" Spring comes into Quebec from Japan, and like a prewar Crackerjack prize it breaks the first day because we play too hard with it. Spring comes into Montreal like an American movie of Riviera Romance, and everyone has to sleep with a foreigner, and suddenly the house lights flare and it's summer, but we don't mind because spring is really a little flashy for our taste, a little effeminate, like the furs of Hollywood lavatories. Spring is an exotic import, like rubber love equipment from Hong Kong, we only want it for a special afternoon, and vote tariffs tomorrow if necessary.

Mercy · 24/04/2006 18:53

Depends what you mean by counter-culture really

The L-shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks

The Millstone by Margaret Drabble

More social commentaries than out and out counter-culture though

(Zippi, the autobiog. of Malcolm X is fascinating)

iota · 24/04/2006 18:47

what about Iris Murdoch?

moondog · 24/04/2006 18:41

God,can only imagine how tedious Leanord's novel must be.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Original poster
niceglasses · 24/04/2006 18:35

Larkin, yeah, that could do it. Many thanks everyone.......got me inspired and all that. Now just have to write the bleein thing.

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CountessDracula · 24/04/2006 17:11

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

Brilliant really brilliant

zippitippitoes · 24/04/2006 14:36

leonard cohen wrote an experimental novel

Bink · 24/04/2006 14:17

Just thought - 60s Britain - Philip Larkin, The Whitsun Weddings - not sure you need anything else!

Original poster
niceglasses · 24/04/2006 14:11

Great stuff. Was wondering if I could get away with the sort of kitchen sink stuff from the UK - Room at the Top, Margaret Drabble sorta stuff, but don't know how that fits in c-cult wise. This stuff seems better........

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