"Rather dated"

[ImJustMadAboutSaffron]

I just finished reading a book, published in 1977, set either 1975 or 1976. I went on Amazon to look at some reviews (I know these are not worth reading, for the most part; often I have seen "Boring" or "Rubbish" as a "review") because sometimes there are some interesting ones.

Someone has written that the book is "rather dated". What do they expect 45 years later for heavens' sake???

Some books age better than others.

Well, I erupt in rage whenever I hear someone condescendingly say that Jane Austen is "rather dated."

I enjoyed it as a slice of 1970s middle class life and the references to shops that no longer exist. Maybe the reviewer considered it is dated because nobody Zoomed or WhatsApped or slid into anyone's DMs or there were no mention of celebrities or reality TV!

Usually 'rather dated' is code for racism / sexism / homophobia in my experience - so I suppose a warning to people before they buy the book to make them aware. Not the case here though?

Do you mind if I ask what the book was? I love books that are a slice of 70s middle class life!

I agree 'rather dated' is a silly remark - I wonder, though, if what they meant by this was that the book hasn't aged well, which might be a valid point.

No there was none of that at all, though most of the the characters were white middle class apart from a group of "Indian teenagers" listening to cricket on the radio. The word "gay" was used a few times, but in the sense of being bright and cheerful. As in when Fred Flintstone had a gay old time.

The Road to Lichfield by Penelope Lively.

Ooh, thank you - not one I have read so it's going on my list.

I love this sort of book too. On my list. Anyone got any other recommendations? Novels, preferably about about families or just life in the 60s/70s/80s.

Rather dated ones, that is :-)

Agree with a PP it's code for sexism or racism or homophobia that is now unacceptable. Or that the writing style feels slightly old fashioned (I think some mid century writing can feel quite stylised now, in the same way that the filmography in 1960s films or TV series can feel that way) or some of the concerns of the characters feel dated (e.g. in High Fidelity by Nick Hornby there's a subplot about AIDS which feels dated now). It's never about the period setting.

This makes me think about Covid in literature. I was of the opinion that I didn't want to read about it in fiction, ever, and I don't ever want to read a book about a pandemic, but if I were reading a book in 20 years' time set in 2021, I would expect a reference to it in the same way as if I was reading fiction set in 1941 I would expect WW2 to be mentioned.

Interestingly there seem to be very few novels written in the 1920s that talk about Spanish Flu. It's briefly mentioned in Cold Comfort Farm and there's an American writer who wrote a short story but I'm not aware of anything else.

The AIDS epidemic was written about from the experience of the gay community almost immediately and still is but we don't really see in culture how scared everyone was anymore, the 1995 film KIDS is probably the best example.

Andrea Newman is good for rather dated books, complete with rather dated attitudes. She is best known for 'Bouquet of Barbed Wire' which was famously serialised on TV, but she wrote lots of other novels.

The early Adrian Mole books chronicle life in the 80's in some detail.

I remember mentions of Royal Weddings, Politics, The Falklands War, famine, the Aids epidemic, unemployment, the ozone layer and so on (not to mention the more niche interest he had in the Norwegian Leather Industry)

As Sue Townsend wrote them as his diaries I wonder if they remain immune from being considered 'dated', now or in the future.

Oh, yes, great recommendation Fluffymule. They really bring back the Thatcher era for me.

Another 'rather dated' writer I've enjoyed is Lynn Reid Banks. 'An End to Running' is my favourite but the L-Shaped Room trilogy is also good.

I love Lynne Reid Banks @Antarcticant. I read those books several times. I also like Margaret Drabble. Thanks for the Andrea Newman recommendation, will have a look.

I also liked Room at the Top and Saturday Night Sunday Morning.

Adrian Mole... ah, loved that programme (and theme tune). Have never read the book.

Oh, yes, I like Margaret Drabble too.

A good method of finding rather dated books is to go round charity shops and scan for creased orange-spined Penguins with a vaguely raunchy-looking photograph on the front cover (whether the actual story is raunchy or not)

I was going to mention Margaret Drabble too, the trilogy starting with The Radiant Way.

I really like reading books published in an earlier era and seeing the period references. Yes, the characters may have different perceptions. In the 1970s I read quite a lot of Penelope Lively's books for kids my age and actually slightly older, ditto NIna Bawden and others. I'm a decade baby, meaning that I was a child of the 1970s, a teenager in the 1980s, a 20 something in the 1990s, except for a few months, as I was born in 1969 not 1970s. In my teens I moved on to reading lots of 1960s and 1970s novels, alongside older books.

I also read a lot of historical fiction but set in the recent past. A few months ago I read the first two or three novels in the Charles Paris amateur sleuth series by Simon Brett. I was actually quite surprised to realise that first 3 books were published in the 1970s, each set a couple of years before. Brett made the mistake of making his character a 47 year old man at the start. There are now at least 20 books in the series, some published only a few years ago, and if Parris had continued to age in real time, he would of course be a bit close to 100. Which from a radio dramatisation of #18 I heard, Bret t must have decided at some point to either i stop mentioning what year it is, as he did in his early series books, or to keep Parris as a permanently middle aged character (very common in long running series).

I love "dated" books for period references as they're real not imagined - the attitudes may not have worn well but you can , learn all kinds of things from reading contemporary fiction of the 50s or 60s. I collect Virago Modern Classics, many themselves now a bit of history. And books from smaller imprints like Persephone and the wonderfully named Furrowed Middlebrow.

I love Penelope lively, and would recommend all the others mentioned too, especially Lynn Reid Banks and Margaret Drabble. Early Elizabeth Jane Howard books could fit well in the mix, especially The Long View, Anita Brookner, and Muriel Spark, for a slightly earlier period.

On Adrian Mole, he's 15 months older than me - the end of her sadly last novel left him with prostrate cancer hopefully successfully treated - that's not really a spoiler given the title of the book, and a sweet will they won't they ending, so I have decided to believe Adrian Mole is alive and well and that he's happier than he was a few years ago. So although he's from a slightly different background, and didn't get to higher education (unlike his girlfriend from a posher background, apparently cleverer though Adrian is naive and needing a break, rather than supposedly thick - and I'm sure some readers just think he's stupid).

Sue Townsend was a communist of sorts, and I'm sure she would have been delighted by Jeremy Corbyn and appalled by the current state of affairs, but I do wonder how her characters would have reacted. His first love Pandora Braithwaite was a former MP by the end (elected 1997, but I don't remember whether she lost her seat or stood down, I don't believe she was caught fiddling her expenses). I think she was very disillusioned with Tony Blair (who Townsend never had any illusions in), as was Adrian for rather different reasons. Adrian has an adult son from a previous relationship who joined the army to get a job with prospects just in time to be sent to Iraq, and in one book in the series diary entries are accompanied by letters from the war zone.

Period detail, period attitudes, historical source, sometimes uncomfortable but often interesting.

so I have decided to believe Adrian Mole is alive and well and that he's happier than he was a few years ago

I decided he definitely found happiness with the disillusioned Pandora at long last, and responded to his cancer treatment. It was so frustrating that all the previous books left him on a 'happy ever after' which was then unpicked by the time the following book started.

Stan Barstow for 60’s
best known for the Vic Brown trilogy

Love a dated book!

Have now bought, and have just begun reading, Road to Litchfield. Some parallels as have an elderly father who has just been diagnosed with dementia.