For Baby Boomer high school and college students, certain books epitomized youth, freedom, nonconformity, coolness, intensity, and a refusal to be impressed by or controlled by "The Establishment." These books made us feel that our generation, and we personally, could be different, challenge the status quo, make our own rules. They are redolent of rebellion, irreverence, spirituality (sixties versions), politics, and of course, "sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll." The books do not "belong" to our generation; some of them are still widely read. But many of them are products of a specific time in history: the sixties and early seventies. For a trip down memory lane for those who came of age during that time, cast your mind back to your late teens and early twenties, and see if this sampling of books looks very, very familiar...
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath
Catcher in the Rye (and the other novels and short stories), by J. D. Salinger
Cat's Cradle (and many other novels), by Kurt Vonnegut
A Coney Island of the Mind, by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The Doors of Perception, by Aldous Huxley
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, by Tom Wolfe
Eros and Civilization (and other works), by Herbert Marcuse
Howl and Other Poems, by Alan Ginsberg
The Making of a Counter Culture, by Theodore Roszak
On the Road (see also The Dharma Bums and other novels), by Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey
The Politics of Experience, by R. D. Laing
Slouching Towards Bethlehem, by Joan Didion
Steppenwolf (see also Siddhartha and other novels), by Hermann Hesse
The Stranger, by Albert Camus
Summerhill, by A. S. Neill
The Wisdom of Insecurity, by Alan Watts
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig
Some of these titles are impossible for me to reread now, but they meant a lot to me at the time, so I honor them for that.
(As I look over my list, I see that these books are almost all by male authors. Although this is distressing, it is not really surprising, because the time in question is just before and at the beginning of the Second Wave women's movement, when many influential books by women started to appear. Soon I will write a separate post about some of those books.)
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You are the ONLY other person that I know that has read "A Coney Island of the Mind"!!. I must have picked up that book up in 10th grade and loved it. Somewhere, I know that I still have it. From your booklist, I also have read some of the same books, "The Autobiography of Malcolm X", "Cat's Cradle", "The Stranger", The Bell Jar", and the one that most profoundly affected me, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". I remember reading that one for 9th grade English class and being devastated by the treatment of the patients by the medical staff. The slow and continual loss of identity and control over their own lives. It is obvious why my highschool years were filled with such angst.
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Thanks, by the way, for writing this blog. It is really interesting to read and gives me a place to go for ideas for new reading material.
Carolyn from Ann Arbor (a friend of Mary Valle)
Thanks, Carolyn, for these comments; I'm so glad you find the blog interesting and useful! Interesting to hear about which books on the list you have read. I felt the same as you did about "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest"...
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