{"id":29103,"date":"2015-05-21T06:30:24","date_gmt":"2015-05-20T18:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=29103"},"modified":"2015-05-22T09:52:17","modified_gmt":"2015-05-21T21:52:17","slug":"defining-books-of-the-twentieth-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2015\/05\/21\/defining-books-of-the-twentieth-century\/","title":{"rendered":"“Defining” Books Of The Twentieth Century"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’re fifteen years out of the twentieth century now, which is not a huge distance but enough to give some sense of perspective.<\/p>\n

Lately, I’ve been thinking about books that in some way encapsulate or define an aspect of the last century—and which by implication have also endured, i.e. we are still reading and\/or reflecting on them now.<\/p>\n

Here are eight books that are “defining” twentieth century works for me (in alphabetical order by author’s surname):<\/p>\n

\"TheSecondSex\"<\/a>The Second Sex<\/strong><\/em>, by Simone De Beauvoir (1949)<\/p>\n

French philosopher Simone De Beauvoir’s analysis of the treatment of women throughout history is regarded as one of the defining works of modern feminism, although the widespread political movement did not gain momentum until the 1960’s.
\n.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Anne<\/a>Anne Frank: The Diary Of A Young Girl<\/strong><\/em>, by Anne Frank (1947 in The Netherlands; 1952 USA & UK)<\/p>\n

The diary of Anne Frank—a Dutch Jewish girl who hid, with her family, from the Nazis for two years before being discovered and dying of typhus in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp—provides one of the great “human” voices that illuminates the horror of the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

\"Wind<\/a>The Wind In The Willows<\/em><\/strong>, by Kenneth Grahame (1908)<\/p>\n

The emergence of a\u00a0 distinct children’s literature characterizes the twentieth century and The Wind of the Willows<\/em><\/strong> is one of the first great books in that tradition, as well as a classic in its own right. It also one of the first books to evoke nature and the environment as a distinct element\/theme.<\/p>\n

\"To<\/a>To Kill A Mockingbird<\/em><\/strong>, by Harper Lee (1960)<\/p>\n

Harper Lee’s classic tale of racial discrimination and injustice in the American South during the 1930s illustrates the conditions that gave rise to one of the great social movements of the twentieth century, the American Civil Rights movement.<\/p>\n

\"Cry,<\/a>Cry, The Beloved Country<\/em><\/strong>, by Alan Paton (1948)<\/p>\n

Alan Paton’s novel of racial division and social injustice in South Africa came out the same year that apartheid was enshrined in legislation; it would not be removed until 1994, almost 50 years later. This book may not quite fit my criteria, in that I’m not sure whether Cry, The Beloved Country<\/em> is still widely known, but it is so powerfully and beautifully written I’m going to include it anyway.<\/p>\n

\"IvanDenisovich\"<\/a>One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovitch<\/em><\/strong>, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1962, Russia; 1963, USA)<\/p>\n

If Anne Frank’s diary gives a human voice to the Holocaust, Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovitch <\/em><\/strong>does the same for the forced labour camps of the Soviet Union in the Stalinist era. The focus in this case is on survival, including of the prisoners’ humanity, in the face of systemic and systematic brutality.<\/p>\n

\"Grapes<\/a>The Grapes Of Wrath<\/em><\/strong>, by John Steinbeck (1939)<\/p>\n

A different setting, but nonetheless John Steinbeck’s novel of an Oklahoma Dust Bowl family seeking to survive and find a better life is one of the great accounts of the misery suffered by large numbers of people during the 1930s Depression.
\n.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Lord<\/a>The Lord Of The Rings<\/em><\/strong>, by JRR Tolkien (1954)<\/p>\n

Tolkien’s sweeping epic is arguably the work of fiction that most defines the second half of the twentieth century. It marks the shift of fantasy and science fiction into mainstream literature and also picks up on the theme of environmental displacement found in earlier works such as The Wind In The Willows, <\/em>as well as a sense of loss of community in the post-war era.
\n.<\/span><\/p>\n

I’ve stopped at eight although I know there are doubtless other contenders, such as Joseph Heller’s Catch 22<\/em><\/strong> (1961) and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring<\/em><\/strong> (1962) — and I should almost certainly have featured Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet On The Western Front<\/i><\/strong> (1929)!<\/p>\n

I’d love to hear the books that you feel encapsulate a defining aspect of the twentieth century. In particular, I’d love to know if there are any books (preferably fiction, but not necessarily since I haven’t restricted myself to that either) from the last quarter of the twentieth century that ‘leap out’ (for you) as encapsulating the times, i.e. were there any equivalents of these early and mid-century books published in the latter part of the century?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’re fifteen years out of the twentieth century now, which is not a huge distance but enough to give some sense of perspective. Lately, I’ve been thinking about books that in some way encapsulate or define an aspect of the last century—and which by implication have also endured, i.e. we are still reading and\/or reflecting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-other-writers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29103"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29133,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29103\/revisions\/29133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}