Not fear and loathing!

June 2, 2005 3:25 PM

A friend of mine is looking for books, fiction or non-fiction, about the end of the sixties/beginning of the seventies, books reminiscent of HST's fear and loathing in las vegas. suggestions?
posted by Kifer85 to society & culture (23 comments total)

Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, the last decent book by Tom Wolfe. If you need more, I'll be back later.
posted by klangklangston at 3:40 PM on June 2, 2005

Philip K Dick
- The Divine Invasion
- Valis
- The Transmigration of Timothy Archer

Joan Didion
- Slouching Towards Bethlehem
- The White Album

Thomas Pynchon
- The Crying of Lot 49

Jay Stevens
- Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream
posted by rdc at 3:49 PM on June 2, 2005

Vincent Bugliosi's Helter Skelter, about the Manson murders in August 1969.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:57 PM on June 2, 2005

can't remember much about slouching towards bethlehem except that i thought it was really good. vineland is another pynchon book that covers that era (and later, up to the 90s).

byatt's tower of babel is also about that time, but in the uk, and not fear + loathing at all (thanks to someone here for making me ready another byatt book!).
posted by andrew cooke at 4:58 PM on June 2, 2005

Second Helter Skelter.

Also..

Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin. Excellent overview of the music/drug culture at that time.
posted by fire&wings at 5:09 PM on June 2, 2005

Edit: And this.
posted by fire&wings at 5:12 PM on June 2, 2005

Michael Herr, Dispatches.

A book just came out this year about the history of 1968 all across the world, by Mark Kurlansky, which might be informative but doesn't meet the kind of stylistic criteria you mentioned.
posted by matildaben at 6:07 PM on June 2, 2005

The Drifters (James Michener).
posted by ericb at 6:54 PM on June 2, 2005

Second, er, third for Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem. For fiction, you could do worse than TC Boyle's Drop City. And though it's got nothing, nothing, to do with a Thompson-esque writing style, one of the best starkest recent novels of the 60's slide into the 70's is still Philip Roth's American Pastoral.
posted by .kobayashi. at 8:14 PM on June 2, 2005

If you are interested in the social changes of the late 60s and early 70s, Marge Piercy's Small Changes (1973) is a good place to start, not because it's brilliantly well written or plotted, but because it captures a moment.

I also second Dispatches, which I read back in 1981 and which hugely influenced by at the time; it provided the subtext for Apocalypse Now (several of its scenes recognizably made it into the movie, particularly the Do Lung Bridge sequence, and Herr was hired by Coppola to write the voice-over). Fantastically powerful writing, especially the introduction, Breathe In.

I'm not sure about Babel Tower in this context, as Byatt loathes the 60s and everything they stood for, and it shows. But Didion, yes, absolutely.

To really get a feel for the period I would also recommend Divine Right's Trip, written by Gurney Norman and originally published in 1971 in the Whole Earth Catalogue.
posted by jokeefe at 8:57 PM on June 2, 2005

Sorry, link for Small Changes here.
posted by jokeefe at 8:59 PM on June 2, 2005

Tom Robbins: Another Roadside Attraction
posted by peacay at 2:47 AM on June 3, 2005

The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones was written by a journalist who traveled with them on tour in `68 and `69. (Altamont concert too.) It's not a "tour diary" kind of book; it has much more substance than that, and is as much about the era as about the Stones, though an argument could be made that the Stones were the era...albeit a silly argument. Don't know how similar it is to Fear & Loathing, but everyone takes a lot of drugs.
posted by scratch at 8:42 AM on June 3, 2005

Byatt loathes the 60s and everything they stood for
hello? women's lib? sex? i think she's quite keen on both of those, and they were pretty much invented back then, right?
she might not write like [insert your favourite crap writer from that time here], but she seems pretty ok with the cultural changes it introduced.
and whistling woman, which i've not read (but which seems to feature characters from babel tower), is reviewed as a "eulogy to the 60s" on various web sites.
posted by andrew cooke at 9:52 AM on June 3, 2005

1968, Joe Haldeman
posted by Zed_Lopez at 9:53 AM on June 3, 2005

I just finished Drop City by TC Boyle, and I thought it had a lot of interesting stuff to say about this period. It's no F&L, but it was a good novel and well-worth reading. Boyle contrasts commune living hippies with the residents of a small town in Alaska.
posted by OmieWise at 11:54 AM on June 3, 2005

i second DISPATCHES by michael herr. herr was also involved with 'apocalypse now' and 'full metal jacket'
posted by mdpc98 at 2:59 PM on June 3, 2005

hello? women's lib? sex? i think she's quite keen on both of those, and they were pretty much invented back then, right?
she might not write like [insert your favourite crap writer from that time here], but she seems pretty ok with the cultural changes it introduced.
and whistling woman, which i've not read (but which seems to feature characters from babel tower), is reviewed as a "eulogy to the 60s" on various web sites.

Hey Andrew. Well, let's see. Sex was invented a bit before the Sixties, as I'm sure you'll agree, and Byatt writes wonderfully about the sexual social codes of the 50s. And "keen on sex"? She's keen on human experience, and she's keen on female autonomy; those don't add up to "keen on sex" as I think you mean it here. And "women's liberation" was invented, historically, a very long time ago; the current wave maybe have technically begun in the very late 60s, but first began instigating serious legal/social changes in the 70s (and one of the books I recommended, Small Changes, is very much about that time). (Oh, and please: "women's lib"? I haven't heard that phrase in years, and it was usually meant as patronizing.)

Byatt's problem with the 60s is philosophical, and with its puerile (I'm paraphrasing her here) utopian pastoralism and its embrace of a very shaky philosophical scaffolding resulting in a particular kind of hypocritical libertinism. You'll notice that de Sade comes in for a drubbing, and de Sade as willfully and ignorantly interpreted by those who are both partially educated and historically illiterate. I don't doubt that Byatt was keenly observing the Sixties as she lived through that time in London, and she writes it as both ugly and exploitative of women especially. There's a reason the modern women's movement gathered such force so quickly, and part of that was in reaction to the unaddressed sexism in the youth movements of the Sixties.

Also, Byatt is no fan of cultural relativism or post-modernism, both of which stem from Sixties-era cultural changes. Her contempt for the postmodern in particular can be withering (you may want to see The Biographer's Tale). Oh, and just because a book is reviewed as a "eulogy to the 60s on various web sites"-- all due respect, but I'd rather take my literary criticism in such bastions of the established order as the LRB, sorry. :D
posted by jokeefe at 9:34 PM on June 3, 2005

the current wave may have technically begun

Ugh.
posted by jokeefe at 9:37 PM on June 3, 2005

so "everything they stood for" is "a particular kind of hypocritical libertinism" and the women's movement (sorry for using "woman's lib" if that somehow negates the logic of my argument - althought i'm not quite sure how), which "gathered force so quickly" at that time did so despite the era? riiiiight.

maybe it's safer to say that she liked some things, but not others. which would be quite consistent with her being an intelligent observer. but not so consistent with her loathing the decade. no matter how many times you appeal to the authority of the lrb.
posted by andrew cooke at 12:15 PM on June 5, 2005

so "everything they stood for" is "a particular kind of hypocritical libertinism" and the women's movement (sorry for using "woman's lib" if that somehow negates the logic of my argument - althought i'm not quite sure how), which "gathered force so quickly" at that time did so despite the era? riiiiight.

Huh?

Let's back up for a moment. As far as I can tell, this is what happened here.

Me: Sweeping statement about AS Byatt and attitude to the Sixties

You: Called me on it

Me: Point taken; long post written attempting to clarify and elaborate upon reasoning leading to above mentioned sweeping statement;

You: willfully misreading and sarcasm.

Jeez, it's like trying to talk books with the Piranha Brothers ("He used... sarcasm!") or something. Just two points: I explained in my post how the phrase "women's lib" is belittling; and I think that if you'll look at the historical record, the difference between the presence of an organized feminist movement in public life in America in, say 1965 (i.e. virtually none) and 1975 (influential and high-profile) speaks for itself in terms of how quickly it did, as I said, gather strength.

I think I must have mixed you up with somebody else who I have corresponded with on Mefi in the past and who knows how to have a discussion without running the conversation off the rails. Not to worry, I won't bother you again.
posted by jokeefe at 11:26 PM on June 6, 2005

That should be willful misreading. Okay, gone now.
posted by jokeefe at 11:29 PM on June 6, 2005

The Family by Ed Sanders, a great account of the Manson murders by a beat poet.
posted by OmieWise at 11:33 AM on January 27, 2006