Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1967

Reading about The Last Of The Crazy People has introduced me to the Southern Ontario Gothic genre - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Ontario_Gothic

Not included because Emmanuelle was already taking up the smut slot, but the wikipedia entry for "Coffee, Tea Or Me?" makes for amusing reading. Published as a PR stunt for American Airlines, supposed "memoirs" of two stewardesses actually made up by a dude called Donald Bain, who later went on to write a memoir called " Every Midget Has an Uncle Sam Costume: Writing for a Living".

The only Kundera I've read was the lightness of being one, which I found gripping when talking about the security state but outside of that just horny and pretentious in a very uninteresting manner. That said, the film version of The Joke is one of my all-time faves, and I have to assume Kundera bears partial responsibility for its greatness.

To select one from the top three is tough.

The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien
The Silent Cry by Kenzaburō Ōe
One Hundred Years Of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquéz
Gargoyles by Thomas Bernhard
The Owl Service by Alan Garner
Ice by Anna Kavan
Three Trapped Tigers by Guillermo Cabrera Infante
The Joke by Milan Kundera

Stopped reading the list at Lord of Light which I've gradually decided is one of my favourite books full stop

On the one hand, I haven’t read enough of these to vote informedly. On the other hand, 100 Years of Solitude, obvs.

The Third Policeman is incredibly strange. I really need to read it again. Haven’t read enough of the others listed to vote though.

another book I would have assumed was much earlier. I thought most of O'Brien's writing was 20 odd years earlier. Is that way out.

It was written, like, 30 years earlier but unpublished.

yes sat in a drawer after being rejected by various publishers - near impossible to choose between that & ice for me

Was gonna say, the same thing happened to Macedonio Fernandez, but wiki tells me he was still working on The Museum of Eterna's Novel at his death in 1952, so maybe it really took that long to edit the drafts into something publishable.

Right, written between 39 and 40 but published posthumously after the author withdrew the manuscript he couldn't get published at the time.Thought that was odd when I first saw it on this list cos I would have automatically placed it earlier.
Wonder if that affected the way it was read then, context of reception to audience and presumably demographic of audience and things.

Trust you to make us all scroll to the bottom eh

For a peek behind the curtain: the wiki category starts with debut novels, then goes through national categories in alphabetic orders ("American novels of 1967", "Indian novels of 1967", etc.) and then at the end there's a buncha uncategorized novels, usually from countries that haven't got their own category. This is why "world" literature tends to be towards the end of the list, and strangely enough that's where you'll find Irish lit as well - considering the country's literary pedigree I was really expecting "Irish novels of year so and so" to be a regular fixture, especially considering Canada and Australia have this for almost every year.

Tournier

The only one of these I've read is "One Hundred Years of Solitude". It's good, but not sure I can vote in good conscience. Surprised to see some omissions: James Salter's "A Sport and a Pastime" and Chaim Potok's "The Chosen".

Also I guess Styron's "Confessions of Nat Turner".

Youse should all read Lord of Light tho

i'm convinced i should

haven't read a single novel on this list lol

the brautigan has been recommended to me really often even tho i hate the dude's poetry

Youse should all read Lord of Light tho

Even if I don't like A Rose for Ecclesiastes?

The Third Policeman!

One Hundred Years of Solitude is probably a greater book, and it's the rare book that has both an amazing opening passage and an amazing closing passage. But I'm much more likely to actually re-read The Third Policeman.

There's lots on this list that I should read but haven't.

Oh so totally Third Policeman. Sorry to Brautigan, but no other real contender here (Ice is a Kavan I haven't read yet, despite being p much her most vaunted, so maybe that would be a fight, but it'd have to fight hard to win this one).

I will have to publicly confess this here: I really did not like 100 Years of Solitude. Sorry everybody. I feel bad about not liking it in the same sort of way I feel bad about not liking Hopscotch - like, I should like it? But nope, I do not.

I like some of his short stories a ton, but never made it through Hopscotch, despite liking the idea of Argentine ex-pats in Paris.

Anyway, this is totally TTP.

And, even though I actually like When She Was Good, but don't wanna go there right now.

This could be The Owl Service, which haunts me to this day, or 100 Years of Solitude but I think it's actually the Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o.

!00 Years---with a shout-out to S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders too, just as true to (its own selected) small town/isolated community thermodynamics, but more reflective than generative, so 100 Years.

Lord Of Light by Roger Zelazny
Ice by Anna Kavan
The Owl Service by Alan Garner
The Ruined Map by Kobo Abe
The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien

Why do you do this to me, genuinely don't know which one to pick.

to be clear, I'd consider The Third Policeman if we polled the entire century

just the most haunting thing ever written, and it's somehow also hilarious, and lovely

Matt #2's list looks pretty good tbh

Owl Service also amazing yeah, need to read some of those others. Solitude is like...fine

I might reread Solitude one day. I will reread The Third Policeman soon - Flann O'Brien on Bicycles is magnificent: https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/comedy/flann-obrien-splits-atom

Ice didn't do much for me, I'll give Lord of Light a go, maybe The Ruined Map too.

Starting to feel frustrated that I haven't read Marquez so I could defend the non-European/American selection itt

Marquez is good and v different from Hopscotch which I didn't like, yet both are lumped in as Latin America's finest.

Then again Joyce and Proust are lumped in together as modernism but the style and techniques are different, so the problem is wider than that.

To clarify, I wasn't trying to draw any comparisons between 100 Years of Solitude and Hopscotch aside from that they were a) books that have been on this poll, b) books that I've not enjoyed, and c) books where I felt that I should have enjoyed them.

Of course, "should have enjoyed them" is a foolish concept that I have imposed upon myself. I suppose I see it more with Hopscotch because I love texts that play with form, but... tbh I didn't see the relevance of that conceit to the book and it just ended up annoying me. But with 100YoS I don't know why I felt I should have liked it aside from the fact that it's been lauded so much, and I usually don't pay any attention to that stuff (see me having failed to read many of the 'classic' works in these threads).

to be clear, I'd consider The Third Policeman if we polled the entire century

― imago

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Emily - sorry shouldn't have picked on your post like that. It was more to do with my annoyance at the wider discourse surrounding Latin American books of a certain period. Both are ofc published during the 60s so maybe that's inevitable.

Totally agree that 100 years is v much lauded, and I freeze myself when talking about that book. I should re-read sometime to see whether it holds up.

I loved solitude (but also shd revisit) but agree it’s unhelpful how it can be lumped in with completely different stuff from the same continent - iirc we have done this before with márquez vs borges which is even more... they share a language I guess? I have only read short stories by cortázar, need to change that

This is so the third policeman tho

Not that I’ve read that many here lol

I didn’t really like trout fishing at all 😕 and I have a pretty high tolerance for the American experimental novels of this era and their cuteness (I rate Snow White and next year’s nog) so can’t say why it didn’t click. Levin is good but completely eclipsed by the film for me

Brautigan really is a pretty twee hippy dude. I love most of his stuff that I've read (there were definitely one or two that didn't land for me but can't remember which ones they were!) but I don't really begrudge people who don't like his work. I think for me if yr cuteness is balanced with enough yearning melancholy then I'm into it, I just don't like happy + cute.

Yeah I can go with that I think - will give him another try

I'd maybe go for The Abortion or Sombrero Fallout over retrying Trout Fishing? There are definitely some dated views of women in his work too, but it's more "sad man thinking baout the exotic unknowable creature that is woman" than anything more gross, and I feel like the works are worth letting him have that.

I voted for Trout Fishing but agree that it’s by no means his best. In addition to the two Emil.y mentions I’d recommend Willard and His Bowling Trophies and The Hawkline Monster.

I totally understand why people can’t stick him.

I got nowhere with Trout Fishing but loved In Watermelon Sugar and really liked The Abortion. Should probably give Trout Fishing another try.

So the Wind Won’t Blow it All Away is very good but Christ what a bleak book.

Niver read him, but I've always really liked what might be the original cover of Revenge of the Lawn: 19th Century->Hippie-Era-looking girl in an Early American-looking chair, looking intensely happy about a big uncut chocolate cake (if this doesn't stay posted, it's worth a search)

https://pictures.abebooks.com/isbn/9780671418526-us.jpg

Also: combo of title x pic, incl. cover colors---!

Post's enlongation ov image even better maybe

Gaze into her eyes

I voted for Trout Fishing but agree that it’s by no means his best. In addition to the two Emil.y mentions I’d recommend Willard and His Bowling Trophies and The Hawkline Monster.

I'd say to anyone who enjoyed The Sisters Brothers, in particular, give Hawkline Monster a try.

I stan for Dreaming of Babylon, but yeah emil.y otm

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1968