Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novel Of The 1960's

Feels more male than any previous poll, though I do not know that the numbers would actually back this up?

Picking Thompson because most recently read and so enthusiasm the freshest.

Muriel Spark.

I voted for Dune but there is easily another ten I would place on top of it

I mean, what a decade: The Master and Margarita, A Hundred Years of Solitude, Solaris, Cortazar shorts x2, Wide Sargasso Sea, Three Trapped Tigers, The Bell Jar, A Confederacy of Dunces, The Man in the High Castle, Lanark, The General of the Dead Army, Spring Snow, Ice, The Abyss, Butcher's Crossing, Season of Migration to the North...

Hardest one: Thompson, Spark, PKD or O'Brien

heller or nabokov or o'brien or le guin - all top tier for me even outside of this list.

Gonna be very much a man of my age and vote Catch-22, just over Cat's Cradle

Five years ago I'd have said Pale Fire, but I need a refresher. Earthsea a much more recent favourite.

I'm just coming off a reread of The Last Unicorn and I think that's my current favourite 60s book.

Dune is the sentimental favorite for me, and I suppose if our criterion is "favorite" that's my pick. It's by no means the best-written book on this list; indeed, it may be the worst.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a masterwork of devastating conciseness.

This list is stacked with formative favorites of mine, including a couple of books that were my favorite novels at one point or another (Dune and Cat's Cradle) and a few more that were not far behind (V, Catch-22, and Crying of Lot 49). I actually have Third Policeman on my to-read pile right now and will be getting to that soon. Not sure how well they would hold up though. The one I read most recently was Slaughterhouse-Five so probably safest to vote for that.

Jean Brodie is the freshest in my mind but this is tough.

How many Pynchon novels won these polls?

god I resented the hell out of feeling like I had to finish 'catch 22'. hated it.

Rabbit, Run has moments of brilliance.

Rabbit, Run vs On the Road - men in cars fleeing domesticity. Similarly Catcher in the Rye (and Lolita maybe).

Updike writes beautiful sentences that I don't think I've got the stomach for any more

I can't stand his prose. Detest it.

I mean, what a decade: The Master and Margarita, A Hundred Years of Solitude, Solaris, Cortazar shorts x2, Wide Sargasso Sea, Three Trapped Tigers, The Bell Jar, A Confederacy of Dunces, The Man in the High Castle, Lanark, The General of the Dead Army, Spring Snow, Ice, The Abyss, Butcher's Crossing, Season of Migration to the North...

― Nabozo, Monday, January 8, 2024 12:50 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Lanark is 1980s isn't it?

A (not especially enthusiastic) vote for Dune, since unlike Nabokov, Pynchon and Vonnegut, Herbert wasn't straining to be clever.

Ice

by Anna Kavan would have been my vote, or maybe Nova Express by Burroughs.

Lanark is 1980s isn't it?
― ...eh you get the gist of it (dog latin), Tuesday, January 9, 2024 4:15 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Yes sorry, I have a log where I mention writing years when they're markedly different from publication date. In the case of Lanark, it was completed in 1976, Book One already in 1963, but yes only published in 1981. Same for Confederacy of Dunces (completed 1964, published 1980). That would also affect O'Brien and Bulgakov (Third Policeman / Master and Margarita are originally from 1940).

I loved the puzzlebox-mystery element of Catch-22 when I read it - I wasn't expecting that. But I read it so long ago -- I remember nothing except "No one's trying to kill you" "Then why are they shooting at me?" (which admittedly I still think about a lot).

Voted for Earthsea because it's metal AF but so beautiful you might never notice. I feel like Spark should be the sort of writer I like but I've never glommed to her. Too cruel.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Never read Pale Fire. Catch 22 really irritated me, but I liked the Updike's Rabbit series, V, Cat's Cradle, Dune, and The Crying of Lot 49.

My favorite of all of these though by far is Slaughterhouse Five

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

Nice to see that everything got at least one vote.

Wouldn't have pegged either of those as the winner, fun choice(s)

I’m about halfway through The Third Policeman but am fighting a strong urge to abandon it. It was great for about two chapters but then when the dreamlike logic took over I lost interest. It reads like a comic novel generated by a defective Chat-GPT, grammatically correct and stylistically accurate but just failing to make sense.

Yeah it's wacky but also just not good.