Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1961

the opening section of mr. biswas is pretty great. i don't think i finished the book though.

Dahl edges out Juster edges out Burroughs for me, not that the latter is especially comparable to the first two.
Even as a major JGB stan I have to admit The Wind From Nowhere was kind of formative, I think he agreed.
Stranger in a Strange Land was wildly profound to me at 15 and wildly embarrassing on a re-read at 20, haven't been there since but I don't think my opinion will have changed much.
The Woman Who Had Two Navels by Nick Joaquin, don't know what this is but it sounds great.

Burroughs' cut-up trilogy reminds me of Metal Machine Music, in that you think differently after experiencing it. I actually felt my brain making new connections while reading The Soft Machine.
Revolutionary Road is a very well-written book, but I felt like Yates had purposely stacked the cards against the characters; he's conflicted between care and contempt for them. It's certainly worth reading.

Catch-22 v. gratifying read during 60s, whatever politics and generational experience (as Altman's M*A*S*H* would be a little later, for my Dad and his buddies, def not hippies or peaceniks). Ditto The Moviegoer in early 60s New Orleans on the eve of destruction but also well into it, in that baroque-and-them-some-NOLA-as-part-of-Lousiana-heritage way (see also nonfiction classic The Earl of Louisiana, by AJ Liebling, kind of bridge between a kind of Old Journalism and The New). Fave character is the narrator's Grandmother, AKA The Prince of Denmark (also Lost Cause) to him, prob based on the author's Uncle William Alexander Percy, the Mississippi Medici up to a point, and himself author of Lanterns on the Levee
But that one's a little floaty, and the one I've read much more recently than the others mentioned, that really grabs me and holds on, incl. through some jumps, "spoilers" but not really, not the way she does it, serious and comic as these first two, is The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

Dad and his buddies WWII and/or Korea vets.

Well I'm sure some people were offended by the ending of Catch-22, but before that, military logic and resulting situations seemed to be accepted as reflecting personal experience or plausible of it and other experiences w institutions, and the title and its conundrum kept turning up for quite a while---to this day, I guess--hasn't been that long since I heard it, though not from a kid---like "drinking the Kool-Aid" and of course, of much more venerable origin, though maybe mainly modern common usage, "gaslight."

The kids like that one!

Weird how much better 61 is than 60 for me. Anyway, much as I love Revolutionary Road, it's the absolutely singular Phantom Tollbooth for me here, nothing else remotely of its kind exists, RIP NJ.

The Hard Life is usually rated as the least of Flann O'Brien's novels, but I think that is unfair. It is a deeply humorous book, but without O'Brien's usual extravagance. There are many more influential and acclaimed books on this list, but the voting is for our "favorite". I love The Hard Life immoderately!

Read Miss Jean Brodie too, should've voted for that.

(Might fuck about and read Catch-22 someday)

should've voted for that.

Voting for The Day of the Owl was more than justifiable. A great book.

Catch-22 is a book I quit reading for my mental wellbeing. (P.S. I am currently reading The Iron Dream.)

Call for the dead is such a wonderful little spy novel although there’s a few here I could do with rereading, catch-22 for one.

Call for the dead is such a wonderful little spy novel although there’s a few here I could do with rereading, catch-22 for one.

Call for the dead is such a wonderful little spy novel although there’s a few here I could do with rereading, catch-22 for one.

A triple post must be some kind of record.

almost like someone planned for you to do that

~~walks sadly down the streets of some central European city~~

Catch-22 is a book I quit reading for my mental wellbeing.

"It will not be forgotten by those who can take it" - New York Times, on the back of my copy.

MISS JEAN BRODIE

― horseshoe, Thursday, 22 April 2021 13:39 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Voting for The Day of the Owl was more than justifiable. A great book.

― sharpening the contraindications (Aimless), Thursday, 22 April 2021 bookmarkflaglink

Totally, not much of a regret. I would've tried to vote for Equal Danger in the later polls.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1962

smdh at Walter Percy. Wasn't that Liberace's real name?

Walker Percy. To help with the searching.