Counter cultural read

[Simonsays]

Myself and some friends have started a book group. Not really a Richard and Judy crowd (!). We're looking for a good novel to read that has a counter cultural bent to it. Our first was Kerouac's On the Road. Looking for something a bit more trecent for next month. Any ideas warmly appreciated.

[Echo]

A really great guide to cult and outlaw fiction is The Rough Guide to Cult Fiction (ISBN 1843533871). This was a required text in an English class I took and it gives an incredibly comprehensive list of great bohemian and counter culture writers, as well as other cult writers.

 

Here are some of my suggestions for more recent writers:

 

Angela Carter

Rick Moody (a post-modern writer who I hate, but some like him)

Salman Rushdie

Thomas Pynchon

 

But really, the greatest period for bohemian literature is the early 20th century and the late 19th century. Some of the greats are:

 

Allen Ginsberg

William Burroughs

Colette

Virginia Woolf

Ernest Hemingway

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Hunter S. Thompson

Oscar Wilde

Albert Camus

Norman Mailer

Jean Cocteau

 

Another suggestion would be to pick a specific philosophy or artistic trend for each month, like Albert Camus for Existentialism and Hunter Thompson for Gonzo journalism.

[Freewheeling Andy]

Vineland by Thomas Pynchon is all over the counter-culture. I'm not sure it's his best book, but possibly one that's most obviously part of the counter-culture.

 

There's a choice between "alternative", when stuff like JG Ballard or Haruki Murukami or Will Self come into play, or whether you're concentrating very much on beat/hippy counter-culture in particular, when the Hunter S Thompson, William Burroughs stuff clearly gets the most play, or Tom Wolfe's early stuff, or crazy nonsense like Brian Aldiss's Barefoot in the Head (and, I suppose, Philip Dick's A Scanner Darkly).

[kateleopald]

My interpretation of counter cultural would be with the small 'c's (as opposed to the well documented "Counter Culture" of the 50's and 60's). If that's the case then a couple of modern day 'alt' culture books around at the moment are Sebastian Horsley's memoir -Dandy in the Underworld, and the excellent novel, The Sewerside Chronicles by Tim Lay.

 

PS - I agree with Vineland Andy!

[Simonsays]

Thanks for the responses. Yep, when I wrote counter cultural, I did mean with small cs!