Books That Defined A Decade. Trivia Quiz

Answer: 50s

The world was still suffering the effects of WWII in 1954 when William Golding wrote his debut novel "The Lord of the Flies". The plot described a group of pre-teen boys who survived a plane crash and were forced to fend for and govern themselves on an uninhabited island. The microcosm descended into anarchy with violent deaths and total dysfunction. Golding, a schoolmaster who witnessed the horrors of WWII first-hand by driving a PT boat, was disillusioned when he read "The Coral Island" (1857), a children's adventure novel emphasising Christianity and the positive civilising effect of British colonialism. Golding countered by writing this novel as his view was that evil was not an external force, but something born within people. His major theme was to demonstrate that society's defects were due to human nature's fallibility. The moral was that the shape of a society depended on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system.

The book was banned in several countries because of its graphic violence and its depiction of the evil nature of people. When published, it appeared that the world was not ready for Golding's more "realistic" view of the world. An excellent but disturbing novel that epitomised the global paranoia of the Cold War in the 50s.

Answer: 60s

Lynne Reid Banks' debut 1960 novel covered the story of a middle-class single girl who became pregnant and was sent, disgraced out of her father's house to endure her pregnancy alone in a squalid boarding house in inner London where she meets humane characters who would have been branded misfits at the time.

This was an era just before the pill first arrived in Britain, abortion was illegal, and London was not yet a groovy, swinging place. It introduced taboo subjects (for the era) of the Jewish religion and anti-semitism, prostitution and had a black man as a central character.

In short, it demonstrated the shortcomings of society masked in a so-called "moral" culture. Ground-breaking at the time, it redefined the contemporary novel and brought 'underground' topics into the mainstream.

Answer: 70s

The 70s became the "Yep, it's Me" decade, a time of intense cultural self-reflection. Toni Morrison came of age as a writer in the 70s. While she won the Pulitzer for "Beloved" in 1987, it was "The Bluest Eye" that made the literary critics sit up and take notice. (Bestsellers for Ms Morrison were still a couple of novels away). Her debut novel was the story of the tragic story of Pecola, a young Black girl filled with low self-esteem imposed on her by a cruel society in which she is judged to be unworthy. She had a dream that one day, she would be given blue eyes so she wouldn't feel ugly. She was anything but ugly, just a victim of the standards of her time. The novel was a new path in American literature where a young Black girl was the centre of the story.

This was also the start of Morrison's story where literary works have been universally praised for tackling the consequences of racism in the US and documenting the Black American experience.

Answer: 50s

"The Catcher in The Rye" was J.D. Salinger's debut novel. It told of the troubled adolescence of Holden Caulfield in New York City. Its themes included angst, alienation, and superficiality in society. The book was controversial for its profanity (for the time), and depictions of sex and prostitution. Salinger's biographers described the book as one which "redefined postwar America and can best be understood as a disguised war novel".

Perhaps Sarah Graham, a British Salinger scholar, stated it best when she stated in her 2007 book (which was a study of this novel), "It absolutely speaks to that moment the teenager emerges as a recognisable social group ...before that people went through their teenage years with no sense it was a particular kind of identity. It is the first novel of the modern teenage years".

Answer: 50s

English science fiction author John Wyndham wrote "The Day of the Triffids" in 1951. It described a post-apocalyptic world where most of the population had been blinded by a "meteor shower" and Triffids, carnivorous plants, capable of movement, previously farmed for their oil, were picking off the survivors. It seemed implausible but the story was credible and reflected the world at the time when it was written at the height of the Cold War. The mysterious meteor shower was presumably a Cold War mistake that was a weapon failure by the Soviet Union or the US; The triffids were seen, figuratively, as Britain's colonies and their strive for independence after WWII when Britain was broke and unable to meet the needs of its vast empire.

The book has been uniformly praised by both critics and the public. In 2007 Karl Edward Wagner, a noted sci-fi critic cited "The Day of the Triffids" as one of the thirteen best science fiction horror novels.

Answer: 60s

In 1963, Betty Friedan wrote "The Feminine Mystique" as she was outraged that American women had been conditioned to believe that being a housewife was their pinnacle of achievement. She sensationally stated, "The women [...] who grow up wanting to be 'just a housewife'...are in as much danger as the millions who walked to their own deaths in the concentration camps". Strong words.

Friedan coined the term "feminine mystique" in her book to describe the "assumptions that women would be fulfilled from their housework, marriage, sexual lives, and children. The prevailing belief was that women who were truly feminine should not want to work, get an education, or have political opinions".

The book sold millions of copies and established Friedan as one of the main initiators of the women's liberation and second-wave feminist movements. Her 2006 "New York Times" obituary perhaps said it best: [The book] "ignited the contemporary women's movement in 1963 and as a result permanently transformed the social fabric of the United States and countries around the world".

Answer: 70s

If John Updike's "Couples" and Richard Yates' "Revolutionary Road" documented the malaise of the American suburban sprawl and the submissive role of the housewife in the 70s, then Ira Levin's parody of the same topic, the 1972 "feminist horror" "Stepford Wives", drove the message home.

The men of suburban Stepford in Connecticut turn their wives into docile robots in their wives' images. However implausible the premise sounds, it reinforced the point that American men were uncomfortable with the concepts of feminism as they saw it as losing 'control' of their wives. The novel paints a horrific picture of men preferring docile submissive replicas of their wives rather than having a meaningful equal marriage with the real person.

Answer: 60s

Truman Capote's 1965 "In Cold Blood" was the first book that novelised a real murder. The murder involved a family of four living on a Kansas Farm. Capote went out to Kansas to investigate and when the suspects were jailed awaiting trial, he formed a close bond with one of the killers to garner information.

"In Cold Blood" was an instant critical and commercial success, considered by many to be the prototypical true crime novel. It was praised for its articulate prose, extensive detail, and triple narrative (it takes the view of the murderers, the victims, and townsfolk in alternating sequences).

"In Cold Blood" was regarded by critics as a trailblazing work in the true-crime genre. However, Capote was criticised for fictionalising some of the content and he was disappointed that the book did not win the Pulitzer Prize.

Answer: 60s

Arguably the novel that made entertainment about the mafia mainstream, Mario Puzo's 1969 "The Godfather" chronicled the rise of the Corleone family as one of New York's crime families. The novel introduced Italian terms like consigliere, caporegime, Cosa Nostra, cannoli and omerta into the English lexicon.

It is sometimes assumed that the novel was successful because of the success of the film franchise with the same name. Not so. The novel stayed on The New York Times Best Seller list for 67 weeks and sold 9.2 million copies in two years. This occurred a full year before the first movie was released.

Answer: 50s

In 1957, the "New York Times" reported, "'On the Road' is the most beautifully executed, the clearest and the most important utterance yet made by the generation Kerouac himself named years ago as 'beat,' and whose principal avatar he is."

This describes Jack Kerouac's semi-autobiographical novel about two young men's hedonistic road trips across the United States. It unapologetically described the hedonistic life on the open road in a time W. H. Auden described as an Age of Anxiety. "On The Road" became a metaphor for a (beat) generation looking fervently for a sense of place in a fast-paced, ever-changing world.

Answer: 60s

"A Kestrel for a Knave" was a 1968 novel by English author Barry Hines. It was set in a coal mining town in South Yorkshire where poverty was rampant and hope had long since died. The story follows Billy Casper, a troubled pre-teen boy at home and school who came from a broken and bullying family. His wretched life takes a turn for the better when he found and trained a kestrel (young falcon) whom he named "Kes". A brief period of respite for Billy was soon dashed when his half-brother killed the bird. Hopelessness returned. The title came from a poem in the ancient "Book of St Albans" that stated the only bird a knave (servant/lower class) person could keep legally was a kestrel.

Besides being critically acclaimed, accurately depicting the poverty of an English region two decades after the impoverishing WWII, (the novel is semi-autobiographical), the book had another other claim to fame: its film adaptation, with Hines co-writing the screenplay, became the launching pad for Ken Loach's successful movie career, as he made "Kes" his second feature film. Loach went on to write and direct a large repertoire of films predominantly concerning the plight of the working class.

Answer: 70s

If the publication of "Feminine Mystique" waved in the second wave of feminism in the 60s, then Germaine Greer stamped it with authority with her 1970 book, "The Female Eunuch". Ms Greer, an Australian academic, was furious that in middle England in the late 60s, women could not own a car or enter into a mortgage without the signature of their father or husband.

The premise of the book was that in the nuclear family setting in suburbia, a submissive housewife's sexuality was repressed to the point that they were effectively eunuchs.

The book was panned and dismissed by experts as being "fatally naive" but sold in droves, with two sold-out print runs within five months of release. It pushed feminism into new spaces that were both furious and unrelenting.

Answer: 60s

The Swinging Sixties in London was such a major part of the 1967 Winston Graham novel "The Walking Stick" that it was almost a character itself. Deborah Dainton was a mid-twenties auction house specialist who was defined by a withered leg (from childhood polio - another reminder of the era) and required a walking stick. While her upper-middle-class family were outgoing and social, Deborah preferred to be alone in her parents' house. She met Leigh Hartley, a working-class painter, at an auction house function and he persisted in getting to know her despite her discomfort of never having a partner before. He charmed her and eventually won her over. She moved into his dreary accommodation and bloomed into a confident young woman, discarding the walking stick along the way. However, he betrayed her (but not in a way you would expect) and her beliefs and values tear at her, which conflicts with her desire to stay with her flawed but 'I-love-you-much partner". Her background won and as she decided to end the relationship, she started using her walking stick again.

This was Winston Graham's most successful novel despite his editors' reservations about having a single female with a disability as a lead character. In this author's opinion, this book was the archetype of a novel that defined the 60s.

Answer: 50s

Truman Capote's 1958 novella told the story of Holly Golightly who was an unnamed narrator's neighbour in an Upper East Side Brownstone. The novella opened in 1956 when our unnamed narrator related the friendship he had with his neighbour. She had no job but relied on gifts, presents and cash from a slew of men she accompanied to social events. (Capote went to some length to make it clear she was not a prostitute but an 'American Geisha'). She may have had a troubled past but she appeared to be striving for a 'better' life by hoping one of her male companions might marry her.

There were major differences between the book and the subsequent movie. The movie was rather superficial and the ending in the movie had a typical Hollywood-Happy-Ever-After ending whereas the novel had both darker themes and a not-too-optimistic ending.

No more so was the difference between the two than in the title: The irony of Holly's outer persona clashing with her inner aspirations was reflected in the recurring image of the expensive jewellery store Tiffany's in Mid-town Manhattan, a place she visits regularly and associated not with the socialite glamour of her life but with the safety and peace of mind of having a home (but one she knows was unattainable). This peaceful feeling was something she did not feel anywhere else. There was a sense of irony in Holly finding such a meaningful feeling in a superficial place. Capote challenged his readers to look beyond a shallow view of Holly and sympathise with her, seeing Tiffany's as a symbol of the financial security and social stability that Holly yearns for but would never obtain.

Also in the movie, the boy and girl got together in the end. However, Capote's prose is much darker: the narrator is more of an observer than an active participant. Holly left New York and the narrator was left wondering about her well-being at the end of the book.

Answer: 50s

The James Bond character has been manipulated so much in a huge number of movies, that the character has almost become a parody of the literary character devised by Ian Fleming. In 1953, Great Britain was still reeling from WWII and in the midst of a Cold War. Fleming had a background in both the Navy and Intelligence, so he was well-credentialed to create the spy James Bond. He debuted in Fleming's first novel, "Casino Royale". It featured the glamour of the spy network, exotic locations, action and a suave protagonist (who would have been considered a brute in the 21st century). It was about as far away from the austerity of Britain in the fifties as one could imagine. With the pall of the cold war hanging over Britons' heads straight after the horror and financial crippling of WWII, Britons felt good to have someone like Bond on their side.

Hardly a literary masterpiece, nevertheless, it sold extremely well and was the first of eleven full-length James Bond novels from Fleming.

Answer: 70s

Riding on the wave of second-wave feminism with such influences as Friedan and Greer, Erica Jong's "Fear of Flying" (1973) had a much more focused feminist intent. By chronicling Isadora's (Jong's protagonist) travel through Europe in search of herself (despite a morbid fear of flying), this book brought sex out from under the covers (sorry about the pun) and put it on the mainstream literary stage.

Like Fleming's "Casino Royale", it had little exemplary literary merit except it told a good story. The "New York Times" review stated it "...electrified and titillated the critical establishment". John Updike, himself a '70s "literary influencer" with "Couples" (1974), called it "fearless".

Answer: 60s

Ken Kesey's seminal "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", published in 1962, was a powerful novel that emphasised the struggle for individuality, the consequences of social conformity, the effects of misplaced power and above all, the dehumanising effects of institutionalisation. In an oversimplified manner, the plot revolved around a petty crook being admitted to a mental hospital to avoid jail time and subsequently challenged the policies and procedures of the facility.

The book was released during a time of both social and cultural upheaval, and it became an enduring symbol of countercultural resistance. It raised issues around mental health and contemporary society's treatment of the mentally ill.

Answer: 70s

The 70s were the Decade of Stephen King. While "Carrie" (1974), and "'Salem's Lot" (1975) were both mega-sellers, "The Shining" (1977) was his first novel to become a hardcover bestseller, meaning readers were prepared to spend big money to get a copy.

While King was able to tackle horror better than most of his predecessors, this novel was a tour de force as it chronicled the journey of one man's slow descent into abject insanity: the horror came from within the person himself - not external forces - a realisation that both informed and terrified his readers. The remote and lonely location described in perfect detail by King only emphasised the protagonist's mad journey.

Answer: 70s

Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward were two "Washington Post" reporters who, with their dogged investigation into what became known as the Watergate Affair, brought down a president. "All the President's Men" (1974) was their non-fiction chronicle of what was arguably the most influential piece of journalism in history. The two authors changed the country with this book.

The title of the book alludes to "Humpty Dumpty", a nursery rhyme, in particular, the line "All the king's horses and all the king's men / Couldn't put Humpty together again".

The two reporters won a Pulitzer Prize for their work.

Answer: 50s

In this terrifying 1957 novel by Nevil Shute (a Briton who emigrated to Australia), a small group of people in southern Australia await their deadly fate from the impending arrival of deadly radiation from the winds blowing from the northern half of the planet. The nuclear fallout is the result of a nuclear war in the northern hemisphere which has killed the entire population. Like Wyndham's "Day of the Triffids", the cause of the nuclear disaster is in the shadows but given the book was written during the Cold War, and only twelve years after the dropping of the atomic bomb, the subject matter was realistic.

The plot concerned the discussion and activities of this small group of people as they calmly accepted their fate. Mr Shute is not known to imbue his characters with self-pity or any intense emotion at all. These characters, mostly Australians and a few Americans, all display, ironically, a British stiff upper lip here.

"On the beach" is a Royal Navy term meaning "retirement from service" which is appropriate here. However, the poem, "The Hollow Men" by TS Eliot is also referenced as it includes the lines:
"In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river."
And its conclusion:
"This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper."

The novel's reception when published was almost universally acclaimed. The "San Francisco Chronicle" was quoted as reporting, "the most shocking fiction I have read in years. What is shocking about it is both the idea and the sheer imaginative brilliance with which Mr. Shute brings it off."
This certainly was a novel that defined the 50s.