Beyond the Gray Flannel Suit: Books from the 1950s that Made American CultureA&C Black, 1 בספט׳ 2004 - 208 עמודים This examination and celebration of the literature and thought of the 1950s throws the enduring works of a golden era into high relief. An unconventional tour of a crucial period in 20th-century culture, the present book avoids sweeping surveys and gets to the heart of major achievement. After the great renaissance of the 1920s and early 1930s, American modernism seemed to be stalled, to be awaiting another burst of talent. The post-World War II period provided that new energy and genius, with book after book that broke through the ordinary realistic atmosphere of bestseller lists, and offered experimentation, arresting content, and transformation of old literary forms. In short, from the late 1940s through the JFK years, America was the home office of literary innovation. Writers forged new styles with the rapidly changing times, and generated new ideas that fit the challenges of late modernity. Beyond the Gray Flannel Suit shows how particular landmark books took on the hot-button subjects of the 1950s—race and religious difference; social class and the suburbs; the youth culture; rebellion, conformity, and groupthink; the telling conflicts over taste and judgment—and how, in the process, whether we realize it or not, this body of super-charged literature shaped today's American culture. |
תוכן
Introduction | 9 |
Breaking Through | 32 |
Holden Dean and Allen | 55 |
Angst Inc | 77 |
Rough Customers | 94 |
The New Observers | 110 |
The Eggheads | 133 |
WASP Catholic Black Jewish | 160 |
Naturalism Reinvented | 187 |
Acknowledgments | 202 |
מהדורות אחרות - הצג הכל
מונחים וביטויים נפוצים
Adventures Algren's Ameri American artist audience Augie March avant-garde Baldwin Bellow's Catcher century characters Cheever classic clichés comic critical D. H. Lawrence Dawn Powell Dean decency Dwight Macdonald Eliot Ellison's essay everything experience feel Ginsberg's girl Gray Flannel Suit Greenberg Highsmith hipster Holden human Humbert ideas illusions intellectual irony Jarrell Jarrell's Jewish Johnny Kerouac kind kitsch Lionel Trilling literary literature lives Lolita look Magic Barrel Mailer Malamud Married a Dead mass culture mind modern moral movie Nabokov naturalistic Neil ness never noir novel O'Connor's passion Patimkin Patrice play postwar protagonist Rabbit race readers Revolutionary Road Rosenberg Sal Paradise Salinger Salinger's scene seems sense sentiment Shady Hill social society spirit story style talk taste things tion Tom Ripley Trilling Trilling's truth trying Updike Urban vision wants wife woman Woolrich writers young