Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1969

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Poll Results

OptionVotes
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut 12
The Left Hand Of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin 11
Ubik by Philip K. Dick 3
The Unfortunates by B.S. Johnson 2
Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle by Vladimir Nabokov 2
Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth 2
The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles 2
Master And Commander by Patrick O'Brian 1
Runaway Horses by Yukio Mishima 1
The Exchange by Yury Trifonov 0
Conversations In The Cathedral by Mario Vargas Llosa 0
Jacob The Liar by Jurek Becker 0
The Safety Matches by Robert Sabatier 0
Bovine Bugles by V.K.N. 0
Local Anaesthetic by Gunter Grass 0
Black Barons by Miloslav Švandrlík 0
The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin by Vladimir Voinovich 0
Life Is Elsewhere by Milan Kundera 0
The Wedding Of Zein by Tayeb Salih 0
A Void by Georges Perec 0
Turkish Delight by Jan Wolkers 0
The Treasure Of Vaghia by Georges Sari 0
Tent Of Miracles by Jorge Amado 0
Strumpet City by James Plunkett 0
Heartbreak Tango by Manuel Puig 0
Rebel by Bediako Asare 0
Mrs. Eckdorf in O'Neill's Hotel by William Trevor 0
Miss Silver's Past by Josef Škvorecký 0
Les Guérillères by Monique Wittig 0
Creezy by Félicien Marceau 0
The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood 0
Pictures Of Fidelman: An Exhibition by Bernard Malamud 0
Nog by Rudolph Wurlitzer 0
The Lolly-Madonna War by Sue Grafton 0
The Golem by Isaac Singer 0
Bullet Park by John Cheever 0
Blind Man With A Pistol by Chester Himes 0
The Big Bounce by Elmore Leonard 0
A Special Providence by Richard Yates 0
Them by Joyce Carol Oates 0
Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down by Ishmael Reed 0
Anna, I, Anna by Klaus Rifbjerg 0
Passages by Ann Quin 0
The Waterfall by Margaret Drabble 0
Travels With My Aunt by Graham Greene 0
The Secret Room by Marion Eames 0
The Four-Gated City by Doris Lessing 0
Flashman by George McDonald Fraser 0
Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer 0
The Spook Who Sat By The Door by Sam Greenlee 0


Daniel_Rf, Thursday, 20 May 2021 10:35 (four years ago)

The Left Hand Of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin
A Void by Georges Perec
Runaway Horses by Yukio Mishima
Passages by Ann Quin
Ubik by Philip K. Dick

Don't feel that strongly by any of this bar Ubik and Mishima lol, and as I haven't voted for the latter iirc I'll do that now. That tetralogy is rough in places but I like it a lot. I don't think I have ever got on with Le Guin although I really, really want to.

I also really want to read Conversations in the Cathedral. Vargas Llosa is a gap for me.

xyzzzz__, Thursday, 20 May 2021 10:50 (four years ago)

It's Vonnegut for me.

Didn't have space in the list for it, but was reminded that Satyajit Ray wrote a series of detective novels!

Also couldn't find Raymond Hitchcock's Percy, a novel about a guy who gets a dick transplant and his subsequent adventures in fucking. Wouldn't expect anyone to vote for it but from a social history pov this feels as good an artefact as any to hold up as the start of the British Seventies.

Daniel_Rf, Thursday, 20 May 2021 10:58 (four years ago)

(couldn't find space in the list, I meant, re: Percy)

Daniel_Rf, Thursday, 20 May 2021 10:58 (four years ago)

It was filmed about a year later

Chickpeas, Scamps and Beeves (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 20 May 2021 11:11 (four years ago)

The Left Hand Of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Ubik by Philip K. Dick

Hate it when three of your all-timers end up in the same year.

MLM disaster unfolding in East London Tech City (Matt #2), Thursday, 20 May 2021 12:04 (four years ago)

B.S. Johnson's "The Unfortunates" heavily features a football match (Nottingham Forest, I think?), always a plus point.

Are Animated Dads Getting Hotter? (Tom D.), Thursday, 20 May 2021 12:33 (four years ago)

Anything but Ada.

Working in the POLL Mine (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 20 May 2021 15:18 (four years ago)

The Unfortunates by B.S. Johnson
A Void by Georges Perec
Passages by Ann Quin

These are three of the greatest books ever written and when I realised in advance of this poll that A Void was also '69 it almost broke my heart. Got to give a nod to Left Hand of Darkness as also v great, and a possible winner for me if it was in a field less fierce.

Anyway, The Unfortunates is p much my favourite book, though I no longer make favourite lists in the way I once did. It was naturally the 'book in a box' form that attracted me to it, and the revelation of its location blew my mind the first time I read it (Tom D is correct on the game), but it's the writing that keeps me, the perfectly realised flow of the stream-of-consciousness, the devastation that spreads and permeates your memories.

emil.y, Thursday, 20 May 2021 15:44 (four years ago)

schlachthof-fünf

the mai tai quinn (voodoo chili), Thursday, 20 May 2021 15:47 (four years ago)

My mini advert for Passages: Hey! Do you like avant-garde writing but just wish it had more of that S&M kick? Try Passages by Ann Quin! Fill yourself up with Lacanian sex (it's more fun than it sounds).

emil.y, Thursday, 20 May 2021 15:53 (four years ago)

From this year, I've read "Slaughterhouse-Five", "Flashman" (at least I know I've read a few from this series, and I think one of them was the first one), and "Portnoy's Complaint". Also, among those that didn't make the cut, "The Andromeda Strain". Would probably vote for the Vonnegut.

o. nate, Thursday, 20 May 2021 16:11 (four years ago)

Probably will vote for Slaughterhouse Five too but wanted to put a word in for The French Lieutenant's Woman, the first book I read which worked simultaneously as a genre novel and an explicit critique of its genre, it's much better than the shitty film they made from it.

A viking of frowns, (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Thursday, 20 May 2021 16:15 (four years ago)

The Fire Engine That Disappeared by Sjowall and Wahloo was also published in 1969, and it's my favorite of their books, but with this kind of competition it would probably get shut out like The Laughing Policeman did.

A lot of impressive titles on this list, but there's no way I'm voting for anything but The Left Hand of Darkness. I'd probably vote for The Left Hand of Darkness if it were up against every book from 1960 on.

Lily Dale, Thursday, 20 May 2021 16:19 (four years ago)

Unlike several recent lists, I've read at least six of these, so I feel competent to vote.

I'm a big fan of Patrick O'Brien's seagoing novels that began with Master and Commander; I own and have happily read all twenty of them, but their excellencies are quite minor compared to Left Hand of Darkness or Slaughterhouse Five, whose excellencies in turn are very different from one another.

Much as I've enjoyed Vonnegut as a writer and social critic, Ursula Le Guin lived and wrote in my hometown, which easily provides the tie breaker, so I don't have to ponder very long between the two.

What's It All About, Althea? (Aimless), Thursday, 20 May 2021 17:36 (four years ago)

20 year old me - Vonnegut/Dick
40-odd year old me - Le Guin

Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Thursday, 20 May 2021 17:40 (four years ago)

The Left Hand Of Darkness has one of those fictional worlds you feel physically on your body even years after you last read it.

abcfsk, Thursday, 20 May 2021 17:57 (four years ago)

That passage with the really vivid sensory description of waking up in the tent might be my favorite chapter opening in literature - there's something almost unbearably moving about the POV, the way he unexpectedly jumps forward in time to show us how this lingers in his memory as the happiest time in his life.

Lily Dale, Thursday, 20 May 2021 18:52 (four years ago)

All of the ones I remember reading seemed very strong, although Portnoy's Complaint was enough Roth for me, after Goodbye, Columbus and When She Was Good---enough so far, that is (I kind of hope not forever), also Slaughterhouse-Five, The French Lieutenant's Woman, The Four-Gated City, Ubik--but I'll go with The Left Hand of Darkness for cadence and imagery of emotional release, in the discipline of fiction---whatever shortcomings might be evident in re-reading it now, the whole thing was revelatory expression---"these are the words for this"---at the time, and I gather from occasional comments later that the author felt the same way, had something of the same experience. People who like it tend to love it.

dow, Thursday, 20 May 2021 21:01 (four years ago)

Seems like non-sf 60s is a bit of a black spot for me, I've only read the le guin, dick, & vonnegut. (i know the vonnegut is one of those lucky sf books to be embraced by people who normally turn their nose up at that kind of thing.) I started Ada or Ardor for ye olde ilx book club but didn't get far.

I was born anxious, here's how to do it. (ledge), Friday, 21 May 2021 14:01 (four years ago)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

System, Sunday, 23 May 2021 00:01 (four years ago)

The Unfortunates changed my life in a medium-sized kind of way, but notwithstanding that it’s really brilliant. I’d vote for it for more or less any year, except maybe ‘74.

Tim, Sunday, 23 May 2021 05:32 (four years ago)

I mean ‘78.

Tim, Sunday, 23 May 2021 05:33 (four years ago)

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

System, Monday, 24 May 2021 00:01 (four years ago)

Ooh. I thought Le Guin was going to take this. Much as I like Vonnegut I'm a tad disappointed.

emil.y, Monday, 24 May 2021 00:23 (four years ago)

Well it was close!

Daniel_Rf, Monday, 24 May 2021 09:14 (four years ago)

Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1970

Daniel_Rf, Monday, 24 May 2021 09:55 (four years ago)

Well it was close!

Yes, very. I guess I should have voted twice.

What's It All About, Althea? (Aimless), Monday, 24 May 2021 17:48 (four years ago)

I'm intrigued by what's coming up in '78 that Tim is so passionate about, but I guess I can wait a few more polls to find out.

emil.y, Monday, 24 May 2021 17:59 (four years ago)

it's actually the Panini sticker book for the Argentina World Cup

koogs, Monday, 24 May 2021 19:46 (four years ago)

Yeah that’s why I mixed it up with 1974 but that one was West Germany of course.

Tim, Monday, 24 May 2021 19:48 (four years ago)

(it's kind of odd because Iran, Peru, Hungary, Tunisia, Scotland even, all get their own pages, whilst England gets 4 stickers - Clements, Brooking, Hughes, Keegan)

https://www.stickerpoint.net/panini-album-argentina-78-complete-with-all-stickers-p-521.html

koogs, Monday, 24 May 2021 20:41 (four years ago)

England didn’t make it to that World Cup, probs had something to do with it.

Tim, Monday, 24 May 2021 22:20 (four years ago)


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