Books set during extraordinary, unique circumstances (detailed within)

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I'm looking for books that take place mostly within temporary autonomous zones, not of the rave or Burning Man variety, but rather, for example, Tiananmen Square in May 1989, Paris in May 1968, or even Columbia University in April 1968 -- places and times where standard governing and practices were suspended and something else existed for a little while (but not necessarily due to protests, these are just the examples I have been thinking of). Preferably fiction (where the author has done his or her research), or exceptional non-fiction. Film or documentary suggestions also welcomed.

― W i l l (common_person), Monday, 2 May 2005 23:17 (twenty years ago)

fiction set in, specifically, non-fictional examples? hooboy.

pynchon's vineland pivots around one situation of this sort: but the body of it is all years on.

― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 02:29 (twenty years ago)

mailer's Armies Of The Night, obv. I'm sure some sections of Dos Passos' U.S.A. would qualify. hmm...

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 03:01 (twenty years ago)

and well gravity's rainbow yes no?

― Josh (Josh), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 05:45 (twenty years ago)

oh haha yeah "the zone" by frikin definition. really m&d too when you think about it.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 12:19 (twenty years ago)

"Dhalgren" by Samuel Delany.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 13:37 (twenty years ago)

War and Peace!

― ryan (ryan), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 14:37 (twenty years ago)

"camp concentration" by thomas disch. altho it's a fictional autonomous zone which is not really what you're looking for probably...

― carolyn, Tuesday, 3 May 2005 15:33 (twenty years ago)

I'm pretty open as far as suggestions go, more so than my original post makes it seem. These are good suggestions, thanks all.

I'm a little surprised that maybe very little (or nothing?) has been written with Tiananmen or Paris as setting -- seems to me these would be ripe grounds for exciting, topical historical fiction. But maybe it's too soon after, or just too difficult to do right. I imagine primary sources from Tiananmen are difficult to come by, for instance.

― W i l l (common_person), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 17:30 (twenty years ago)

book of daniel by doctorow about the rosenberg trial, the events surrounding it and the aftermath. not exactly what you asked again, but it is exciting and topical.

― dja, Tuesday, 3 May 2005 17:43 (twenty years ago)

Is Dhalgren worth reading, by the way? I've had this copy forever...

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 21:36 (twenty years ago)

Jesus fuck christ yes Dhalgren is worth reading!

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 22:19 (twenty years ago)

hmm...kind of half-liked/half-felt sort of underwhelmed by dhalgren when i first read it. hope to get onto his biog soon-ish.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 11:19 (twenty years ago)

I started "Dhalgren" and got about a hundred pages into it once. I'll probably try it again at some point, since I have it sitting on my bookshelf too. It's interesting, though also a bit frustrating.

― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 13:14 (twenty years ago)

(However, it was the first thing I thought of in terms of a fictional portrayal of a "temporary autonomous zone" as the original question posed it - though obviously it is not based on a real historical event.)

― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 13:16 (twenty years ago)

Terrence Cheng's Sons of Heaven is written from the perspectives of three Chinese during the Tiananmen Square massacre. While I wasn't blown away buy this book, I loved the concept and found it pretty interesting.

― zan, Wednesday, 4 May 2005 13:20 (twenty years ago)

Sorry, I meant "while I wasn't blown away BY this book"... Subliminal forces at work; I used to know the author.

― zan, Wednesday, 4 May 2005 13:21 (twenty years ago)

A good WW2 parallel read is:
The Human Species (l'Espece Humaine) by Robert Antelme - sent to Bergen-Belsen
The War: A Memoir (La Douleur) by Marguerite Duras - Antelme's lover, remained in France, fought with the resistance and nursed him back to health after he was freed

― Madchen (Madchen), Thursday, 5 May 2005 11:41 (twenty years ago)

That's a great suggestion, thanks. I love the parallel reading idea:serendipitously, I was in the middle of "America Day By Day", Simone de Beauvoir's travelogue of her visit to the US in 1947, when what should be the cover story of the new Atlanic but the first of Bernard Henri-Levi's American journey essays. Made reading the BHL much more enjoyable/worthwhile.

― W i l l (common_person), Thursday, 5 May 2005 15:52 (twenty years ago)

(It took me a few tries to get hooked on Dhalgren, as well -- the opening is fairly rough going.)

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 5 May 2005 16:36 (twenty years ago)

Ack, I should check things before I write them down. It's translated as the Human Race, not Species and it was Buchenwald, not Belsen. Soz!

― Madchen (Madchen), Friday, 6 May 2005 09:26 (twenty years ago)

Orwell - Homage to Catalonia, Malroux - Man's Fate?

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Saturday, 7 May 2005 13:20 (twenty years ago)

I can think of three:

"The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera - Prague 1968

"Ten Days that Shook the World by John Reed - Firsthand account of the October Revolution in Russia

"Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens - This is actually the first one that came to mind, though I don't know if it fit the "author doing his research" stipulation (he cribbed most of the details from Carlyle).

― Mark Klobas, Sunday, 8 May 2005 15:49 (twenty years ago)

Mason and Dixon totally qualifies.

Gombrowicz - Ferdydurke?

― Matt (Matt), Sunday, 8 May 2005 21:25 (twenty years ago)

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