A number of people have asked for a copy of the recommendations I
received for my Interwar Europe course so I thought sending it out to the
entire list made sense. Thanks again for everyone's help.
Joanne Klein
University of South Carolina
joannek@uscsumter.uscsu.scarolina.edu
INTERWAR BOOK LIST
(with some comments; accuracy not guaranteed)
INTERNATIONAL
Orwell, George, 'Down and Out in Paris and London'. Advantage
of a two-country approach, and is excellent for examining issues of
poverty, economic downturn, and social welfare; the captivating
comparison of the Paris and London underworlds, about experiments
Orwell did in 1933, with Hitler's advent in Germany as a recurrent
background echo.
Silkin, Jon, ed., 'The Penguin Book of First World War
Poetry,' 1984. It has all the classics and a good selection of
translations from German, French, and Russian.
ENGLAND
Barker, Pat, 'Regeneration', for World War I
Bowen, Elizabeth, 'The Heat of the Day'
Brittain, Vera, 'Testament of Youth'. It is a wonderful book
for giving a view of a particular time and class, but rather long
for undergraduates. Save it for an especially promising class.
Coward, Noel, 'Cavalcade'
Coward, Noel, 'Post-Mortem'
Graves, Robert, 'Good-bye to All That' if you can get the
unexpurgated version (which I understand is now back in print). It
spares nothing, but seems to me more balanced than Remarque, and
Graves comments on the psychology of war (with Siegfried Sassoon as
his example) have something timeless to say.
Greene, Graham, 'It's A Battlefield'. may not be a great
novel, but it is interesting in terms of technique and in its
treatment of interwar popular culture.
Greenwood, Walter, 'Love on the Dole'. You can close your
eyes and see Lowry's paintings or Coronation Street as it then was.
I have found it a very popular book with students, once they have
caught on to the dialect.
Huxley, Aldous, 'Antic Hay'
Huxley, Aldous, 'Brave New World'
Huxley, Aldous, 'Crome Yellow'
Huxley, Aldoud, 'Point Counter Point' funny, acerbic and very
pointed commentaries on British society and intellectual life
Lehmann, Rosamund, 'Dusty Answer' is an excellent novel for
exploring questions of modernism and sexual identity in the
interwar period. The students love it.
Muggeridge, Malcolm, 2-volume autobiography, "Chronicles of
Wasted Time," by British novelist and journalist, a surprising
amount of diverse material; but Muggeridge is not for everyone.
Orwell, George, '1984'
Orwell, George, 'Animal Farm'
Orwell, George, 'Burmese Days'
Orwell, George, 'Keep the Aphidistra Flying'
Orwell, George, 'The Road to Wigan Pier'
Owen, Wilfrid, 'War Poems'
Sayers, Dorothy L., 'Murder Must Advertise'
Smith, Stevie, 'Yellow Paper'
Waugh, Evelyn, 'A Handful of Dust'
Waugh, Evelyn, 'Brideshead Revisited'
Waugh, Evelyn, 'A Handful of Dust'
Waugh, Evelyn, 'Vile Bodies'
Wells, H.G. 'The Shape of Things to Come'
West, Rebecca, 'Return of the Soldier'
Wodeshouse, P.G. 'The Code of the Woosters'
Woolf, Virginia, 'A Room of One's Own'; also from BBC; aired
on Masterpiece Theater a few years ago. It sacrifices some of the
richness of the book, but makes it more approachable for students.
Woolf, Virginia, 'Mrs Dalloway'
Woolf, Virginia, 'Three Guineas'
Woolf, Virginia, 'To the Lighthouse'
FRANCE
Ayme, Marcel, 'The Green Mare'
Ayme, Marcel, 'Travellingue'.
Barbusse, Henri, 'Le Feu'. re: World War I
Breton, 'Nadja'
Camus, Albert, 'La Peste'. For the western front
Camus, Albert, 'Lettres a` un ami allemand'
Celine, Louis-Ferdinand, 'Guignol's Band'.
Celine, Louis-Ferdinand, 'Journey to the End of the Night'.
should also result in a discussion of his subsequent anti-semitic
pro-Vichy transition ... It gave some idea of the Fascist
imagination, and of the feeling of separateness of veterans who
returned home from the war.
Dorgeles, Roland, 'Les Croix de bois'. re: World War I
Giraudoux, 'Bella' be particularly good (his caricature of
Poincare is to die for), but I don't think it's been translated.
Hemingway, Ernest, 'A Moveable Feast' on the Paris of the 20s,
which is more on the side of literary anecdotes.
Margueritte, Victor 'La Garconne'
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 'Age of Reason'
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 'Nausea'
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 'Le Mur.'
Vercors, 'Le Silence de la mer.' In the collection of that
title, also the novella "L'Imprimerie de Verdun." His short story
"Le Cheval et la mort" in the same collection is a real sleeper.
GERMANY
Fallada, Hans, 'Little Man, What Now?' on Perot-type
sentiments behind Nazi support and on the impact of the Depression
in Germany and the rise of the extremes. At the end of the novel
it is not clear which direction the protagonist, a poor sales
clerk, will turn, to the Left or the Right, only that he will turn
to one of the extremes. It is a poignant, very readable novel that
beautifully captures the despair of ordinary Germans in the early
1930s.
Goebbels, Josef, 'Michael.' If you really want to plumb the
Nazoid youth.
Hasek, J. 'Good Soldier Schweik'
Isherwood, Chistopher, 'Berlin Diary'. very good on the
English perspective abroad.
Mann, Klaus, 'Mephisto'. A good interwar novel that works
well in an exploration of fascism.
Serge, Victor, 'Conquered City'
ITALY
Levi, Carlo, Christ Stopped at Eboli', Italian fascism
Moravia, Andre, 'The Conformist' for fascism
Silone, Ignazio, 'Bread and Wine'
Silone, Ignazio, 'Fontamara'
SPAIN
Hemingway, Ernest, 'For Whom the Bell Tolls'.
Malraux, Andre, 'L'Espoir'. Deals with Spanish civil war.
Malraux, Andre, Man's Hope' on Spanish civil war
Orwell, George, 'Homage to Catalonia'. It raises the issue of
politics above simple left/right dichotomy and forces one to
confront the multiple splits on the left, particularly between
anarchists and Communists; it allows students to ponder the
connections between politics and individual commitment both for the
Spaniards described and for Orwell himself; it permits one to
place Spain's conflicts in the context of larger European issues;
and it even includes reasonably good descriptions of a variety of
trench warfare. Beware, however, for average students often find
the multitudinous acronyms for the various parties bewildering.
SOVIET UNION
Ginzgurg, Eugenia, 'Into the Whirlwind'. True, it is not a
novel, but Ginzburg's personal account of her time in the Stalinist
purges of the 30s was very effective in bringing home the realities
of the period to my students.
Gladkov, 'Cement' assuming your students want to "slog"
through a bit of Socialist Realism
Koestler, Arthur, 'Darkness at Noon'
Mandelstam, 'Hope Against Hope' on Stalin and the purges
Petrov, 'The Twelve Chairs' a good satire on NEP
Sholokhov, 'And Quiet Flows the Don.' Excellent for the
Russian point of view
BALKANS
Andric, Ivo, 'The Bridge on the Drina'. It explores the
ethnic tensions currently exploding in Bosnia. However, it begins
around 1600, and thus is more of an epic than a novel of the
Twentieth Century. Nevertheless, it culminates in the outbreak of
war in the Balkans in 1914. Andric himself was imprisoned by the
Austrians during the First World War for nationalist activities on
behalf of the Serbs. Much of his effort in the book is to explain
the complex conjucture of cultures and the impact of Austrian
annexation on the life of Bosnia and its peoples.
MOVIES
"The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari"
"The Great Dictator"
"Metropolis"
"Modern Times"
"The Testament of Dr. Mabuse"
"Things to Come"
"Triumph of the Will"