Reading the 20th Century discussion

We've been having quite a bit of discussion in the thread about Down and Out in Paris and London about changing social trends and attitudes over the 20th century.

So here is a dedicated thread to discuss these themes, including shifting class structures, attitudes to minority communities, sex and gender, etc! We can always split off into more threads if needed - and we do already have a dedicated thread for feminism and women's rights.

I wasn't sure what to call this thread, so if anyone can think of a better name please let me know.

Such a wide range of potential topics!
Today is International Women's Day. Anyone seen the article about the strikes in Spain?
Women have been asked to also go on strike in the home.
How have attitudes to roles in the home changed over the years?
Are the changes class related, driven by the media? Do some women feel their role in the home is under threat?

I've seen reports about the strikes in Spain. I don't know a great deal about Spain, I'll admit, but would be interested to read more about changes in society there.

Here is a BBC article about today's events:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europ...

Has anybody read any good books about life in major European cities (or anywhere else in the world) looking at the experience of immigrants and minority communities, including firsthand accounts and memoirs as well as more general studies?

This question is arising out of our discussion of Down and Out in Paris and London. There are lots of books on this type of theme of course.

One I remember being very powerful is Second Class Citizen by Buchi Emecheta - I misremembered this as a memoir, but it is actually a novel, although very close to the facts of her own life, about a young Nigerian woman moving to London in the 1960s. Looking up information, I see this was actually a sequel to In the Ditch and I must have read the two books together under the title Adah's Story.

Judy wrote: "Has anybody read any good books about life in major European cities (or anywhere else in the world) looking at the experience of immigrants and minority communities, including firsthand accounts and memoirs as well as more general studies? "

I've only ever heard good things about White Teeth by Zadie Smith

I can personally recommend Journey Through A Small Planet by Emanuel Litvinoff which is wonderful....

In Journey Through a Small Planet (1972), the writer Emanuel Litvinoff recalls his working-class Jewish childhood in the East End of London: a small cluster of streets right next to the city, but worlds apart in culture and spirit. With vivid intensity Litvinoff describes the overcrowded tenements of Brick Lane and Whitechapel, the smell of pickled herring and onion bread, the rattle of sewing machines and chatter in Yiddish. He also relates stories of his parents, who fled from Russia in 1914, his experiences at school and a brief flirtation with Communism. Unsentimental, vital and almost dream like, this is a masterly evocation of a long-vanished world.

Two novels I found very moving: The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota and The Road Home by Rose Tremain. (Both 21st century, though!)

Miss M wrote: "The Road Home by Rose Tremain"


I can't wait to read it. I'm on my third Rose Tremain at the moment, a collection of her short stories called The Darkness Of Wallis Simpson (2005).

Not sure if this is where I should put this, but it touches on the topic of anti-Semitism before WWI so I figured I would put it here.
I'm currently reading Addicted to Romance: The Life and Adventures of Elinor Glyn and it mentions the prevalence of anti-Semitism. But even though many around her were such, Mrs. Glyn actually had a lot of respect for Jews. And apparently when one of her former friends was writing virulently anti-Semitic comments in her memoirs, Elinor included this conversation in her novel The Career of Katherine Bush

"You found Jews agreeable to work with?"
"Very. You know where you are with them. They do not pretend, and they are very generous."
"Indeed!"
"Yes. People have a preconceived notion of Jews, I find, quite faulty as a rule. They know what to pay for. They are far less fools than other races. I respect them."

Overall, I find Elinor Glyn to be a rather fascinating person. Quite old fashioned and even puritanical in some respects and very modern in others. Apparently, many of her novels were used to show the society around her as it was and she included many things from her own life and those around her in her books.

It is interesting how many people seem to be defensive about their own anti-Semitism. I recently read The Work I Did: A Memoir of the Secretary to Goebbels about a young girl who worked for Goebbels propaganda department. Her interviews were fascinating. She actually had Jewish employers, who she liked and who were very kind to her. Yet, when they had less money (due to government sanctions) and she got a new job in a radio station and, later, the propaganda ministry, she really did not see that she was doing anything wrong, or that she was in any way involved.

She actually had a close Jewish friend (who later died in a concentration camp) but she just never delved deep enough to find out what was going on, or closed her eyes to the world around her, in order to make more money and improve her own career. It was a really fascinating read about how willfully blind people can be, and are, about the intolerance around them and how they feel other people are not their business.

Having read the two previous comments, I asked myself how many people from different backgrounds I know and why.
The previous posts referred the the preconceptions and in particular of Jewish people. I asked myself, how many Jewish people I knew and then asked more wider ranging questions about how many people I know from different backgrounds and why. How can I change that, how can I meet more people from different backgrounds?
I recall reading the book Across the Barricades by Joan Lingard at school which addresses the issues regaring the troubles in Northern Ireland and the prospect of inter-religious relationships.

Thanks Lynaia - Elinor Glyn is a new name to me. I'm intrigued.

I always think of Elinor Glyn and the tiger skin:

"Would you like to sin
With Elinor Glyn
On a tiger skin?
Or would you prefer
To err
With her
On some other fur?"

She was scandalous in her time and invented the idea of having 'It,' as that unnamed quality.

I think I first came across her in The Viceroy's Daughters: The Lives of the Curzon Sisters as she had an affair with Lord Curzon. The above is a fabulous read by the way.

As a fan of older films, I've come across Elinor Glyn in the silent film It, starring Clara Bow, based on her short story with the same title. The film is a fun romp as far as I remember, and the author herself puts in an appearance on screen to explain the concept of It and the It Girl!

One way society has changed is in attitudes towards women who have affairs or premarital sex. I don't think the women are considered any more scandalous than the men now, which is a big change.

Yes, I do recall reading The Bolter: Edwardian Heartbreak and High Society Scandal in Kenya and still feeling scandalised that a woman left her children (I suppose that is something that doesn't change - men can leave their wives and children without too much comment, or maybe more understanding, but the issue of motherhood is very emotive).

Leaving one's children is perhaps more scandalous now than it was then, when mothers were far less likely to get custody than fathers.

Good point, Val.

Michael wrote: "Having read the two previous comments, I asked myself how many people from different backgrounds I know and why.
The previous posts referred the the preconceptions and in particular of Jewish peopl..."

Most of the Jewish people I have known were people I either went to school with (mainly 3rd grade through high school) or worked with. Certainly the only ones I knew who kept Kosher were at work. The ones I knew in school I only discovered they were Jewish when they weren't at school on Jewish holidays. Quite literally, there would half of a class or less attending on those days.

My first experience with bigotry was hearing about my grandfather from Belfast and how they would throw eggs at Catholic church signs (and call them RCs). Because I did go to school with Catholics as well.

I lived in a very Caucasian neighborhood in my town which was the home of a university, one African-American attended my grade school one year. We also had one Southerner (another exotic not normally encountered in my town), one Japanese-American and one boy who had come from China and spoke no English. Unfortunately, he didn't graduate with us.

When I went to junior high/middle school there was more variety in the attendees.

Some great suggestions of books in this thread - it would be great to read Journey through a Small Planet after reading the lovely novella A Kid for Two Farthings, and get a more detailed picture of London East-End Jewish life.

Judy wrote: "Some great suggestions of books in this thread - it would be great to read Journey through a Small Planet after reading the lovely novella A Kid for Two Farthings, and get a more detailed picture of London East-End Jewish life. "

They do indeed complement each other wonderfully well Judy

I was fortunate to grow up in very well integrated communities, so I have always had friends from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, but I don't think I met any Jewish people until I went to university, although I may have without knowing.

Susan wrote: "I always think of Elinor Glyn and the tiger skin:

"Would you like to sin
With Elinor Glyn
On a tiger skin?
Or would you prefer
To err
With her
On some other fur?"

She was scandalous in her time a..."

What I found interesting while reading this biography on her is that she really did not approve of extramarital affairs and even turned down a man she loved during the earlier years of her marriage. It wasn't until she gave up on trying to have a relationship with her husband that she started to have affairs herself. Her first tiger skin was purchased in an attempt to seduce her husband by lying on it when he came home but he just blew her off and got angry at her for spending the money on it. After she was told she couldn't have any more children after her 2nd child, her husband had no interest in her anymore. Quite sad really.

That is sad, Lynaia. All that effort and he complained about the cost? Typical...

Here are two interesting links relevant to this thread topic.
The first documentary is an English look at Australia in 1976, a Whicker's World program, with a guest appearances by Alf Garnett.
The second is a Python look at Whicker's World.

https://youtu.be/jLdhWv-_Kao
https://youtu.be/Cn8Pua5rhj4

I remember Whicker's World well, Greg!

I well remember the Python one from watching as a child. Thanks Greg.

I'm currently reading...




The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren: The Biography (2020)

by

Paul Gorman

He spent a lot of time and energy trying to change social attitudes and inspiring new trends

I’m loving it. If you’re interested in him and his life then I recommend it



More about The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren: The Biography (2020)…

'Excellent . . . With this book, Gorman convincingly moves away from the ossified image of McLaren as a great rock'n'roll swindler, a morally bankrupt punk Mephistopheles, and closer towards his art-school roots, his love of ideas. Tiresome, unpleasant, even cruel - he was, this book underlines, never boring' Sunday Times

'Exhaustive . . . compelling' Observer

'This masterful and painstaking biography opens its doorway to an era of fluorescent disenchantment and outlandish possibility' Alan Moore

Malcolm McLaren was one of the most culturally significant but misunderstood figures of the modern era. Ten years after his life was cruelly cut short by cancer, The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren sheds fascinating new light on the public achievements and private life of this cultural iconoclast and architect of punk, whose championing of street culture movements including hip-hop and Voguing reverberates to this day. With exclusive contributions from friends and intimates and access to private papers and family documents, this biography uncovers the true story behind this complicated figure.

McLaren first achieved public prominence as a rebellious art student by making the news in 1966 after being arrested for burning the US flag in front of the American Embassy in London. He maintained this incendiary reputation by fast-tracking vanguard and left-field ideas to the centre of the media glare, via his creation and stewardship of the Sex Pistols and work with Adam Ant, Boy George and Bow Wow Wow. Meanwhile McLaren's ground-breaking design partnership with Vivienne Westwood and his creation of their visionary series of boutiques in the 1970s and early '80s sent shockwaves through the fashion industry.

The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren also essays McLaren's exasperating Hollywood years when he broke bread with the likes of Steven Spielberg though his slate of projects, which included the controversial Heavy Metal Surf Nazis and Wilde West, in which Oscar Wilde introduced rock'n'roll to the American mid-west in the 1880s, proved too rich for the play-it-safe film business.

With a preface by Alan Moore, who collaborated with McLaren on the unrealised film project Fashion Beast, and an essay by Lou Stoppard casting a twenty-first-century perspective over his achievements, The Life & Times Of Malcolm McLaren is the explosive and definitive account of the man dubbed by Melvyn Bragg 'the Diaghilev of punk'.

That reminds me that I've been meaning to read something about Vivienne Westwood, maybe Vivienne Westwood: Fashion, Perversity, and the Sixties Laid Bare - I wish I'd remembered when we were nominating for youth culture/counterculture. Have you read anything about her, Nigeyb?

We were also talking some time ago about reading something about Francis Bacon - I went to see his incredibly powerful exhibition at the RA last week which I'd highly recommend and it made me think again about books: The Gilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon comes to mind (but probably because that's such a great title!)

Anyone have recommendations or interested in a buddy read?

Roman Clodia wrote:


"Have you read anything about Vivienne Westwood Nigeyb?"

I haven't. But The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren: The Biography is making me think I should put that right


"The Gilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon....

....interested in a buddy read?"

I would certainly join you in a buddy read of The Gilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon

It's one I have been meaning to read for a while


I've read another book by Daniel Farson which I enjoyed...

...Soho In The Fifties

Review here...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Nigeyb wrote: "I would certainly join you in a buddy read of The Gilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon"

Hurrah! How would you feel about reading it in May, going with it while our enthusiasm is hot? I'll post on the buddy reads thread to see if anyone else would like to join us. If you'd rather do it later though, just say.

I'd love to read something on Westwood too at some point.

Interesting that Farson was part of that Soho group and therefore has a personal investment in the book. I also heard that Bacon had some connections with the Beat writers who, as you know, I love.

May is perfect


Let’s do it

I've set it all up RC


Looking forward to it

Nigeyb wrote: "I'm currently reading...The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren: The Biography (2020)"

Thanks, Nigeyb - I'll look that out.

You've probably already seen it, but I liked the film The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle. Hopeless for historical accuracy, but a fascinating and enjoyable ramble through the ego of McLaren and some sort of an insight into the Sex Pistols and the punk era as a whole.

Yes indeed Sid, I know the Swindle


The best Pistols film is Julien Temple’s The Filth & The Fury

Nigeyb wrote: "I'm currently reading...




The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren: The Biography (2020)

by

Paul Gorman

He spent a lot of time and energy trying to change social at..."

Now you've got me puzzling about where I came across his name the other day. I think it was in a list of other people and can't remember now what it was about.

Nigeyb wrote:



"I'm currently reading...

The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren: The Biography (2020)

by

Paul Gorman

He spent a lot of time and energy trying to change social attitudes and inspiring new trends

I’m loving it. If you’re interested in him and his life then I recommend it"

Finished

Loved it

5/5

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I've just finished....



Scorcha! Skins, Suedes and Style from the Streets 1967-1973 (2021) by Paul 'Smiler' Anderson and Mark Baxter


If you are interested British youth culture then the hefty hardback is nigh on essential

Review here....

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Really great, and much better than I was expecting.

5/5