Leftist Fiction

[Idealism]

Hey im looking for some suggestions on leftist fiction with either clear anarchist or communist themes. Whether it be about the spanish civil war or radical environmentalism or whatever else, i dont care.

[x359594]

The Iron Heel by Jack London: a prescient novel about a future fascist America highly praised by Trotsky. Crab Canning Ship by Marxist author Takiji Kobayashi. Seven Red Sundays by Ramon Sender: the first seven weeks of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War. Hermanos! by William Herrick: Herrick was a veteran of the International Brigades and this novel is a fictionalized account of his experiences. All the novels of B.Traven and especially the 6 "Jungle" novels about the Mexican Revolution (my favorite is The Rebellion of the Hanged.) Traven was a member of the Bravarian Soviet who fled to Mexico after its defeat by the counter-revolution. His real name was Ret Marut. His most famous book is The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

[ZeroNowhere]

The Iron Heel by Jack London: a prescient novel about a future fascist America highly praised by Trotsky.This novel has no merit whatsoever, IMO. The kind of bollocks Luxemburg is famous for combined with a distinct lack of good writing and a main character who is practically a self-insert.

Anyways, try 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists'. A bit reformist, but not bad. Though socialist literature has nothing on Lord Dunsany, Frank Herbert, etc.

[x359594]

This novel [The Iron Heel] has no merit whatsoever...socialist literature has nothing on Lord Dunsany, Frank Herbert, etc.

Trotsky on The Iron Heel: "...the form of the novel here represents only an armor for social analysis and prognosis. The author is intentionally sparing in his use of artistic means. He is himself interested not so much in the individual fate of his heroes as in the fate of mankind. By this, however, I don't want at all to belittle the artistic value of the work, especially in its last chapters beginning with the Chicago commune. The pictures of civil war develop in powerful frescoes. Nevertheless, this is not the main feature. The book surprised me with the audacity and independence of its historical foresight."

If by socialist literature you mean the narrow and unimaginative Stalinist style that emerged in the 1930s, you are right, at least about Dunsany.

While Dunsany is certainly a fine prose stylist, I can't say the same of Frank Herbert who's prose style is at best pedestrian and who's fiction is that of an entertaining pulp meister and little more, not much better than the prose style of the typical "proletarian" novelist. In his essay Star Ship Storm Troopers, about the incongruity of the college left's fondness for regressive science fiction, Micheal Moorcock mentions Herbert in passing as a "bourgeois reactionary".

Two more excellent novels are If He Hollers Let Him Go and In Dubious Battle by Chester Himes. Himes was a precursor of the radical African-American literature that emerged in he 1960s. His crime novels are also great, especially Run, Man, Run. Walter Mosley's detective novels are fine Leftist entertainments.

Some of the best Leftist literature has been produced by African Americans: Native Son by Richard Wright, The System of Dante's Hell by Amiri Baraka, Another Country by James Baldwin, Beloved by Toni Morrison, and many others.

[Random Precision]

All the science-fiction novels of China Miéville- particularly Perdido Street Station. He's a member of the Socialist Workers' Party in Britain. Ursula Le Guin has also written some science fiction/fantasy with strong anarchist themes.

The novels of Upton Sinclair- The Jungle is his most famous, but I personally enjoyed Oil! a lot more. This is the one that the film There Will Be Blood was loosely based on.

The Russian revolutionary Victor Serge was also a prodigious fiction writer. I've only read The Case of Comrade Tulayev and Midnight in the Century, both novels about the Stalinist purges, from him, but he also wrote a trilogy on the revolution that I mean to check out if I can ever get ahold of it.

If you're into short stories I would definitely check out Isaac Babel. He rode with the Red Cavalry during the Russian Civil War and wrote the Red Cavalry Cycle out of it, probably the best set of stories I have read. He's very much on the Bolshevik side, but also recognized the abuses of many Bolshevik soldiers and generals, which he was taken to account for during the purges.

The French novelist Émile Zola was a convinced socialist. I've only read his most famous novel, Germinal, which is the story of a strike in a French mining company town. It's one of the best books I've ever read and I definitely mean to check out more by him in the near future.

Also the Chilean novelist and poet Roberto Bolaño was a Trotskyist and worked many of his political convictions into his books. Distant Star is a story of the aftermath of the coup in Chile 1973, which Bolaño personally experienced. By Night in Chile similarly deals with the situation there, through the story of a reactionary literary critic and Jesuit priest. Also I'm working my way through his masterpiece, 2666 right now, which is firmly anticapitalist in its description of the Mexican border city Santa Teresa (a fictionalized Ciudad Juárez) which has been devastated by the effects of neoliberalism and is the setting for many brutal murders of women who work in its sweatshops, which the novel revolves around. A major theme in Bolaño is the relationship between class and literature.

Also the works of Jack London, B. Traven, etc. that comrade x359594 has already mentioned.

[Random Precision]

All the novels of B.Traven and especially the 6 "Jungle" novels about the Mexican Revolution (my favorite is The Rebellion of the Hanged.) Traven was a member of the Bravarian Soviet who fled to Mexico after its defeat by the counter-revolution. His real name was Ret Marut. His most famous book is The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Have they discovered that for sure? When I read last about the search for his real identity it was still very much undecided.

In any case, thanks very much for your recommendations. I have not read Traven except for the Sierra Madre, my local library had an odd volume of the Mexican Revolution novels, but I didn't bother with it since I'd like to read them all at once.

I also tend to think that Bolaño, who I mentioned in my last post, based his character Benno von Archimboldi in 2666 after Traven. Both are reclusive German writers with mysterious identities, both are caught up in the political disturbances of Germany (although it was World War 2 for Archimboldi) and both end up exiling themselves to Mexico. Interesting comparison even if I just made it up. :)

[Palmares]

As mentioned, Ursula K. Le Guin is a radical writer, mostly dealing with themes around gender/sexuality/ethnicity, but her most famous (and possibly best) book is very anarchistic, and is infact canon in anarchist fiction:


The story of The Dispossessed is set on Anarres (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarres) and Urras (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urras), the twin inhabited worlds of Tau Ceti (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tau_Ceti_in_fiction). Cetians are mentioned in other Ekumen novels and short stories. An Anarresti appears in the short story The Shobies' Story (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fisherman_of_the_Inland_Sea). Urras before the settlement of Anarres is the setting for the short story The Day Before the Revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind%27s_Twelve_Quarters). In The Dispossessed, Urras is divided into several states which are dominated by the two largest ones, which are rivals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dispossessed

Miyazaki incorporates radical views on environmentalism in his anime (and manga), and one notable example of this is in Princess Mononoke:


It is a period drama set specifically in the late Muromachi period (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muromachi_period) of Japan but with numerous fantastic elements and concentrates on the struggle between the supernatural guardians of a forest and the humans who consume its resources as seen by the outsider Ashitaka. "Mononoke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y%C5%8Dkai)" (物の怪 ? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Japanese)) is not a name, but a general term in the Japanese language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_language) for a spirit or monster.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Mononoke


And of course there are plenty of others...

[x359594]

Have they discovered that for sure? When I read last about the search for his real identity it was still very much undecided...

There's a general consensus that Traven was Marut though of course a couple of scholars still disagree. Will Wyatt's The Secret of the Sierra Madre makes the most convincing case.

Thanks for the Bolano reference. I hadn't heard of his work before, and I'm going to look for those titles.

[Leaf]

A lot of my socialist friends' favourite book is 'For whom the Bell tolls' by Ernest Hemmingway. It's about guerillia fighters in the Spanish Civi war.
I haven't finished it yet but it is very easy to read and very good.
It's not really about communism or anarchism but it's a great read and has historical significance for many commies.

[x359594]

A lot of my socialist friends' favourite book is 'For whom the Bell tolls' by Ernest Hemmingway. It's about guerillia fighters in the Spanish Civi war...

Tell your friends to read Hermanos! by William Herrick, a veteran of the International Brigades and a very good writer.

[Blackscare]

All the science-fiction novels of China Miéville- particularly Perdido Street Station. He's a member of the Socialist Workers' Party in Britain.


That is my favorite fiction book. :D

Happy to hear Miéville is on our side.

[Idealism]

Probably should have put this in the original question, but its for school where we have to do an extensive project on one character in the story, including letters, objects important to the character, essays that could have been written by the character (its pretty open) does this exclude the jack london book? if so, what would be another good one for said assignment

[x359594]

...we have to do an extensive project on one character in the story, including letters, objects important to the character, essays that could have been written by the character (its pretty open) does this exclude the jack london book?...

I would say not. In fact, picking a character from The Iron Heel would give you more imaginative leeway with the assignment since you'd be free to flesh out the character yourself. You'd have to imagine yourself in the milieu of the story, as that character and go on from there.

[MilitantAnarchist]

go to www.londonclasswar.org (http://www.londonclasswar.org) and download Ian Bone's book Anarchist, great read...
Obvious Orwell classics like Animal Farm, but books that aint strictly what you'd call communist or anarchist... but books by Chuck Palahniuk (he wrote Fight Club), best books by him are Lullaby, Rant, Diary, and Snuff, also Haunted is a brutal read. (also read Fight Club, book is 1million times better then the film).
Another good book my friend told me about called Breaking Bumbo, is suppose to have anarchist principles to it...
Also the Torture Garden, but cant remember who wrote that either

edited bit: i forgot to mention Chuck Palahniuk is an anarchist, all his stuff has alot of sort of, anarchist tendency in it, its very alternative to the bland shite 90% of novels are made from.

[Asoka89]

The 1930s had a bunch of Stalinist literature that featured a lot of one dimensional proletarians, I think we are beyond a lot of that.

But 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists' is great. Zola is great, most of the suggestions here that I read are great.

I'm a staunch anti-Stalinist so I feel Orwell, I know people might have different thoughts on him.

Mike Gold was a bit of "Stalinist hack", I haven't finished it though, but he released one classic book that basically made his career " Jews Without Money" is the name of the book.

Really a classic.

I'm busy now finishing up that book "Trainspotting" yeah not leftist, and also finishing up the Trotsky biography series by Issac Duescher (name?), I also have to finish some books by David Harvey, so I'm a bit overwhelmed with reading at the moment and no time to get around to it.

But great thread keep up the suggestions, im writing them down!

[Il Medico]

"For Whom the Bell Tolls" was one of the best books I have ever read. And there is always George Orwell. I would go with those two, Hemingway and Orwell.

[x359594]

...Also the Torture Garden, but cant remember who wrote that either...

Do you mean Octave Mirabeau's Torture Garden? I ask because there may be another book with that title. Mirabeau was an anarchist fellow traveler so I'm guessing you're referring to his novel.

[Le Libérer]

Thanks for the suggestions. My local library isnt the best, so Ive been searching through these titles among other lists, trying to find new leftist reading material for RS2K. I did manage to find 3 or 4 titles in this thread, and have them on hold now. :)