Working Class Literature

[Pogue]

I decided to make this thread based upon something I said in the communist poetry thread. I hope that perhaps it could get stickied. In literature aside from what would simply be books on political philosophy there is another genre not much spoken of that would be of interest to members of this board, and that is of course working class literature. By this I mean any books, poems, films etc that give an account of working class life, struggle and history, more often than not from a working class author. In my opinion, an understanding of your class is what leads to true revolutionary conciousness, and not reading theory written by some intellectual in history.

So post up and discuss your favourite pieces of working class literature.

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/5417/ragged.jpg (http://img17.imageshack.us/i/ragged.jpg/)

The first book I read of a socialist nature, it was written by Robert Tressel at the beginning of the 20th century. I was only about 14 when I read it but it had a profound impact on me. His first hand accounts (its a work of fiction but strongly based upon Tresell's experiences as a labourer for most of his life) of working class life was incredibly eye opening and his attempts to convince his workmates of his ideas was something I could relate too. Simply classic.

[UndergroundConnexion]

This looks like a well interesting topic,I'm hoping to see many additions, as myself am interested in this but do not know many books of this genre

[Angry Young Man]

I didn't care much for the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. It was funny and it explains Marxism in very simple terms, but the prose was a bit off.

I really like Look Back in Anger even though it's not like as radical.

[Pogue]

I didn't care much for the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. It was funny and it explains Marxism in very simple terms, but the prose was a bit off.

I really like Look Back in Anger even though it's not like as radical.

Bare in mind he wasn't a writer, he was a labourer. It explains anti-capitalism very well, wouldn't call it Marxist. I thought it was really good, I found the prose fine.

[Led Zeppelin]

Down and out in Paris and London

http://a7.vox.com/6a00d41421380d685e00fae8d26c3f000b-500pi

Homage to Catalonia

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/x2/x11215.jpg

Fathers and sons

http://karlomongaya.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/0g.jpg

What is to be done? (not to be mistaken with Lenin's book, this one is a novel)

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n60/n300551.jpg

Looking backward

http://www.valleyadvocate.com/blogs/gallery/webLookingBackward.jpg

Autobiography Of Maxim Gorky: My Childhood, In The World, My Universities

http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/17900000/17907124.JPG

[Pogue]

Ah great suggestion for down and out there led zep, quality mate, thats a wicked one. road to wigan pier deserves a mention too.

[Led Zeppelin]

Yeah, it really stuck with me after I read it, a must read. It's one of my favorite books now. :thumbup1:

By the way, I just added a couple more books, if you liked Down and out you should definitely check out Gorky's autobiography. Very similar in style and subject matter, and also beautifully written.

[Absolut]

Looking backward



Been a while since I read it, but if Im not mistaken, doesnt it discuss a future socialist society, and not so very much the every day life of a labourer under capitalism?

Theres a heap of Swedish authors who has written much about the life of workers and the working class, but Im not sure if theyre translated to English.

The Emigrants

http://www.longitudebooks.com/images/book_large/SWE14.jpg

Ivar Lo-Johansson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivar_Lo_Johansson) (dont know if hes been translated to English, but if he has, check him out)

Moa Martinson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moa_Martinson) (dont know if shes been translated to English, but if she has, check her out)

Per Anders Fogelström (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per_Anders_Fogelström) (only City of My Dreams and Children of Their City are translated to English)

[Random Precision]

Germinal and L'Assomoir by Émile Zola should be up there too. Of course a good half of his novels are about working-class life and struggle, but those are the only two I have read thus far. Next I mean to read La Bête humaine.

Also the novels of Victor Serge. I have only read The Case of Comrade Tulayev and Midnight in the Century so far, which are both novels of the Stalinist purges, however he wrote a trilogy on the Russian Revolution- Men in Prison, Birth of Our Power, Conquered City that I will read when I can find it. I'd recommend him especially for his pioneering of the "collective protagonist" in the novel, where there is no main character and the characters and events are chosen to best represent the struggles of the working class.

[MilitantAnarchist]

Charles Bukowski's - Factotum
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_MSGmB4o53Q4/SfIKm4bph_I/AAAAAAAAAJY/95tS6YNeXSA/s320/n58640.jpg
Excellent book, beats Orwells Down & Out hands down... fucking amazing book...

Also, if you aint checked it out before, Frank Harris' The Bomb
http://img.flipkart.com/bk_imgs/378/9780922915378.jpg
The Classic Novel Of Anarchist Violence... its about the Anarchist struggle in the States in the 1800's, in particular the Haymarket bombing... both these a must read for anyone here (only i was disapointed to hear the made Factotum into a hollywood movie)

[brigadista]

nana is pretty good but l'assomoir is my favorite

[Pogue]

Could we maybe sticky this?

[Random Precision]

Could we maybe sticky this?

You should ask MarxSchmarx. I think stickying things in Lit/Films is his responsibility.

[Pogue]

yeh it was kidna directed to him :lol:

[Spawn of Stalin]

Hard Times by Dickens is a classic.

[ComradeOm]

I've been meaning to check this out for a while but How the Steel Was Tempered by Nikolai Ostrovsky is supposed to be excellent

[which doctor]

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

[x359594]

Charles Bukowski's Factotum has already been mentioned so I'll add Bukowski's Post Office. Many of his short stories are about working at low paying jobs and struggling to make ends meet as well as providing vivid descriptions of working class inner city life, e.g., the neighborhood bar, the newsstand, the cop on the beat, local strip joint, etc.

Jack Kerouac's novelette October in the Railroad Earth is a brilliant account of his days a railroad brakeman.

There's also B. Traven's novels The Death Ship an anrachist classic that draws on his experiences as a fireman on a freighter, The Cotton Pickers about a Wobbly making his way from job to job in Mexico in the 1920s; The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Bridge in the Jungle, and The White Rose are all written from a working class perspective.

[Pogue]

The Cotton Pickers sounds good, this thread is giving me lots of future material.

[brigadista]

the loneliness of the long distance runner is a good english book

[Bilan]

Durruti: the People Armed.
Although, it's not "fiction" as such, it's a historical account of the Spanish Civil War, the CNT, and Durruti obviously.

One I'd like to read is "Who's Afraid of the Working Class?", (http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/oct1999/mwt-o01.shtml) which is a "professional and at times profoundly moving portrait of working class life in Australia in the 1990s"

[Devrim]

however he wrote a trilogy on the Russian Revolution- Men in Prison, Birth of Our Power, Conquered City that I will read when I can find it.

The third book in Serge's trilogy,'Conquered City', is set in Russia. The first is based on his time in prison in France for refusing to give evidence in the 'Bonnot gang' trail. 'Conquered City' is set in Spain after the First War. I read them about twenty-five years ago, but as I remember the first is by far the weakest, and the second possibly the best. They all stand on their own though, and don't have to be read in order.

Also well worth reading is his autobiography, ' Memoirs of a Revolutionary'.

Devrim

[Trystan]

http://www.housmans.com/images/Glory%20Guthrie.jpg

That's a book I'm reading atm. Check out Guthrie's music as well, if you care to, as it's very lefty.

http://adamthomaswalton.co.uk/images/20061202hamonrye.jpg


About Chinaski's (i.e. Bukowski's) childhood and early adulthood in '30s LA.


http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n13/n69870.jpg

Very gritty story of a mining strike in 19th century France. It's very political (the First International is involved), though not particularly biased. Zola painted a frankly disturbing picture of the lives of miners and their families c. 1880s. But he also raised some interesting ideological issues - the strike leader's ideological progress is traced throughout the book: when I read it, it was quite educational for that. It is the best novel that I've read that could fit as 'working-class literature', and I recommend it more than any other.

[Pogue]

a drink with shane macgowan

:cool:

does actually reveal alot about working class london in the 70s, 80s,

[Djehuti]

Väinö Linna - Under the North Star
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_North_Star

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/82/TIH.jpg

This book had a profound impact on me in my early adolescent years. Not very well written from a literary standpoint (the English major I know calls it garbage, as he soaks up bougey bullshit), but definitely from a working class prospective. Makes a lot of Marxian ideas exciting, and quite an exciting and intense dystopia in general, written at the turn of the century. Oligarchs taking over, socialists vs cappies, all that good stuff.

I like the author for being a working class alcoholic and not another marxist intellectual in an office somewhere sitting on a cozy chair looking down their noses at proletarian movements.

"After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with which he made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a water brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue."

[x359594]

Two classics African-American working class novels, both by Chester Himes: If He Hollers Let Him Go and Lonely Crusade. The first is set in a WWII era ship yard and the second in a post-war aircraft manufacturing plant, both in Los Angeles.

[smellincoffee]

I'd reccommend Emile Carles' A Life of her Own, an autobiographical work that tracks the intellectual development of a young peasant girl at the beginning of the 20th century into a spokesperson for anarchism, socialism, communism, and pacifism. Hers is a remarkable life, and the book introduced me to anarchism.



With a work day of five or four hours, unemployment would be eliminated and everyone could have a job. Let us learn to live simply; [...] Let us learn to make use of our leisure time, get as close to nature as possible. Let us learn to read, because reading means strengthening our minds through the minds of others, steeping our hearts with feelings that please, and struggling with an author according to whether our ideas and feelings agree with his or diverge. Learn to live by knowing how to live and let live. Never take anything in life but flowers, and from flowers, only the perfume: drop the religion that has the largest numbers of followers; I am talking about the religion of money. A Belgian writer has said: Power of goodness and gentleness, it is you who should rule the Earth. Alas, that currency is altogether too ideal to circulate on our planet..." That is not true: fortunately, there are people for whom it is real. I know couples and families where it is the only currency in circulation, and it is beautiful, it is splendid, and we must all reach toward it for so long as we shall live.

[which doctor]

Most of the working-class literature that comes to us has been filtered, in one way or another, through the bourgeois canon and into the mystical and supposedly classless category of 'great' books. Much working-class literature, specifically at the turn of the 20th century, was published in serial form in socialist news magazines like The Masses. Unfortunately, to make the magazine affordable to working-class audiences, it was printed on horrible quality paper, so most issues have disintegrated by now.

I have vague plans to comb through it all, pick out the best works and make an anthology out of it, but the microfiche quality of the archive at my library is pretty bad, and the other library that has it in print takes a while to get to.

[Vicarious]

Anything by Hunter S. Thomson

[kezzieb]

Not sure if it counts as working class as it focuses more on the upper class characters but shows how their lives affect the working class without them knowing and caring. But it's a play from around about 1914, we had to study it for coursework for GCSE
An Inspector Calls - J.B. Priestly
It's really good but not sure if it would be classed a working class literature!

[vyborg]

Jack London and George Orwell are both very good

[milk]

Chernyshevsky's Chot Delat? Is not working class or really pro-working class, but of the Russian intelligentsia, and of its time. He was suspicious of and frightened by the what he saw as an irrational, blind and destructive masses (in Russia's case back then, the peasantry). These people, like sheep, needed to be guided by the assumed leaders of enlightened thought. Not my cup of tea.

[pdcrofts]

Saturday Night & Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe. Working class life in 1950s Britain. The protagonist is anti-authority and anti-establishment. Instead of seeing the postwar social contract of factory jobs and council houses as an improvement, he sees it as authoritarianism.

[black magick hustla]

fuck jack london he was a racist sack of shit and he was a bit boring

[Adil3tr]

People's history of the World, People's history of the United States, Marx for Beginners, Marx's Kapital for Beginners, and Worker's State to State Capitalism are good books. These aren't how I learned, but they're still pretty good.

[Killswitch927]

Is The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists available in most libraries?

[Bilan]

People's history of the World, People's history of the United States, Marx for Beginners, Marx's Kapital for Beginners, and Worker's State to State Capitalism are good books. These aren't how I learned, but they're still pretty good.

This thread is about novels, not about theoretical books.

[Bilan]

Is The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists available in most libraries?

Probably. If not, you can usually request that your library order it in for you.

[Bilan]

Love on the Dole

[Magón]

fuck jack london he was a racist sack of shit and he was a bit boring

So were most people (including Leftists) during his time.

[Tavarisch_Mike]

Anything frome the danish author Martin Andersen Nexö

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Andersen_Nex%C3%B8




Martin Andersen Nexø was born to a large family (the fourth of eleven children) in an impoverished district of Copenhagen (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Copenhagen). In 1877, his family moved to Nexø (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Nex%C3%B8), and he adopted the name of this town as his last name. Having been an industrial worker before, Nexø he attended a folk high school and later worked as a journalist (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Journalist). He spent the mid-1890s travelling in Southern Europe (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Southern_Europe), and his book Soldage (1903) (English: Days in the Sun) is largely based on those travels. Like many of his literary contemporaries, including Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Johannes_Vilhelm_Jensen), Nexø was at first heavily influenced by fin-de-siécle (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Fin_de_si%C3%A8cle) pessimism, but gradually turned to a more extroverted (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Extroverted) view, joining the Social Democratic (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Social_democracy) movement and later the Communist Party of Denmark (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Denmark); his later books reflect his political support of the Soviet Union (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Soviet_Union).
Pelle Erobreren (English: Pelle the Conqueror), published in four volumes 1906-1910, is his best-known work and the one most translated. Its first section was made the subject of the DDR-FS (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Deutscher_Fernsehfunk) movie Pelle der Eroberer in 1986[1] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#cite_note-0) and the movie Pelle Erobreren (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Pelle_the_Conqueror) in 1987. Ditte Menneskebarn (English: Ditte, Child of Man), written from 1917 to 1921, praises the working woman for her self-sacrifice, and a Danish film version of the first part of the book was released in 1946 as Ditte, Child of Man (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Ditte,_Child_of_Man). The much debated Midt i en Jærntid (i.e. "In an Iron Age", English: In God's Land), written in 1929, satirises the Danish farmers of World War I (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/World_War_I). During his latter years, 1944 to 1956, Nexø wrote but did not complete a trilogy consisting of the books Morten hin Røde (English: Morten the Red), Den fortabte generation (English: The Lost Generation), and Jeanette. This was ostensibly a continuation of Pelle the Conqueror, but also a masked autobiography (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Autobiography).
Danish police arrested Nexø in 1941 during Denmark's occupation by the Nazis (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Nazism), for his communist affiliation. Upon his release, he traveled to neutral Sweden (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Sweden) and then to the Soviet Union, where he made broadcasts to Nazi-occupied Denmark and Norway (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Norway). After World War II (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/World_War_II), Nexø moved to Dresden (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Dresden) in East Germany (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/East_Germany), where he was made an honorary citizen. The Martin-Andersen-Nexø-Gymnasium (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Martin-Andersen-Nex%C3%B8-Gymnasium_Dresden) high school (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/High_school) in Dresden was named after him. His international reputation as one the greatest European social writers (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Socialist_realism) grew, especially, but not exclusively, in socialist (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Socialism) countries.[citation needed (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed)]
Nexø died in Dresden in 1954 and was interred in the Assistens Kirkegård (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Assistants_Cemetery_(Copenhagen)) in the Nørrebro (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/N%C3%B8rrebro) neighbourhood of Copenhagen. A minor planet (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Minor_planet), 3535 Ditte (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/3535_Ditte), discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Nikolai_Stepanovich_Chernykh) in 1979, is named after the main character in his novel Ditte, Child of Man. [2] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#cite_note-1)

[Rudi]

Light by Henri Barbusse

[Joe Payne]

Wow I'm surprised no one's mentioned Ursula Le Guin or Alan Moore yet.

The Dispossessed by Le Guin explores a future anarchist-communist society and is amazing in giving clear pictures (despite a sci-fi setting) of what libertarian communism could look like, and what problems would still arise. I fucking love this book.

V for Vendetta by Alan Moore is a graphic novel, but it explores an insurrectionary's exploits in overthrowing a fascist dictatorship in Britain. I'm sure many of you have seen the godawful movie that mentions neither fascism, nor anarchism.

[x359594]

Wow I'm surprised no one's mentioned Ursula Le Guin or Alan Moore yet...

Well, they aren't specifically about the conditions of the working class as such. The Dispossessed is really in the Utopian genre of science fiction and V for Vendetta is a dystopian story.

[Fivepence]

Has nobody mentioned the work of H Gustave Klaus yet?

".iaa.uni-rostock.de/lehrende/britische-literatur-anglistische-literaturwissenschaft/klaus/"

Probably the best critical work on the genre since Mary Ahraf

Has nobody mentioned the work of Gustave Klaus yet;

".iaa.uni-rostock.de/lehrende/britische-literatur-anglistische-literaturwissenschaft/klaus/"

Probably the best critical studies since Mary Ashraf.

Nor should one forget Tam Leonard's "Radical Renfrew' anthology

[Xenophiliac]

I see George Orwell already has a few mentions but has anyone read Keep the Aspidistra Flying? Both tragic and humorous, it chronicles the efforts of a young poet who voluntarily rejects the world of money and voluntarily submits to a life of poverty. I think it to be Orwell's best book, but I have read that he was not overly happy with it.

[Mike Foster]

I'd recommend a book called 'Tramps, Workmates and Revolutionaries: Working class stories of the 1920s' edited by H Gustav Klaus. It's a collection of fact-based short stories, with biographical details. The editor also put out several other books in the late 80s and early 90s on the theme of working class and socialist literature.

[[email protected]]

Why Unions Matter
Yates, Michael D.

From the Folks who Brought You the Weekend
Murolo, Chitty, Sacco

Shows how we got all those worker's rights. Surprise! Unions. This is why young people are getting exploited.

They think management gave them a weekend and a break out of the kindness of their heart, not realizing they will be exploited to the maximum extent allowed by the laws, without which they'd still be working 16 hour days.

We need to organize as a generation. All this "theory" stuff has been getting out of control. Armchair revolutionaries reading all this nonsense and doing nothing makes my blood boil.

Alinsky's Rules for Radicals is another favorite.

[Avocado]

Les Misérables is a fine book: one of the best I have read.

[penderyn]

It's all very well reflecting the lives of working class people but you still need a good story and a political perspective which challenges capitalism. IMO there is no better novel for teens (or adults) than The Last Free Cat, which puts the argument against marketisation into a form which will appeal and make sense to anyone but a hardened rightist. Should be in every 12 year old's Xmas stocking!

[Creative Destruction]

So were most people (including Leftists) during his time.

Yeah, Jack London's racism was probably more of a "sign of the times" thing. Not excusable, but explainable and there are other leftists back then who had a shit ton more abhorrent views than London. I think later in life, he even wrote critically about racism. Anyway, Jack London was a terrific author. The Iron Heel is a fantastic book, in addition to his classics.

Another really good author who had the working class, Yukon thing going on was the poet Robert W. Service. He was a banker, but moved to the Canadian north and wrote some really goddamn good poetry about it. One of my favorite ones is about a prostitute, called The Harpy:


There was a woman, and she was wise; woefully wise was she;
She was old, so old, yet her years all told were but a score and three;
And she knew by heart, from finish to start, the Book of Iniquity.

There is no hope for such as I on earth, nor yet in Heaven;
Unloved I live, unloved I die, unpitied, unforgiven;
A loathèd jade, I ply my trade, unhallowed and unshriven.

I paint my cheeks, for they are white, and cheeks of chalk men hate;
Mine eyes with wine I make them shine, that man may seek and sate;
With overhead a lamp of red I sit me down and wait

Until they come, the nightly scum, with drunken eyes aflame;
Your sweethearts, sons, ye scornful ones — ’tis I who know their shame.
The gods, ye see, are brutes to meiand so I play my game.

For life is not the thing we thought, and not the thing we plan;
And Woman in a bitter world must do the best she can —
Must yield the stroke, and bear the yoke, and serve the will of man;

Must serve his need and ever feed the flame of his desire,
Though be she loved for love alone, or be she loved for hire;
For every man since life began is tainted with the mire.

And though you know he love you so and set you on love’s throne;
Yet let your eyes but mock his sighs, and let your heart be stone,
Lest you be left (as I was left) attainted and alone.

From love’s close kiss to hell’s abyss is one sheer flight, I trow,
And wedding ring and bridal bell are will-o’-wisps of woe,
And ’tis not wise to love too well, and this all women know.

Wherefore, the wolf-pack having gorged upon the lamb, their prey,
With siren smile and serpent guile I make the wolf-pack pay —
With velvet paws and flensing claws, a tigress roused to slay.

One who in youth sought truest truth and found a devil’s lies;
A symbol of the sin of man, a human sacrifice.
Yet shall I blame on man the shame? Could it be otherwise?

Was I not born to walk in scorn where others walk in pride?
The Maker marred, and, evil-starred, I drift upon His tide;
And He alone shall judge His own, so I His judgment bide.

Fate has written a tragedy; its name is “The Human Heart.”
The Theatre is the House of Life, Woman the mummer’s part;
The Devil enters the prompter’s box and the play is ready to start.

--

Some really good working class/lumpen lit came out of the south. William Faulkner's Light In August and Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood are very good. There are two Cormac McCarthy books that I would recommend, as well: Suttree and Outer Dark. If you can find the script to The Stonemason, that one is very good as well -- tells of a black working poor family. He also wrote a screenplay for PBS' Masterpiece Theater back in the 1970s called The Gardener's Son, which is all about class division with some subtle hints at lowgrade class warfare. The movie is up on Youtube, if you want to watch it.

Also (!!) Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. You can watch the movie but it is kind of hokey. The book is a lot better; working class kid (his father in law makes mention of being a Wobbly!) gets sent off to war and has his limbs blown off, but is still kept alive by the military.