Are there any leftist novels I can read?

[celticnachos]

I'm going to be a junior in highschool and a summer requirement is that we read a novel, and then we have to do various things about that novel.

My question is, are there any good leftist novels I could read? Any besides 1984?

Thanks

[CatsAttack]

You can read Stalin's short-course history of the Bolshevik party. Now there's a great fantasy novel!

[Paul Pott]

Good one!

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

jack london was a socialist (as i've been told) and a novelist. never read him but been recommended his works.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Malraux might have been a miserable little pile of secrets, but his "La Condition Humaine", usually translated as "Man's Fate", is both an outstanding novel and sympathetic to the socialists involved in the Shanghai uprising.

[La Guaneña]

Try to find Jorge Amado around there, great brazilian writer and a life-long communist. If that doesn't work, Gorki's "The Mother" is an awesome piece. :)

[cyu]

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

The book won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1974, won both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1975. It achieved a degree of literary recognition unusual for science fiction works due to its exploration of many ideas and themes, including anarchism and revolutionary societies, capitalism, individualism and collectivism, and the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis.

http://libcom.org/library/dispossessed-ursula-le-guin

[Sasha]

does it need to be classic literature or does anything goes?
If it needs to be classics;
For whom the bell tolls by Hemingway is about the Spanish civilwar and pretty decent.
Paradise lost from Milton is a poem and not really a novel but really good and will get you browny points with any teacher.

A modern "serious" novel (ie no science fiction or other "genre" book) I recently read that was really good and provocative was "the good man Jesus and the scoundrel Christ" by Phillip Pullman, not leftist per se but definitely humanist.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Something by China Mieville perhaps? Or The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is a great socialist book.

[Hermes]

I just finished Yonnondio, by Tillie Olsen, and really enjoyed it. The writing's very simple, and the book isn't that long, either. There's a lot of meat, though.

[DDR]

If it hasn't to be a famous work of literature, I would recomend Dune, specially if you like Sci-fi.

[Jimmie Higgins]

"In Dubious Battle" by Steinbeck will get you some high school "classics" cred and it's much shorter than "Grapes of Wrath" and it's about two communist organizers from "The Party" who go help organize an agricultural strike in California. I really like Steinbeck's writing, but I think any radical (particularly in the US) should read that if they are looking for fiction with a leftist/labor bent.

"The Autobiography of Malcolm X" is a good one too - might even be a little more "dangerous" of a choice depending on what your school is like.

"The Jungle" would also be a good choice and is high school cred legit. One that aren't maybe explicitly left-wing, but maybe sympathetic in spirt would be "Catch-22" and "Slaughterhouse 5" which I loved when I read them in high school.

Jack London wrote "The Heel" which is a book written from the perspective of people in a future socialist utopia who find an account written by people from their past (our immediate future) about a fascist-like dystopia that resulted due to the defeat of worker's movements in the 20th century.

If you can find it "It Can't Happen Here" is an interesting book written by a liberal, Sinclair Lewis, about what fascism in the US would look like (in the 1930s). I read it a few years ago and it was kinda amazing because you could almost replace people in the book with the Koch Brothers, Glenn Beck, and get an instant modern re-make. The street-thugs vigilantes in the book are actually called the Minutemen and they go around beating up commies and immigrants and then later liberals and anyone who disagrees with Glenn Beck... er, The Chief.

If you can do sci-fi/fantasy, and are looking for some wild lit, I'd definately give China Mieville a try. His stories are pretty fun and wild and usually have themes that I think radicals would find interesting, though they are rarely obvious "leftist" concerns. Some of his books might be a little difficult to get into because of length and the use of made-up vocabularies and slang. But if you like to read and have a little patience, then they should be plenty of fun.

[Red Commissar]

jack london was a socialist (as i've been told) and a novelist. never read him but been recommended his works.

Of those The Iron Heel is probably the most explicit. A dystopian book (before they had become a popular genre!), and a pretty short read too so it's not too dense. Basically the story of a left-wing uprising against an emerging oligarchical state tied to capitalist interests (which Trotsky even commented on being "prophetic" towards Fascism as he perceived it). I think it's fairly unique as far as dystopians go because the bulk of the narrative takes place as this state is being created, rather than starting with it already formed. He has another book that's more non-fiction in nature, The People of the Abyss, which is his experience among the working class in East London.

Some other books that come to mind... some of these aren't hardcore socialist but have some good themes I think.

-The Dispossessed: This is an older sci fi book by Ursula K Le Guin. It involves a scientist's experience between two planets- one founded on anarchist principles, and another that serves as a parallel to the then contemporary Earth (circa 1960s), divided among several powers including a US and USSR stand in. There are other books that tie into this setting, like The Left Hand of Darkness which tackles some feminist topics.

-Germinal: This is probably among the better known works from French author Emile Zola. It was part of a long sequence of books by Zola following the progression of certain characters and their descendents as France industrialized. Of these Germinal is probably the most explicit in its socialist themes, taking place in a mining town which eventually undergoes a strike.

-Grapes of Wrath: John Steinbeck concerned himself a lot with the state of farmers during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl (and even associated with radical authors). Grapes of Wrath is the better known of his works and follows the struggles of a family trying to deal with the economic problems during the time. I know for sure that along with Of Mice and Men this is a pretty frequent choice for schools to read, but many often go with the latter because Grapes of Wrath is longer. In Dubious Battle is also another good one, much shorter than Grapes of Wrath and a bit longer than Of Mice and Men, and is set in a strike of agriculture workers.

-An American Tragedy: Theodore Dreiser is frequently invoked when discussing American literature but he doesn't seem to be read as much anymore. Most of his books followed a "naturalist" perspective which ultimately means he tried to focus on how a character was shaped by their settings. An American Tragedy is a perfect example of this, following the progression of the protagonist as a child to a young man as he tries to work his way up to the upper crust of the elite, doing some rather questionable things in the process to do so.

-The Treasure of the Sierra Madre: This was written by the enigmatic B. Traven, a pseudonym for an author whose identity has never been discovered. He wrote several books but Treasure of the Sierra Madre is the best known. Most of B. Traven's books often had some anarchist themes, and it shows in this book with his portrayal of greed from the characters.

-For Whom the Bell Tolls: Among Hemingway's better known books, Psycho already summed it up as being set in the Spanish Civil War. Also a common one for school reading though more often at the college level. It's a good example of Hemingway's writing style too.

-Les Miserables: It's a long book but the setting is essentially one that shows a lot of Victor Hugo's political sympathies, especially considering the poor. In this sense it's a lot like Charles Dickens's works but Les Miserables can be quite a downer in some areas. In the longer unabridged ones he even has a section where he talks about communism and capitalism, trying to find a "middle way", and the way he goes about describing it would show him as probably a social democrat. Again though like some of the other books above it sets up the setting for the narrative.

-The Jungle: Also another common school read. Looking back at the book, the author Upton Sinclair quipped that he had aimed for America's heart, but hit its gut instead. The book follows the journey of a Lithuanian immigrant to the United States, showing how his optimism and hopes for a better life are slowly destroyed as he gets wrecked by factory work and the poor conditions of the working class. It gets kind of weird towards the end though where Sinclair uses the opportunity to talk about his ideas of an ideal society.

-Kurt Vonnegut: Despite misreadings of Harrison Bergeron to promote anticommunism, Vonnegut had a lot of left positions. A lot of his books can be depressing but they do serve as social commentary many times. Slaughterhouse Five is set in the firebombing of Dresden though its ultimately kind of antiwar and dealing with the protagonist's difficulty to fit in the world. Sirens of Titan has a lot of anti-war themes, slams at greed, and problems with organized religion. Cat's Cradle can be read as a subtle satire of the arms race and the Cold War. Just wiki his other works.

-F. Scott Fitzgerald: Hell, you could probably easily discuss themes of corrupting greed and the idea of class mobility, and its effects on his generation in his books. The Great Gatsby and This Side of Paradise essentially have the same kind of approach here.

-It Can't Happen Here: This was written by Sinclair Lewis who has also done some other good work. It's essentially a slam at Fascism, seeing the rise of such a regime through a populist demagogue, "Buzz" Windrip. This was very much a product of the times (early 1930s), and Lewis also takes a slam at the "Third Period" policies of Moscow-aligned Communist Parties then during the book.

-Spartacus: This was written by Howard Fast, a man of communist sympathies and one who was deeply effected by the Second Red Scare and Hollywood blacklist. It's essentially a piece of historical fiction, but it's fairly obvious why Spartacus, a slave in a society ruled by land holding elite, was an appealing setting for a radical-minded author. This served as the inspiration and basis for the better known movie.

-Lasbag Trilogy: China Miéville is a socialist but I didn't read his book because of that. The first in this trilogy, Perdido Street Station is an interesting read where politics take more of a back seat but creates the backdrop of an emerging industrial society, but still a great mishmash of fantasy and sci-fi ("weird fiction" as the author terms it...). Same deal with The Scar. It's at the last one, The Iron Council where the political aspects become more obvious, involving the protagonist's experience with the eponymous "Iron Council" as well as other revolutionaries against a corrupt state. These books don't rely on each other though, so you can jump in where you want...

-Culture: This is a series of sci-fi books tied together in the late author Iain M. Banks's fictional universe. Like with the above though the politics serve more to create the setting than drive the narrative, but basically "The Culture" is a post-scarcity, classless society. That being said, while often described as utopian, "The Culture" has some bad sides too, especially its tactics dealing with its ideological enemies. Of this series I think Consider Phlebas and Use of Weapons are the easiest to start with.

-Mars Trilogy: This is a series of books written by Kim Stanley Robinson covering the human colonization of Mars. There's a lot of socialist themes here and digs at capitalism, but it's a very dense read so probably not ideal for what you want.

-Fall Revolution: This is a series of books written by Ken MacLeod, a friend of Iain M Banks above. Like Banks MacLeod was influenced by socialist themes and these series of books are the most explicit of them, giving a lot of time to explore political ideas. These books are hard to find though, and can be dense like the above.

For school reading I probably suggest any of the "classic" authors you see there. You'll probably have an easier time selling that to the class and the teacher.

[Jimmie Higgins]

^Have you read "Red Planets: Marxism and Sci-Fi"? It's a collection of essays and edited by China Mieville and talks about a few of the books you list above. If you haven't heard of it, I thought you might find it interesting.

[Paul Cockshott]

I can recommend the dectective novels of Sjöwall and Wahlöö two Swedish communists who were hugely influential in the development of Scandinavian crime fiction.

[MarxSchmarx]

I found the Iron Heel pretty unimpressive. It was too propagandistic, in your face, and kind of read like Atlas Shrugged with socialist angels on one side and the rest of the lot on the other. I've read a lot of London's work and frankly it was my least favorite.

One book, which isn't exactly leftist but does a great job conveying contemporary racism and poverty, is Clockers by Richard Price. It has the advantage of being quite contemporary. I think anybody familiar with the urban anglophone world will find it a great read and subversive in it's own way.

The other book I'd recommend is "The last town on earth" by Thomas Mullen about a lumber cooperative during the Spanish flu epidemic. It isn't quite overtly leftist, but it has a lot of references to the leftist movement in turn of the century cascadia.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Not only can I reccomend you a novel from a leftist, but an honest-to-God bolshevik:

Red Star by soviet renaissance man Alexander Bogdanov. An early piece of what we would now call 'soft science fiction', published in 1908.

[bcbm]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Grain_of_Wheat