Weekend Writing: Best Books of the 1920s
It is officially 2020, which means the 1920s (known as the Roaring '20s) are a hundred years in the past. While the decade is symbolized by Flappers, gangsters, prohibitionists, stockbrokers, jazz music, silent films, and more, there is something significant I love about the 1920s.
The literature.
When I need to list my favorite literary time period, I always refer to the 1920s. The decade was the first of its kind to have all the basic, fundamental aspects of modern life following World War I. There was a focus on urban living, and new technologies (such as the radio, telephones, automobiles, airplanes, and film) were in place. In this modern era, people needed a group of people to reflect on the changing times and the growing societies. Who were these individuals?
Writers.
Writers of the 1920s were culturally aware of the new decade and the modern times. Much of the vocabulary of the modern age was coined by these writers. They reflected on their surroundings, the people they met, and they weren't afraid to write about what they saw. They wrote fervently--frantically trying to publish one book after another before it was too late.
They attended lavish parties where they discussed their writing. They defended their occupation, and they gave writing a good reputation. These writers experimented with what you could produce on the page and they pushed their boundaries.
There was a sense of limitless potential of the decade, which is why their writing still resonates powerfully with today's readers. This is why so many novels of the 1920s remain on the "best ever" lists. Everyone should read the literature of the 1920s.
Below are 10 books published in the '20s that everyone should read. I'm including one significant quote from the book. Enjoy!
1. "The Great Gatsby" - F. Scott Fitzgerald
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| F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (photo/Amazon.com). |
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
2. "Mrs. Dalloway" - Virginia Woolf
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| Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway (photo/Amazon.com). |
"Lock up your libraries, if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind."
3. "Ulysses" - James Joyce
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| James Joyce's Ulysses (photo/Amazon.com). |
"Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves."
4. "The Weary Blues" - Langston Hughes
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| Langston Hughes' The Weary Blues (photo/Amazon.com). |
5. "A Farewell to Arms" - Ernest Hemingway
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| Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms (photo/Barnes & Noble). |
"The world breaks everyone and afterward, many are stronger in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of those, you can be sure it will kill you too, but there will be no special hurry."
6. "The Sound and the Fury" - William Faulkner
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| William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (photo/Kobo.com). |
"Clocks slay time...Time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life."
7. "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" - Agatha Christie
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| Agatha Christie's The Mysterious Affair at Styles (photo/Agatha Christie). |
"You gave too much rein to your imagination. Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master. The simplest explanation is always most likely."
8. "Swann's Way" - Marcel Proust
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| Marcel Proust's Swann's Way (photo/Penguin Random House). |
"A man cannot change, that is to say become another person, while continuing to obey the dictates of the self which he has ceased to be."
9. "The Waste Land" - T.S. Eliot
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| T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land (photo/Penguin Random House). |
"And I will show you something different from either your shadow at morning standing behind you or your shadow at evening; I will show you fear in a handful of dust."
10. "The Age of Innocence" - Edith Wharton
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| Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence (photo/Macmillian Publishers). |
"He simply felt that if he could carry away the vision of the spot of earth she walked on, and the way the sky and sea enclosed it, the rest of the world might seem less empty."
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Of course, there are many more books from the 1920s that are worthy of being mentioned. Below is a list of additional reading recommendations:
- This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
- A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
- Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence
- Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
- Big Blonde and Other Stories by Dorothy Parker
- Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
- The Making of Americans by Gertrude Stein
- A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
- Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
- The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
- The Trial by Franz Kafka
- The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
- An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
- Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne
- Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
The 1920s brought some of the most significant and important literary works of all time. Writers reflected on the changing society and they weren't afraid to boldly declare what everyone else was thinking. People shared these thoughts but were too scared to publicly state them. These writers joined together and bonded over their love of good writing. They defined an era. If I could go back in time to revisit any literary era, it would be the 1920s.
What a time it must have been to be alive...and to write.
-KJL-
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