Dear All: I have my first book being published--it will be available in February 2007--called The Hippie Narrative. When I wrote Tom Robbins he responded with a note that said: "It's about time someone made a serious analysis of counterculture literature. I wish you well with this important project." If anyone has a chance to read the book, which is as much a cultural history as a literary study, I would be happy to discuss any comments in this forum. Thanks, Scott MacFarlane P.S. The book has a cool cover photo, but I can't seem to figure out how to insert the image onto this page. It's on the publisher's website at: http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?isbn=0-7864-2915-1 From the Publisher: The Hippie Narrative ÊA Literary Perspective on the Counterculture ÊScott ÊMacFarlane Ê ISBN Ê0-7864-2915-1 Ênotes, bibliography, index Ê[256]pp. Êsoftcover ÊÊ2007 Ê$35 ÊNot Yet Published, Available Spring/Summer 2007 McFarland & Co., Inc., Publishers. ÊJefferson, NC Ê Description The Hippie movement of the 1960s helped change modern societal attitudes toward ethnic and cultural diversity, environmental accountability, spiritual expressiveness, and the justification of war. With roots in the Beat literary movement of the late 1950s, the hippie perspective also advocated a bohemian lifestyle which expressed distaste for hypocrisy and materialism yet did so without the dark, somewhat forced undertones of their predecessors. This cultural revaluation which developed as a direct response to the dark days of World War II created a counterculture which came to be at the epicenter of an American societal debate and, ultimately, saw the beginnings of postmodernism. Focusing on 1962 through 1976, this book takes a constructivist look at the hippie eraÕs key works of prose, which in turn may be viewed as the literary canon of the counterculture. It examines the ways in which these works, with their tendency toward whimsy and spontaneity, are genuinely reflective of the period. Arranged chronologically, the discussed works function as a lens for viewing the period as a whole, providing a more rounded sense of the hippie Zeitgeist that shaped and inspired the period. Among the 15 works represented are One Flew Over the CuckooÕs Nest, The Crying of Lot 49, Trout Fishing in America, Siddhartha, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Armies of the Night, Stranger in a Strange Land, Slaughterhouse Five, The Fan Man, and Another Roadside Attraction.
no wonder Tom liked it.... Hey scott, I'll be nice.. start conrtibuting to the forum (esp since you know the works that get re-posted and reposted). If you don't I'll have to close this thread!
While I was experiencing technical difficulties, some BraveSirCensor decided to wield his mighty sword and kill off my thread. Skip was kind enough to restore this from the "Fiction" to the "Beat and Hippie Books" section. Sorry, BraveSir, but I'm not sure how to share the details of my book without it coming across as advertising to you. My book is the result of decades of thought on the "hippie" phenomenon and was written over a four year period. It is highly relevant to this website and not posted everywhere in Hippyland, but where it seemed to make the most sense for open discussion. Also, I am offering to discuss my own book. I don't see other musicians or published authors in here making themselves available to discuss their CD's or books. I am thinking this could be fun. Putting this in the "Fiction" section made sense because it is a book about works of fiction. The "Beat and Hippie Books" forum makes sense, too. Maybe you'd actually like my book, BraveSir, if you read it, which I know you haven't because it won't be available for two more weeks. Bottom line: Censorship ain't cool, and I will look forward to participating in other threads now that I seem to be able to. Peace, Scott
Thanks, Pheonix. It should be available from the publisher this week. If you have a chance to read it, let me know what you think.
The Hippie Narrative can now be ordered through Amazon.com or directly from the publisher at McFarlandpub.com. Thanks.
As an anthropologist this book seems to be my cup of tea. I might buy it and read it! I will see if it is available in the netherlands or if i can order it in another way! hugs me
Thanks for your interest. I found this German website where The Hippie Narrative is available. http://opac.sub.uni-goettingen.de:8...SET=1/SID=831fe4fa-2/SRT=YOP/TTL=1/SHW?FRST=9 Not sure who you would contact in The Netherlands,but there is a distributor in Europe for my publisher through www.mcfarlandpub.com. Again, it's also on www.amazon.com. After only a week it's Amazon's 642,000th best seller. At that rate I will be rich in the year 2567. ;=) Again, once anyone has read The Hippie Narrative, I opened this site to discuss the book and the key books from the period I examine. Scott
Hey, I just checked out Amazon again and I have moved up to 58,998th on the bestseller list. That's nearly 600,000 spots in one day!
From April 4-18th, I have been asked by those at TheWell.com to participate as the author in an on-line discussion about The Hippie Narrative on their Inwell.vue conference. The discussion can be accessed through www.Salon.com.
Awesome Scott, I just bought a copy at Amazon! Can't wait to read it! (Whereabouts in Skagit Valley do you live? I lived in Mt. Vernon for almost 10 years, and I grew up in Oak Harbor...)
Thanks! There's a cool discussion about The Hippie Narrative in Inkwell on www.TheWell.com. You can read it without joining and even e-mail questions or comments. Thanks, again. Scott
I live in Mt. Vernon. Gotta love the Skagit Valley. I like Portland, too, though. Thanks for buying the book. Let me know what you think!!
This Q&A interview about The Hippie Narrative just came out in the Bellingham Herald: Jun, 7, 2007 Hippie hippie shake: MacFarlane takes an in-depth look at books that reflect culture MEET THE AUTHOR Scott MacFarlane ÒThe Hippie Narrative: A Literary Perspective on the CountercultureÓ 7 p.m. Monday, June 11 Village Books, 1200 11th St., 671-2626 Advertisement MARGARET BIKMAN THE BELLINGHAM HERALD Mount VernonÕs Scott MacFarlane examines the key works of prose of the hippie movement of the 1960s and early 1970s and how the works are reflective of the counterculture. Q: Until you wrote this book, there really was no defined genre of hippie narrative. How did you decide what to include? A: First, I was surprised that no similar book has been written on the literature related to the hippie counterculture. When researching ÒThe Hippie Narrative,Ó I focused on literary works that were either strong portrayals of the rise, crest or ebb of the hippie counterculture, directly about hippies or narratives that greatly influenced the hippies. The 15 books and three essays I examined are, in my estimation, the most genuine literary reflections I could find from the hippie era. There is enough commonality of style and tone linked to the period to argue that these works comprise a canon of countercultural literature. In my narrowing process, I differentiated the liberationist movements of the era, all based on the struggle for enfranchisement, from the hippie role in the counterculture, made up of the enfranchised heirs of those in the establishment. The hippies were not driven by ethnicity or gender, but voluntarily rejected the consumerism, militarism, racism and unfettered ÒprogressÓ of the mainstream. For this reason, books from the mid-Õ60s such as ÒThe Feminine MystiqueÓ or ÒThe Autobiography of Malcolm XÓ did not fit my criteria as hippie narratives. Q: How do the writing styles of the Beats differ from the writing styles of the hippie narrative? A: The writing of the Beats is notable for its jazz-like intensity and feel of spontaneity sustained throughout the entire novel or poem. This dithyrambic quality was supplanted, in these hippie narratives, by a tone that is less frenetic, less dark, and with a style that exhibits more playfulness and sense of whimsy. The Eastern and Bohemian philosophies articulated in Beat literature vectored through the counterculture that followed. The hippie narratives carried forth the Beat preference for roguish characters and an ÒundergroundÓ posture of disaffection toward mainstream society. Both periods featured unconventional realism as mainstays and produced some wonderfully Òalternative,Ó often picaresque, visions of the American experience. In the Õ60s and Õ70s, hippierelated literature demonstrated wider experimentation with the narrative form including a heavier use of juxtapositional irony, surrealistic interludes and the intersubjective innovations of New Journalism, which is now called narrative journalism and is a seminal influence on todayÕs dominant literary genre ÐÐ creative nonfiction. Q: In a recent interview with Tom Robbins in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, he refers to his years of Òpursuing phantasmagorical novels down shadowy hallways.Ó Does that reconcile with your view of his writings and with other fiction writers of this time period? A: The unconventional realism seen in the novels of Tom Robbins is, indeed, Òphantasmagoric,Ó and I sense that the Òshadowy hallwaysÓ are the authorÕs way of suggesting that he employs a comic surrealism to probe deeper philosophical and cultural issues. Of the works I chose to include in ÒThe Hippie Narrative,Ó only ÒThe Fan ManÓ by William Kotzwinkle is as overtly comic in tone and delivery as ÒAnother Roadside AttractionÓ and ÒEven Cowgirls Get the Blues.Ó However, ÒFear and Loathing in Las VegasÓ by Hunter S. Thompson, ÒTrout Fishing in AmericaÓ by Richard Brautigan, and ÒSlaughterhouse-FiveÓ by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., rely on juxtapositional irony to convey the absurdity and fast-paced fragmentation of our American existence. By the 1980s this condition was labeled Òpostmodern.Ó Other works I examine ÐÐ ÒOne Flew Over the CuckooÕs Nest,Ó ÒSometimes a Great Notion,Ó ÒDivine RightÕs TripÓ and ÒThe Electric Kool-Aid Acid TestÓ ÐÐ feature hallucinated tones, but as dramatic narratives, these books are more serious (as opposed to comic). Q: Kotzwinkle has said that his characterization of E.T. Òhas a quality of humanity that is yet to come, and it has to do with love.Ó Furthermore, one critic has said that E.T. Òsenses the spiritual grandeur that modern technology is obliterating.Ó Can you place the hippie narrative in the context of those ideas? And perhaps carry it further, to ideas of utopia, for example? A: The peace and love ethos of the hippies was, at its essence, intent on redefining the quality of our humanity. ItÕs certainly fair to ask when such yearning for spiritual grandeur crosses the line into utopianism. Rather than using ÒutopianÓ as a dismissive label, perhaps we should ask ourselves to question when such a shift in consciousness is essential to our sustained survival as a species and when our quests are purely escapist. Literary characters such as Chief Broom, Vivian Stamper, Valentine Michael Smith, Billy Pilgrim, Divine Right/David Ray, Horse Badorties and Marx Marvelous Ñ all in very different ways Ñ sought spiritual transcendence to cope with a modern malaise. Q: How was the West a bed of fertility for the blossoming of such writers as Kesey and Brautigan, and how did their writings differ from those of Thompson, Mailer and Vonnegut? A: Kesey and Brautigan structured their narratives in radically different ways. However, ÒCuckooÕs Nest,Ó ÒGreat NotionÓ and ÒTrout FishingÓ were profoundly influenced by the loss of the pastoral and the shifting role of the wilderness in the human psyche. Both authors were born in 1935 and grew up in the Pacific Northwest. They developed Beat sensibilities after moving to the San Francisco area in the late Õ50s. Unlike the works of East Coast writers Wolfe, Mailer, and Vonnegut, the writings of Kesey and Brautigan were shaped by the loss of frontier. The spirit of Western rugged individualism and the wilderness to be confronted in post-World War II, modern America was suddenly more internal than external. In many ways, the back-tothe- land movement, and the psychedelia that flourished most strongly on the West Coast can be better understood within the context of AmericaÕs manifest destiny reverberating back on itself. Q: Why was this book fun to write? A: Once I decided to work chronologically from 1962 to 1976 and to (largely) devote one chapter for each work, the project took on a momentum of its own. I enjoyed the way each author provided a different lens on this era of tumultuous change. The fun came from mining each work for its unique perspective on the era. For example, ÒThe Armies of the NightÓ takes on the political climate of the times, ÒThe Electric Kool-Aid Acid TestÓ looks at the sociology behind the burgeoning psychedelia and ÒDivine RightÕs TripÓ shows a young hippie couple trying to find an alternative path in the wake of what was arguably the largest bacchanalian upsurge that the world has ever witnessed. ItÕs exceedingly difficult to write comprehensively about the explosion of change in the Õ60s and Õ70s, so letting these authors lead the way was fascinating. Their perspectives ÐÐ taken as a whole ÐÐ render an intriguing Gestalt of the hippie epoch. Q: Do you think the readers of the novels and New Journalism who were in their 20s in the 1960s or who had some background in literary technique had a different understanding of what was being said in those works than perhaps those Òover 30.Ó And how does your reflective analysis differ from those who were reading and perhaps changing their lives because they were reading ÒSiddhartha,Ó for example, in 1969? A: My own reading of the texts in ÒThe Hippie NarrativeÓ was to examine authorial design and expression within the context of the Õ60s and Õ70s counterculture. I chose to include ÒSiddhartha,Ó written in 1922, and ÒStranger in a Strange Land,Ó published in 1961, because these narratives shaped the formation of a hippie counterculture. Authors Hesse and Heinlein, in this regard, were in no way trying to communicate to a readership of hippies. The mostly pejorative term ÒhippieÓ was largely media driven and very seldom used until 1967, when it became immediately widespread. However, these two books in particular became textual blueprints that helped these youth Òshare a community of meaningÓ and formulate lifestyles that broke from conventional Judeo-Christianity and traditions of monogamy. In many ways, the hippie sense of ÒundergroundÓ community was created within a social vacuum of chaos. Certain music, art, poetry, comics and literature resonated within a youthful paradigm of free-spirited rebellion and hopefulness and led to what was called Òthe generation gap.Ó ÒSiddhartha,Ó with simple eloquence, suggested a new spiritual path. ÒStrangerÓ illustrated a Dionysian collectivism that came to be at the core of the hippie phenomenon. Heinlein, however, was shocked at the way hippies actualized his work of sci-fi to justify communalism, ecstatic religious practices and open relationships. Reach Margaret Bikman at margaret.bikman@bellinghamherald.com or 715-2273.