What Book Do You Think Was A Prerequisite

for hippies to read in the 60'S

not only the title but why you think it is a prerequisite. you know- like a review but shorter.


The book that I think alot of hippies were reading was A Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein. The reason I think alot of people should read it is because of the story line. An alien is on earth and he is learning everything about the planet. Towards the ends of the book he is at a zoo where one monkey takes a banana away from a smaller monkey and so on. The alien starts laughing and proclaims now I know what human nature is. Then I realized that I didn't want to have human nature but I wanted to have a more peaceful nature.

PAX

 

that's a good question.i was 10-20 in the 60's.i always liked history so i kept reading novels and non fiction.it was a way to time travel for me.and i started learning about how differant countries came to be the way they were....a better understanding of people..also the entertainment value is very great in that your imagination paints the story in your mind.after high school i was in the army. the base libraries had a very wide selection and were quite liberal...about that time i started to get into eastern philosiphies.//i read quite a few alan watts books.they were very well written,..the varieties of religious experiece by wm james was good...kerouacks books,steinbeck,a fun read was salingers "catcher in the rye"alan gizburgs poetry,henry david thoureau,.....i've never read stranger in a strange land i never got around to that one.but i always liked the title and i feel we probably all think of ourselves as being that.i think the more we read in those days the better off we are now.truth can be found in the darndest places

 

in high school(60's)one era of history that interested me was ww1.and all the stuff going on in russia czar nicholas,alexandra,rastbutin all that stuff."dr zhivago"with all it's love poems in the midst of war etc.....but also the poetry from the front lines,wilfred owens,siegfried sassoon,robert service,joyce kilmer, many many many............some were drivers for the ambulance corps.somerset maughm,"the razors edge"and "a farewell to arms"e.e commings,hemingway,gertrude stein,....any way alot of writers....when i got out of high school i wanted to work overseas in the army medical corps,enlisting in the u.s army and did go across the big water as a corpsman.....i guess literature did influence me.i wasn't all that much int who was right or wrong.most of us just wanted to get back home and start cchaseing after the chicks again.i just wanted to do good for the world(and of course fuck as many women as i could....)i started to write this in the what is hippie nature section.but i see that section is closed.we can argue,arge,argue, differant little details about what hippie nature is.whether certain religios leaders were right or not,but its usually controlled by greed,paranoia,hate,jealousy.the woreld will keep going downhill as long as we continue with small ideas based on bullshit.rudeness and hate just begets more.its trite but negatrive vibes really do bring us down.i think hippie nature really was about love and what love can do.it is really so simple.i don't want people getting hurt and killed anymore in war or anywhere else.i was never into the fashions and stuff.i still wear the same kind of clothes i ever did whatever i have thats comfortable.never did anything to sell tshirts and petty little things that some people seem to trivialize our lives into.so i guess those folks from my grandparents generation(there's so few left)and the writers tha lved thru horrid times but came out with hopefulness for the future did influence me.

 

The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda

This book is the first of many books written in the sixties by someone who was looking for inner truth and self discovery. I think the reason alot of hippies were reading his books was because he was finding his inner truth through the use of pychedelic drugs. His journey of self discovery in a nonordinary reality is integral to this tapestry. Because he was gaining knowledge through a North American shaman, it was something that we could all strive to achieve ourselves.

PAX

 

that's another book i haven't gotten to,although it came highly recommended to me by a good friend of mine of 40 years.we,ve talked many times about that book and subsequent books by castatenda .it sounds like in later books he moved on to even higher experiences than his peyote visions.but i can be a little lazy in my reading at times.i should read it.you know what they say.sometimes a person arrives somewhere when it's meant for them to arrive there.

 

oh yeah,i'll give the forum a review after i've finished it.thanks.

 

i remember The whole earth catalog.it seemed alot of people had copies.yhey probly still do.i last looked through one a couple years ago.seems an interesting, helpful manual for life.

 

henry david thoeau's writeings were very popular with people in those days still are. "civil disobediance" because of all the issues with vietnam and human rights.and "walden pond" because of the descriptions of a simpler way of life and ecological concerns.

 

For me, it was Hermann Hesse's books Siddhartha and Steppenwolf, as well as the poetry of Leonard Cohen and the Beat poets like Ginsberg and Snyder.

Most of Hesse's books were about some journey which was internal as well as external. These two books, and Haight/Ashbury, is what were behind my drive to 'find myself'. Heh... probably still doing it.

Trying to remember what other books I read back then, but it's a bit of time ago and I've read so much since then.

 

Yeah, Siddartha for sure.

Some others off the top of my head ...

1. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
2. Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me
3. Desert Solitaire
4. The Graduate
5. The Jesus Factor
6. Doctor Zhivago
7. Franny and Zooey
8. Reflection in a Golden Eye
9. To a Lighthouse
10. Soul on Ice
11. Anthem
12. The Fire Next Time
13. Profiles in Courage