Yet Another Cycling Forum
Off Topic => The Pub => Arts and Entertainment => Topic started by: citoyen on 02 July, 2010, 11:37:49 am
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Y'know, those books and films you need to read and watch before you become an adult. The ones that teach you more about growing up than any textbook ever could. And the age you think they're best caught at.
Got onto thinking about this when discussing The Graduate with a colleague and he asked if my son has seen it yet. I think at 12 he's a bit young for it yet.
He read the Adrian Mole books earlier this year (Secret Diary & Growing Pains) and absolutely loved them. I was about the same age when I read them. They're an essential part of growing up and 11-13 is the perfect age for them.
The Catcher In The Rye is another obvious one. And film-wise, Stand By Me.
I also thought about The Rachel Papers and Portnoy's Complaint, but I think maybe best wait until he's a bit older for those. I think I was 16 when I read The Rachel Papers and I reckon that's the perfect age for it.
Rebel Without A Cause might be slightly too mature for a 12yo but maybe not - kids are so sophisticated these days...
d.
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To Kill a Mockingbird - preferably the book
(read it before it's ruined for you in English GCSE !)
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To Kill a Mockingbird.
edit: mattc beat me to it. I was "lucky" enough to study this for O level but didn't actually see the fillum until earlier this year.
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To Kill a Mockingbird, at any age.
'Junk' at 14/15
'One flew over the cuckoos nest' at 15.
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Breaking Away - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_Away)
YouRememberThat.Com - Taking You Back In Time... - Breaking Away - 1979 Movie Trailer (http://www.yourememberthat.com/media/10439/Breaking_Away_-_1979_Movie_Trailer/)
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YouTube
- American Graffiti Trailer
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6Jo1gH89VM)
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To Kill a Mockingbird, at any age.
Quite. I considered To Kill A Mockingbird but I don't think of it as being specifically about growing up so I'm not sure it really fits. But it's essential reading anyway.
Breaking Away would be a good one if I want to try to get him into cycling. ;D
d.
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+1 to ESL's suggestions.
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Blazing Saddles
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I don't even know if you can get it these days in English, but there is a book called 1914 by an author called Eyvind Johnson (Nobel Prize winner 1974). It's a semi-autobiographical work about a 14-year-old boy who leaves his foster home to go & work in Northern Sweden in the fateful year, 1914. It is a painful read, because he has all the angsts and feelings that I had at that age. It's part of a tetraology, but the first book is definitely the one. I did read it in English before I studied Swedish, so I know it was available, but worth a look...
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Round about then, and of value to me, I read:
Miss Julie - Strindberg
Ghosts - Ibsen
Crime & Punishment - Dostoevsky
Notes From Underground
White Nights
The Gambler
Resurrection - Tolstoy
Death of Ivan Illyich
Master & Man
The Cossacks
Watt - Beckett
The Trial - Kafka
Hunger - Hamsun
Nausea - Sartre
The Outsider - Camus
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Biggles and The Hardy Boys were considered essential reading by my young self ;D They instilled in me all manner of important lessons such as sticking up for what I believe in and slipping such words as 'dekko' into conversation.
;D :D
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Cinematically, with a lad of 19 and one of 14, I have made sure that they have seen:
The Blues Brothers
The Italian Job
West Side Story
Harvey
Rocky Horror for the older lad, to much bemusement.
I've yet to buy The Commitments
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To Kill a Mockingbird, at any age.
Quite. I considered To Kill A Mockingbird but I don't think of it as being specifically about growing up so I'm not sure it really fits. But it's essential reading anyway.
It's about a child learning about the adult world - how crap it can be, how crap people can be to each other, and standing up for things when it would be easier to just keep your head down. important stuff.
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To Kill A Mockingbird is truly excellent, but I didn't read it till I was about 25, after working on a passable theatre version.
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Not something I'd experienced at that age, but Our Kid was utterly struck by the power of Inherit The Wind. It helped him to understand the different ways of viewing the world.
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It's part of a tetraology, but the first book is definitely the one. I did read it in English before I studied Swedish, so I know it was available, but worth a look...
If anyone wants to try and read it in Swedish I have it, also another 2 by the same author (didnt manage to get all four, when I also studied the language :thumbsup:) Many Swedish authors of the same period had similar themes...
For an English one - Laurie Lees "As I walked out one Summer Morning"
And the Autobiography of a super tramp - can't remember who by...
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I remember "All Quiet on the Western Front" and "A Farewell to Arms" making big impressions on me.
Ken Follett "The Pillars of the Earth" is another book that had a huge impact on me. Tracking several generations of a family of stonemasons throughout the building of Winchester Cathedral. A brilliant and moving book, though probably a little old for a 12yo. I read it at 14
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To Kill A Mockingbird is truly excellent, but I didn't read it till I was about 25, after working on a passable theatre version.
It is the fiftieth anniversary of its publication this week, and there is a new edition to celebrate. Mariella Frostrup's R4 prog yesterday was entirely devoted to it.
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For an English one - Laurie Lees "As I walked out one Summer Morning"
Definitely. Better than Cider With Rosie
And the Autobiography of a super tramp - can't remember who by...
I think it was WH Davies, but I may be wrong.
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I did To Kill A Mockingbird and Brave New World for English O-level, studied as opposed to just read, which helped me appreciate them.
Kerouac's Maggie Cassidy is a fantastic evocation of small town first love, probably one of my favourite books ever.
Surely every disaffected youth would devour Catcher In The Rye?
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Surely every disaffected youth would devour Catcher In The Rye?
yeah, but you have to question whether they'd learn anything from it!
(it's a good book, but not in this way ... )
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I did read a bunch of American literature around then:
Catch-22 (which I didn't really get till about ten years later)
Slaughterhouse Five (which deeply affected me)
One flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
On The Road
Catcher In The Rye is one to read at 14, 28 & 42 (& probably 56 & 70 too) and it's a different book each time, though I did think that Holden was a whingy spoiled brat.
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Jude the Obscure
Tess of the d'Urbevilles.
Lord of the flies (if it hasn't been massacred by school)
Most of the ones people are recommending I haven't read, though I did find it amusing that when there was the '100 greatest books' thing a while back, bot my wife and I (science graduates)had read more of them than her english lit graduate sister.
..d
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Lord Of The Flies, like To Kill A Mockingbird, can be cruelly slaughtered by English teaching for GCSE. But they are both great books.
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Except that Piggie's glasses could never start a fire, and here endeth the lesson (and the book, as far as I was concerned). ;D
Coming of age book? The Bible's actually pretty good if you can stand it.
The Owl Service and Red Shift (obviously!) - books about love and fate, and whether you can escape them.
Another vote for Kurt Vonnegut Jr - but I'd add in some thing like 'Slapstick - or Lonesome No More' for the lighter relief, too. (I too use the words 'hey ho' to punctuate boredom, even now)
When the Wind Blows - to show him just how frightened we could be.
Two books from my youth which may or may not still be available - Paul Zindel's The Pigman, and Pardon Me You're Stepping On My Eyeball. Neither is great literature, but my memory of them is that Zindel does "alienated angsty teen" like noone else - apart from perhaps Alan Garner. I read Zindel before Garner, and the fact that I still read Garner, but not Zindel, may indicate their relative worth in my head.
Films? Oh! What a Lovely War.
I'll probably think of some more to add later.
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Films? Oh! What a Lovely War.
Good call, but I'd say a DVD of Blackadder Goes Forth now beats it.
(especially if you hate musicals)
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Except that Piggie's glasses could never start a fire, and here endeth the lesson (and the book, as far as I was concerned). ;D
That completely spoiled the film for me (and we saw the film at school prior to reading the book).
Having had to wear glasses since I was ten and being most upset that I couldn't set fire to things...
S
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If they can handle the French, the Pagnol "Water of the Hills" pairing (Jean/Manon), or his autobiog ones (just the first two).
Starship Troopers by Heinlein for a different view, matched with The Forever War by Haldeman.
The Railway Man by Lomax for a lesson in inhumanity, twinned with Anne Frank's diary for a reminder that the sprirt still soars.
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My mum gave me a book - it was the first grown up book I had read, made all the more important by my dad questioning her about me being old enough for it.
Papillon.
Papillon: Amazon.co.uk: Henri Charrière, Patrick O'Brian: Books (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Papillon-Henri-Charri%C3%A8re/dp/0586034862/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278101738&sr=8-1)
Not sure if it is really a coming of age thing - though it was for me.
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I did find it amusing that when there was the '100 greatest books' thing a while back, bot my wife and I (science graduates)had read more of them than her english lit graduate sister.
And the flipside of that is, it's acceptable for arts grads to be totally ignorant of science ::-)
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Watch Dead Poets Society.
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Star Wars.
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P'tang. Yang. Kipperbang (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084459/)
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P'tang. Yang. Kipperbang (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084459/)
Definitely. First play on Channel 4, IIRC. Back in the days when it was a decent channel.
I tried watching Oh! What a Lovely War! with the lads, but they really didn't get it. :(
I agree with reading the Bible as a teenager, and the Qu'ran, Upanisads, and Dhammapada while you're doing.
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Definitely. First play on Channel 4, IIRC. Back in the days when it was a decent channel.
With the added bonus that (I'm pretty sure) a fair bit of the footage was shot not a million miles from where you currently find yourself :).
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I can remember reading a lot of Car magazine, the NME and the occasional nudie mag, conveniently discarded in a layby close to the M6, that we passed on the way home from school. Favourite films at the time were The Producers and Billy Liar. Years later the only film that looks like the period I grew up in is Ang Lee's 'The Ice Storm'.
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Billy Liar
Of course! How could I have forgotten that. Such a great film. And with so much to say about growing up.
It doesn't matter how many times I watch it (and I've seen it lots of times), I still find myself hoping that this time he'll get on the train... :'(
d.
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Billy Liar
Of course! How could I have forgotten that. Such a great film. And with so much to say about growing up.
It doesn't matter how many times I watch it (and I've seen it lots of times), I still find myself hoping that this time he'll get on the train... :'(
d.
John Schlesinger was one of a number of directors who made 'coming of age' films in the 60s. Sexual liberation, the end of conscription, youth culture, the expansion of higher education, women's liberation and the wartime demographic bulge all combined to produce a perfect storm for the emergence into adulthood. The result was a glut of exceptional films and the colonising of the genre by that particular generation. A common theme was the lack of privacy due to housing problems, a contemporary resonance is 'kidult' culture and adults in their 20s living with parents.
I've no idea what constitutes a 'coming of age' movie for an audience for whom a lot of the issues of the 1960s have been settled. I suspect that 'gross out' and horror/vampire movies might be significant, anything that deals with the messy transition to sexual maturity.
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Oh yes. Absolutely. Lindsay Anderson's If... is another that I watched over and over in my teenage years. And Tony Richardson's Tom Jones and The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner.
And, of course, there were the New Wave French directors who the English directors of the 60s got all their ideas from... Truffaut's Les 400 Coups, being the obvious example.
d.
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American Pie ::-)
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There will be a move towards emerging countries as they experience what hit Britain in the 60s. A number of the same themes are bound to emerge, Slumdog Millionaire being something of a bridge.
I'm a sucker for a good outsider film, Amelie being a very good example, and one that would work very well in a contemporary Chinese setting; emerging into society in an emerging society, you could also work in elements of 'The Apartment', alienation being a major theme in the genre.
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The Breakfast Club
Ferris Bueller's Day off
Logan's Run (purely for the breasts), mind you with the internet, kids can probably see them any time they want now.
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I've never seen Logan's Run, but I will now. Thanks geraldc :thumbsup:
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Contemporary TV programmes such as The Simpsons, Family Guy and Glee are chock full of coming of age issues, in a small town setting. Moving away is the dominant 'Coming of Age' motif, as in.
YouTube
- Don't Stop Believing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=barLaHrtvoM)
escaping the stifling morals of small town life. Whereas throughout most of human history having kids was the moment of growing up, which usually meant being more reliant on family. 'The Graduate' is one of the purer coming of age movies.
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I didn't grow up in New Zealand, but for some reason I read The boys of Puhawai (http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/photo/boys-puhawai) when I was quite young. It made me wish I was in NZ and taught me quite a bit. I also remember reading the Australian novel, Storm Boy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_Boy_%28novel%29), which had a similar effect.
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The Breakfast Club
Ferris Bueller's Day off
Interestingly, I saw both again recently, having seen neither for years. I loved Ferris Bueller but found The Breakfast Club pretty painful viewing, even though I liked it more than Ferris Bueller back in the day. I think The Breakfast Club is one of those where you really do need to be of the right age to enjoy it - probably 14-16?
And it feels very uncomfortable looking at Molly Ringwald and remembering how I felt about her all those years ago... she's sooo young in that film! (These days, I think I'd be more likely to go for the Ally Sheedy character. ;) )
d.
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Walkabout
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Quadrophenia and Saturday Night Fever make a good pairing. I knew some kids who were heavily into the Northern Soul scene at Wigan Casino and these films remind me of them.
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To Kill a Mockingbird.
edit: mattc beat me to it. I was "lucky" enough to study this for O level but didn't actually see the fillum until earlier this year.
Thanks :)
I was taught some awful book of short stories for O level. Then I found out that the other set were doing Mockingbird, which sounded rather good. It didn't take long to read it, then realise I had more chance of answering questions about it, even without any 'teaching'. So I did the usual learn-2-or-3-key-quotes thing and answered the relevant questions on the day. I doubt I could ever have remembered enough crap about the short stories - I pity anyone else who hated their set books for English Lit.
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Walkabout
For the same reason as Logan's Run, presumably?
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Walkabout
For the same reason as Logan's Run, presumably?
Better add An American Werewolf in London then
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And, er, the Railway Children?
d.
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I don't think that one has breasts.
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But it has Jenny Agutter.
And her red knickers.
d.
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Another Bildungsroman fillum: Twelve Angry Men
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For an English one - Laurie Lees "As I walked out one Summer Morning"
Definitely. Better than Cider With Rosie
And the Autobiography of a super tramp - can't remember who by...
I think it was WH Davies, but I may be wrong.
Two locals for us.
WH Davies is possibly best known for 'Leisure'
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass,
No time to see, in broad day light,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at beauty's glance
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
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I suppose The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks would also qualify as a coming of age novel.
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I suppose The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks would also qualify as a coming of age novel.
Good one. Would love to make a film version of that (if were not painfully lacking in the cash, contacts, skills etc, etc).
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Good one. Would love to make a film version of that (if were not painfully lacking in the cash, contacts, skills etc, etc).
When I was a Penniless Student Oaf, some of us planned to film The Utterly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer Of OC And Stiggs, but were similarly hampered. Then Robert Altman got the gig, and fucked it up royally.
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I'd like to recommend The Bridge to Terebithia or the film of it at least, I've never read the book. Its a kids film but apparently the book is extremely well known in the US but less so here.