By "old books", I don't mean 20 or 30 years old. I'm talking about mid 1900s and prior.
I've been expanding my backlog to include 1900s era books that I've never read before. Right now, I've been going through mainly the classics right now– "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn", "Of Mice and Men", "The Price of Salt"/"Carol", "Lord Of The Flies", "Grapes Of Wrath", "L-lita", etc– with some outliers that peak my interest.
One thing that stood out to me when reading them is how different they feel compared to film and music from the era.
I'm fond of classic film, though I actually lean 1910s to 1920s over the preferred 1930s to 1950s. I've seen a ton of old films, both American and international. Except for niche mainly European films, I don't see the sorts of topics I see in literature. Even pre-Code media isn't as raw as some of the books I've read.
Real life wasn't "Leave It To Beaver" or a MGM musical. Not everything was soft and clean. The image we have of the past is sanitized by what we see in pop culture, with tends to favor visual mediums and music over books. This gives the impression that no one prior to the 60s ever cursed.
Of course, books were still censored and regulated even in the past. But overall, you can find more realistic depictions of life in literature than you can in other mediums like comics or film.
by Gallantpride