From: John M. Daniel
In article <Q1un2.4201$h5.53355614@WReNphoon1>, dtropea.TakeThisOut@ctron.com says...
>
>I think it will definately help me understand how
>Ned is so obsessive to be part of the religious
>community. It is such a direct opposite to the
>atheistic/agnostic negative view of these beatniks.
Ah, but the Beats (and I don't know if I sufficiently emphasized the
difference between the Beats as a literary movement and the beatniks as a
cultural movement) we often much more hopeful than stereotypically given
credit for.
Kerouac's "The Dharma Bums" is often ecstatic at the promise offered by
the grand untamed-ness of America, and the limitless expanse of something
he calls "The American Night". "On the Road" has been the inspiration for
a million road trips of the kind immortalized by the Blues Brothers ("200
miles to Chicago, half a pack of cigarettes, and a full tank of gas. Hit
it." I don't remember that exact quote, but that's a very "Beat" moment).
I saw Ferlinghetti read at UNC a few years back (he's quite old now) and
his readings from "A Coney Island of the Mind" had the audience in
stitches. More fun than you'd ever expect from a poetry reading.
>That poem my god how depressing yet powerful. Sheesh.
Ginsberg had a lot of demons to contend with, and did so through his
poetry. "Kaddish," an epic-length meditation on the death of his mother,
is equally powerful.
>
>Jack Kerouac was a beatnik? I know that in Lowell
>Mass he was/is a celebrity for his books but i never
>knew he was a beatnik. I just thought he was a
>wondering hippie. I think my mother has that book
>maybe i should read it. Scratch that i have to read
>the new Buffy novel first.
Again, Jack was the most visible figure of the Beat literary movement, but
not someone I've ever seen pictured wearing a black beret or playing
bongos. The beatnik subculture that grew up around his and others' work
was mystifying to him, and he handled the adulation poorly.
Do pick up On The Road (once you're finished with Buffy). It's a fun read
and interesting from the perspective of its position as the seed of an
entire subculture (or, depending on who you talk to, the genesis of *all*
counterculture in the US).
OK, I'll quit now.
Obligatory Simpsons subject matter: Nelson, Bart, and Milhouse emerge
bug-eyed and bewildered from a screening of "Naked Lunch" (based on the
book by William S. Burroughs).
Nelson: I can think of *two things* wrong with that title!
JD
(so who sez an MA in English is useless?)
Homer Simpson... Kerouac's later years.
Will
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