Beat writers, and that

He is a great writer of non-fiction though.

2 Likes

Can I recommend Go by John Clellon Holmes as an alternative to the Beat canon? Itā€™s a much more grounded/ realistic description of the beatnik lifestyle.

Wasnā€™t this basically a guy holding down a job whilst Kerouac shagged his wife?

Itā€™s been a few years since I read it.

You canā€™t ditch everything by anyone with any dirt on their CV, though. Thereā€™ll be no music left for a start. The really bad stuff, absolutely, butā€¦

1 Like

I think itā€™s great that Harry Potter and the Five-Week Mescaline Binge On The A42 has got kids reading

On the Road has some of my favourite writing about music. Made me want to go to a dirty jazz bar and Feel that wild sway. Something nothing else - least of all actually listening to jazz - has ever done.

1 Like

I read On The Road about 12 years ago* aged around 19, absolutely loved it and still class it as one of my all time faves. Interestingly I picked up another copy in better nick than mine just this weekend and plan on reading it again before Xmasā€¦

*Iā€™m not at home tonight else Iā€™d obviously check my book journel to give yous an accurate month and year

Murakami does this to me too.

Cue hot takes

1 Like

on the road is pretentious rubbish, grace is boring. read/heard them both as an adult tho, so maybe thatā€™s the problem there. kid shit

1 Like

Bad day, mate?

1 Like

Iā€™ve never heard of these issues about Steinbeck. Iā€™ve only read Cannery Row and i reckon i could name ten similar novels that are superior.

Orwellā€™s essays and newspaper colums are so good. Never come across another writer with such a simplistic but engaging style. Itā€™s probably why heā€™s so popular, eh. Just really accessible and unpretentious. Basically just have his Penguin Great Ideas books on rotate when on holiday.

2 Likes

expected to really like On The Road but found it really really dull. not at all in a snobby way - had heard so much praise including from people i know, and i was in a big Dylan phase at the time so interested in checking out some of the beat stuff - but nothing happens at all and the writing is so plain that i found it a massive slog. and the character weā€™re supposed to venerate just struck me as being a massively tiresome penis. just not for me, Clive, i guess.

also tried Factotum by Bukowski around that time, again expecting a real classic but it was just a guy going to different places and getting drunk a lot and being self-important without any real plot. just didnā€™t really understand it. thought about giving Post Office a try as itā€™s supposed to be better but a few years have passed and iā€™m not sure if itā€™s really worth bothering now.

iā€™ve got The Soft Machine by Burroughs on my shelf as i got it cheap somewhere a few years ago without really knowing anything about it beyond the name. might get round to it eventually as itā€™s not that long but as my pile of unread books piles up itā€™s moved further down the list as every time i glance at it it looks like hard work.

1 Like

Second the Fante mentions.
Richard Brautigan - Perhaps a little late to be classed as a beat writer but is brill (pretty sure a beat writer wouldnā€™t use the word brill)

1 Like

Vanity of Duluoz was my favourite Kerouac book, but I was 17 when I read all that stuff so no idea what I would think of it now.

I remember thereā€™s a bit where somebody puts a jazz record on and from the way that he describes it, it sounds like the most exciting, life-affirming piece of music ever recorded. Anyway, I found it on Youtube and itā€™sā€¦ okay. Iā€™m not much of a jazz fan though.

Burroughs was dodgy af (see his Collected Letters, where he boasts about paying boys in Morocco to have sex in front of him - itā€™s unclear exactly how old they are but he calls them boys).

Kerouac is an asshole in On The Road, the way he leaches off women. Iā€™ve only read one other by him, Desolation Angels, which is set around the time heā€™s becoming famous, and is better and more self-reflective. Great scene in a jazz bar where he times his walk across the room so he doesnā€™t throw the drummerā€™s rhythm off. But again heā€™s down in Mexico paying for sex with possibly underage women.

Everything anyone likes is embarrassing on some level.

#makeuthink

Yeah but who hasnā€™t done that

2 Likes

Hope Vick managed to get replacements ok!

2 Likes