Given the neoconservative slant of the Sunday New York Times book review
section, it is of some note that “The Beats: a Graphic History,” edited
by Paul Buhle, got what amounts to a rave review. As most of you
probably know, Paul is one of the most unpopular figures in what Woody
Allen once referred to as the world of Dysentery (the journal that
resulted from a merger of Commentary and Dissent). The concluding paragraph:
"This, perhaps, is the Beats’ true legacy: the impact they continue to
have on people who encounter them for the first time, even if that
impact isn’t literary. Discussions of 'On the Road' tend to begin, 'I
was 17 when I first read it, and it made me . . .' in ways that
discussions of 'Ulysses' or 'The Great Gatsby' do not. (They tend to end
there as well, alas.) 'The Beats' captures some of the wonder of that
first encounter and places it in historical and political context. Here
was a group of writers who hoped to change consciousness through their
lives and art. They fit America’s romance with the outsider. That they
were products of elite colleges - Harvard, Reed, Columbia, Swarthmore -
and owed their visibility to nonoutsider publications like Mademoiselle
and this newspaper is a paradox 'The Beats' chooses not to engage. They
rocked."
The writers who contributed text to this graphic history were clearly
touched by the beat experience personally. Harvey Pekar, who contributed
the lion’s share, recounts his early exposure to the beats in his very
fine memoir “The Quitter”. It is 1957, and he is entering Case Western
Reserve University. This is how he describes the scene (image in blog
article appears here):
While the book understandably devotes the most space to the superstars
of the beat generation-Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs-there are
mini-biographies of more obscure figures like Robert Duncan, the openly
gay poet who I had the good fortune to hear at Bard College in 1961.
Duncan, who lived from 1919 to 1988, moved to New York at the age of 20
and hobnobbed with Henry Miller, Anais Nin, and Sanders Russell, the
editor of Experimental Review.
full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/04/29/the-beats/
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