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Our Review
It's hard to know what to make of the Beats. They were called the Beat Generation but, in fact, were the antithesis of their own generation. In 1950s America, while everyone else was riding around the suburbs in family sedans, the Beats were living in the urban underbelly, dirt poor on subsistence wages, sometimes supported by lovers or friends while they made whatever art they made -- poetry, novels, "spontaneous prose."
The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats is an excellent introduction for those who want to learn about this loose collection of wayward artists, but it is also a fine anthology for those who are already fans of the era (for an introduction to the actual literary stuff itself, you might want to pick up The Portable Beat Reader). A mixture of thorough, informative essays and more personal firsthand accounts, the book sometimes dips into the sublime, where form meets function, as in Michael McClure's "Painting Beat by Numbers" piece, Rick Bleier's cartoon-story, and even -- dare I say it -- Johnny Depp's extended riff on his discovery of Beat culture.
One of the themes that emerges from this book is that all was not as it appeared. The spontaneous, Benzedrine-driven three weeks of continuous typing that was supposed to have produced On the Road was actually preceded by years of careful note taking and a series of journals in which Jack Kerouac had already sketched out many of his characters and stories. The full-breath jazz lines of Allen Ginsberg's poetry were carefully written and rewritten. The "spontaneity" was expertly crafted; these Beats had read Whitman, Melville, and Hart Crane, and they wanted to take their place in the pantheon beside them.
Perhaps one of the biggest contradictions embodied by the Beats was that this lively group of antiestablishment artists, with their experimental attitudes toward drugs, religion, and homosexuality, had no use for women except as secretaries and lovers. Even its muses -- Neal Cassady, Lucien Carr -- were male. Which may lead you to wonder, Why did women want to hang out with them at all? For this reason, Joyce Johnson and Hettie Jones may have two of the most interesting pieces in the book. They write joyfully, not bitterly, of their lives with the Beats and their roles within the group. In 1950s America, all they wanted to do was get away from the suburban housewife role, wear black turtlenecks and ripped stockings, and live a life true to their spirits. That they were able to do this -- albeit in minor, supporting roles -- was reward enough.
--Gail Jaitin
Publishers Weekly
- Publisher's Weekly
Celebrating the spontaneous, freewheeling, drug-taking, taboo-breaking 1950s and '60s artists called Beats or beatniks, this is a huge dim sum cart of a book, loaded with essays, reprinted book reviews, commissioned memoirs, interviews and pictures. Editor George-Warren (co-editor of The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll) divides the book into six sections that give a historical overview; pay tribute to Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg; examine less well-known figures; and assess the Beats' influences on American culture today. Given the possible pitfalls of a long anthology, and the "spontaneous" Beat ethos, the writing here is surprisingly polished. Cultural critics include Lester Bangs, who provides a rapid-fire elegy on Kerouac ("the decades fall past like dominoes into bookless eras of daily apocalypse"); Greil Marcus, who turns up twice (on Ginsberg and Kerouac); and Richard Meltzer, who lets loose with his hipster jive in an overview of Beat books. There are memoirs by major players in the movement, including Burroughs, Carol Cassady and Lawrence Ferlinghetti; and homages from self-proclaimed heirs of the Beats, including Patti Smith, Richard Hell, Lee Ranaldo (of Sonic Youth) and Johnny Depp. Amusing debates emerge, about the meaning of Maynard G. Krebs for the movement, and whether hippies or punks were truer to the beatnik spirit. On the serious side, Allen Ginsberg comes in for criticism as a self-promoter, held responsible for the deleterious effect of fame on Kerouac and Neal Cassady. Without excerpts from the fiction or poetry, this anthology isn't an introduction. But it is a first-rate companion. (July) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
"A celebration of Beat culture in words and pictures," this collection looks at the Beat Generation's influence on popular art and culture, especially rock'n'roll. The book is organized into six parts: an opening section documents the birth of the Beat Generation; separate sections are devoted to Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs; one section covers minor beat writers; and a concluding section examines the Beat Generation's legacy. Articles include reprinted interviews and reviews from Rolling Stone along with newly commissioned pieces by Carolyn Cassady, Hettie Jones, and David Amram, among others. Authors range from literary scholars like Ann Charters and John Tytell to rock and folk artists like Patti Smith, Lee Renaldo, Johnny Depp, and Eric Andersen. This well-balanced anthology should be a welcome addition to most public and academic libraries.--William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Jottings and spottings from more than 60 writers, artists, academics, and pop-culture sages, most of them contributors to Rolling Stone magazine, that celebrate the romantic nihilism of the postwar Beat movement. The Beats were cool and don't we miss them, say Hunter S. Thompson, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, David Amram, and Carolyn Cassady (Neal's wife). The rumpled, pot-smoking, hard-drinking, pansexual trio of Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Jack Kerouac not only changed everything about American culture, according to Rolling Stone culture critics Greil Marcus, Mikal Gilmore, and Robert Palmer, but still informs a generation of snide, black-clad, biker-jacket-and-tight-pants rebels, represented in pointless essays from guitarist-turned-novelist Richard Hell, rocker Graham Parker, and actor Johnny Depp, who recalls that reading •Howl• "left me babbling like an idiot, stunned that someone could regurgitate such honesty on paper." Some minor writings from the Big Three that were previously published in Rolling Stone (editor George-Warren proudly puffs the magazine as a promoter of Beat sensibilities) are lost among windy blasts of hagiography, no-longer-new journalism, and judgments that don't make much sense, such as Ginsberg buddy Michael McClure's revelation that the Beats were really "the literary wing of the environmental movement." If it's hard to accept CUNY English professor John Tytell•s claim that Beat writing, abstract expressionist art, be-bop jazz, and Method acting are all manifestations of primal American rebelliousness, journalist Henry Cabot Beck assures us that Maynard G. Krebs, the feckless hipster played by actor Bob Denver in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis,was not what the Beats were all about. Cultural history under a syrupy glaze of self-righteous nostalgia, anecdotal noodlings, and creaky profundity. (40 b&w photos)
