A rich sourcebook for literary historians and fans of the passionate, iconoclastic Beats.
The Beat generation, as seen by its central figure.
During a 20-year teaching career, acclaimed poet Ginsberg (Wait Till I’m Dead: Uncollected Poems, 2016, etc.) developed a syllabus for a course on the Beats, first offered at the Naropa Institute in Colorado, known as The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, and later at Brooklyn College. Ginsberg’s ambitious aim, writes Morgan (The Beats Abroad: A Global Guide to the Beat Generation, 2016, etc.), the poet’s biographer and prolific chronicler of the Beats, was to convey a comprehensive literary, spiritual, and intellectual history of a growing and evolving circle of friends as well as to offer his own testimony as witness to the movement he helped create. Authoritatively edited by Morgan from course material and tapes, the syllabus considers writers chronologically, focusing on different works, or periods of development, in each class. Kerouac, William Burroughs, and Gregory Corso earn the most attention, with Neal Cassady, Diane di Prima, Bob Dylan, and Gary Snyder, among others, also brought in for consideration. While many classes were as free-wheeling, digressive, and opinionated as anyone might expect from Ginsberg, most offered close readings, literary background, candid recollections, and cogent analyses, highlighting both craft and literary influence. Jazz, he contends, inflected the “phrasings, rhythms, and patterns” of Kerouac’s prose, as did the sound of “melancholy violins.” Corso assiduously read Spenser and Milton. Of his own poetry, Ginsberg cites the influence of 18th-century British poet Christopher Smart, William Carlos Williams, Blake, Whitman, Shelley, and Yeats on his iconic “Howl,” a poem, he says, “written for the people who read Time magazine as well as for the bohemian left.” Ginsberg is generous in his portrayals, even of Kerouac’s reactionary views in his old age and Burroughs’ combative eccentricities (he was “dedicated totally and sacramentally” to exploring his own consciousness).
A rich sourcebook for literary historians and fans of the passionate, iconoclastic Beats.Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8021-2649-8
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Startling, at times pretentious in its self-regard, but ultimately breathtaking: The Lost Weekend for the under-25 set.
Frey’s lacerating, intimate debut chronicles his recovery from multiple addictions with adrenal rage and sprawling prose.
After ten years of alcoholism and three years of crack addiction, the 23-year-old author awakens from a blackout aboard a Chicago-bound airplane, “covered with a colorful mixture of spit, snot, urine, vomit and blood.” While intoxicated, he learns, he had fallen from a fire escape and damaged his teeth and face. His family persuades him to enter a Minnesota clinic, described as “the oldest Residential Drug and Alcohol Facility in the World.” Frey’s enormous alcohol habit, combined with his use of “Cocaine . . . Pills, acid, mushrooms, meth, PCP and glue,” make this a very rough ride, with the DTs quickly setting in: “The bugs crawl onto my skin and they start biting me and I try to kill them.” Frey captures with often discomforting acuity the daily grind and painful reacquaintance with human sensation that occur in long-term detox; for example, he must undergo reconstructive dental surgery without anesthetic, an ordeal rendered in excruciating detail. Very gradually, he confronts the “demons” that compelled him towards epic chemical abuse, although it takes him longer to recognize his own culpability in self-destructive acts. He effectively portrays the volatile yet loyal relationships of people in recovery as he forms bonds with a damaged young woman, an addicted mobster, and an alcoholic judge. Although he rejects the familiar 12-step program of AA, he finds strength in the principles of Taoism and (somewhat to his surprise) in the unflinching support of family, friends, and therapists, who help him avoid a relapse. Our acerbic narrator conveys urgency and youthful spirit with an angry, clinical tone and some initially off-putting prose tics—irregular paragraph breaks, unpunctuated dialogue, scattered capitalization, few commas—that ultimately create striking accruals of verisimilitude and plausible human portraits.
Startling, at times pretentious in its self-regard, but ultimately breathtaking: The Lost Weekend for the under-25 set.Pub Date: April 15, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-50775-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
BOOK TO SCREEN
4 Book Adaptations to Check Out In December
A generous and singularly insightful examination of memoir.
A bestselling nonfiction writer offers spirited commentary about memoir, the literary form that has become synonymous with her name.
Personal narrative has exploded in popularity over the last 20 years. Yet, as Karr (Lit: A Memoir, 2009, etc.) points out, memoir still struggles to attain literary respectability. “There is a lingering snobbery in the literary world,” she writes, “that wants to disqualify what is broadly called nonfiction from the category of ‘literature.’ ” In this book, Karr offers both an apology for and a sharp-eyed exploration of this form born from her years as a practitioner as well as a distinguished English professor at Syracuse University. She begins by considering classroom “experiments” she has conducted to show the slipperiness of memory and arguing the need to give latitude to writers tackling memoir. Writing with the intent to record what rings true rather than exact is one thing; writing with the intent to lie is another. Voice is another critical aspect of any memoir that manages to endure through time. By examining works by writers as diverse as Frank McCourt and Vladimir Nabokov, Karr demonstrates that it is in fact the very thing by which a great memoir “lives or dies.” Rather than focus on the narrative truism of “show-don’t-tell,” Karr thoughtfully elaborates on what she calls “carnality”—the ability to transform memory into a multisensory experience—for the reader. When wed to a desire to move beyond the traps of ego and render personal “psychic struggle” honestly and without fear, carnality can lead to writing that not only “wring[s] some truth from the godawful mess of a single life,” but also connects deeply with readers. Karr’s sassy Texas wit and her down-to-earth observations about both the memoir form and how to approach it combine to make for lively and inspiring reading.
A generous and singularly insightful examination of memoir.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-222306-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
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