William S. Burroughs work shown in class has really intrigued me and I'm looking forward to reading his writing. I've always recognized his name as an influential author but I never got around to actually checking out his work. The same can be said of Allen Ginsberg. I've only heard of his poem "Howl" and know him as a famous poet. However, I read "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac when I was in high school but I don't remember the contents that well. I do remember that the man who inspired the character of "Dean Moriarty," Neal Cassady, also appears in Tom Wolfe's "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" about Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. Interestingly, I see these two books bridging the gap between the beatnik and hippie generations with the appearance of Cassady.
The definition of the beatnik generation in class as a bit of a "lost generation" defeated by the high standards set by the "American Dream" was very fascinating. I never thought of the beatniks as being "beat down" and I only thought of the connotation of jazz music. The definition does fit as applied to "On the Road" because I actually do remember the opening page having Sal Paradise reveal that he went through a divorce (which could be seen as failure to start the perfect nuclear family). I never really thought about how "On the Road" was a revolutionary book for its time and I'm looking forward to reading "Naked Lunch" and "Howl" with this new perspective on how these works came to be (also, Burroughs' cut-up technique sounds absolutely wild!).
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