Hipsterdom

IdleRich

IdleRich
Careless I'd give you but it's not overwritten, beating around the bush... sloppy maybe. To me flabby means there is a lot of it that could be cut out leaving a good bit - but it's not that there is excess here, it's that what's there isn't that good.
 

luka

Well-known member
But I don't have it here to refer to. This is just how I remember it. Maybe it's a mischaracterisation. It's been a while.
 

luka

Well-known member
In a way it feels churlish shitting on Kerouac in that it's a book that some young people really need and that changes lives.
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
I think you're right. I think part of the significance is how radical a departure he is from some upper-middle class conservative apple-pie perspective. I think that is the significance of the beat thing most generally, no?
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
Discovering jazz, moving around. I think in The Subterraneans he was a good deal older (by good deal I mean less than ten years) than the other characters, save for whatever role Burroughs may have played.
 

luka

Well-known member
What I remember about it was that it felt really sad. Because you can't run away and there's nothing at the end of the road. And all that callous hedonism just ends in burn out,
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I recall it as a bit like being buttonholed by a cokehead and then shouted at for two hours. But I don't remember it as being especially flabby shouting.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
What I remember about it was that it felt really sad. Because you can't run away and there's nothing at the end of the road. And all that callous hedonism just ends in burn out,
Yeah. And that could be interesting. But he thinks he's written a different, joyous book.
 

version

Well-known member
I read Kerouac as a teenager and thought it was boring. I'd already encountered Burroughs and Hunter Thompson by that point, so it just seemed like this lame, old fashioned book about jazz and stuff.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
In a way it feels churlish shitting on Kerouac in that it's a book that some young people really need and that changes lives.
TBF there are probably tons of people who feel like that about Harry Potter and Twilight.
 

borzoi

Well-known member
not a fan of on the road but i'll defend ginsberg. he was a completely shameless self promoter and he probably wrote more bad poems than good but a supermarket in california, america, kaddish are all good. the gary snyder cold mountain poems are good too. its very cool among my age cohort to loudly proclaim how much you hate the beats but i will gladly take some sort of whitmanic/blakean striving for transcendence in the evil heart of america over what i see in most modern poetry which is just like me me me me me, solipsistic and insular in the extreme.
 
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