The Beat Generation

I have always enjoyed reading about different literary and lifestyle movements and have recently found myself immersed in Beat literature by authors like Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg. These guys were the best thing that happened to American literature since Walt Whitman. They just decided that they didn't really fit into anything so they would just make something up that fit them.

Recently I posted about Hunter S. Thompson and explained how I really liked his whole outlook on life, and the way he was up-front about everything. Well, the founders of the Beat generation lived this lifestyle 20 years before this was happening. The thing that gets me about On the Road, Howl, and Naked Lunch, is the fact that they were written in the 1940's. They really pushed the boundaries as far as censorship and the authors never worried about being accepted by the mass market. These guys were happy sitting around in a Greenwich Village apartment with some booze and "tea" reading and writing. They were like this cool hybrid of James Dean and Jerry Garcia. They lived like hippie hedonists, yet in a way that wasn't flamboyant and over the top. They were just laid back and made sure that they were open to all of the coolness in life.

These artists not only changed American Literature, but also changed our society. Living and writing about this counterculture that was taking shape was giving the rest of the world a glimpse of a society that was unapologetic for the way they were living their lives. They felt no need to hide the fact that they were experimenting with drugs, sexuality, and social order from the masses, and were proud of the fact that they were looking for a good time. Just about anybody can relate to experiencing an inner desire to have a good time. Hell, that's the reason most of us have jobs, so we can fund our inner desires to live a fulfilling life. The difference is that these guys were very minimalistic when it came down to what they needed to in order to feel fulfilled.


It is really cool to be able to get lost in their stories, that are semi-autobiographical, and escape the world as I know it. I like to think that I would lead a life like this given the chance, but realistically it is probably much safer for me to live vicariously through the fiction of others.