THE ROLLING STONE BOOK OF THE BEATS: The Beat Generation and American Culture

Featuring "Rolling Stone" pieces by William Burroughs and Lester Bangs, reminiscences by Ken Kesey, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, and Bono, and photographs by Annie Leibovitz and Gerard Malanga, this treasury of Beat lore and literature is a true collector's item. 40 photos.

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.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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 Tytells 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) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

"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.AWilliam Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.