THE BEA
There Is Nothing Left TE
By AlT YOUNG
Oh the world is a beautiful
place
to be born into
if you don't mind
a few dead minds
in the higher places
or a bomb or two
now and then
in your upturned faces
or other such improprieties
as our Name Brand society
is prey to
with its men of distinction
and its men of extinction
Carthyism, soared high. Econon
ically, the official cry was "Ba
to normalcy!" which was suppos
to mean back to the way thin
were before all hell broke loos
but which really meant a retui
to the very domestic hell th
existed long before the war.
Socially, conformity was pavir
a one-way road leading nowher
Military imperialism was char
pioned by default. Scientif
achievement was put to inhumt
use. The Cold War was on and
nation was shivering.
... and otner patrolmen The post war scene had its cu
and its various segregations tural reverberations. A generatic
and congressional investiga- of youngsters were growing up wl
tions had not the slightest interesti
and other constipations politics - neither domestic n
that our fool flesh international-and who had litt
is heir to . .. or nothing at all left to believe t
--Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
Pictures of the Gone World JHE literature emerging fro
this era falls into two princip
THE CLOSE of World War Two categories: the one, a frail, pr
marked the appearance of a cious school of writing detachi
conservative epoch with few coun- from social themes that took ul
terparts in American history, on itself to explore "the gre
Politically, public discourage- moral questions of mid - centui
ment and apathy, prodded by Mc- society."
he writes extemporaneously with- THE THREAD that sews all of
out plan or revision, these writers together is that
This perhaps explains the ex- of Disaffiliation. Critic Lawrence
" cess of journalism cluttering his Lipton was the first to use the
L otherwise remarkable "On the phrase in a series of articles on
Road." It also explains the slop- the Beats appearing in The Na-
piness of "The Subterraneans," a tion.
S elieve I hundred or so pages of trash the Disaffiliation - with a capital
Believe III, authortye up in 72 hours. "The D, thank you - is the core of their
Dharma Bums," a novel dealing message. They are not interested
with hipster Zen Bhuddists, was in social ills - much less point-
another artistic failure, though ing out cures for them. They are
financially successful. Following not interested in The State with
the publication of his first novel in its politics and conventions and in-
a- Writers representing this school 1950, "The Town and the City," stitutions and academies. They
k include Truman Capote, Paul Kerouac hoboed around the coun- are not interested in being "saved"
ad Bowles,obie Macauley and Jeani try and wrote fifteen novels be- from "The Red Menace." They are 4
gs, Stafford - the "new fictionists" fore "On the Road" was published. not interested in seeking refuge
ie, if you will; clever and, for all in Suburbia, and "changing the
rn practical purposes, sterile, THE POEM-MAKERS are more world" is entirely out of the ques-
at The other, the San Francisco numerous - Gary Snyder, Phi- tion.
School, is a robust, free-wheeling lip Whaley, Ro rt Creeley, Mike What they want is to be left
ng school of story-tellers and poets McClure. aloneMany of them earn their
re. whose writing is, peculiarly A
n- enough, socially oriented and As for prominent ones, Denise livings as laborers-skilled or ur-
ic whose professional and personal Levertov, comes to mind. She's a skilled-and stay as far away as
an antics have been the subject of young Britisher who settled in possible from cocktail parties, New
a much public discussion. America long enough to get mar- York City and, most of all, the
Novelist Jack Kerouac appears ried and migrate to Mexico. She universities.
to be the unofficial leader since writes like many of the 50's poets,
lo e the un o "rsik including some who don't consider T IS TRUE that much of their
o " he was the first one to "break themselves "Beat" - lyrically per- writing is sincerely passionate,
ho big" and since it was his appela- sonal in a prosody that is decep- even beautiful. But their philos-
in tion for the group - "The Beat tively simple. ophy is a sad one, pathetic in a
or Generation" - that was popu- OnYol hn htTeM-wy
llarized.. One would think that The Ma- way.
nl jor Themes were gone, for they They are anarchists in an era
THE PROSE writers include Wil- have been replaced by quiet cele- that needs, more than ever before,
m hiam Burroughs whose "Naked brations of simple personal pleas- the courage and conviction that
SLunch" is possibly the most fright- ures, nature and individual being. youth can offer toward saving the
e- ening book on narcotics addiction She resembles the Japanese and world from an unbelievably sinis-
ed ever written. ancient Chinese poets in this re- ter self-destruction. They are in-
p- His approach is compelling and spect. Her major works are "The different. Unable to face a society
at certainly worthy of inspection by Double Image" and "Here and pregnant with injustice, hypocrisy
at erainy orhy f nsectonbyNow," two volumes of verse. and decay, they have turned with-
ry those who think literary expert- in themselves for a "peaceful
ment died with Gertrude Stein,
James Joyce and Tristan Tzara. ALLEN GINSBERG and his long existence.
-n poem "Howl" have received Many of France's intellectuals
Another exponent is James so much publicity that the poet who felt themselves "demobilized"
Purdy whose "Color of Darkness" i"dizzy with success," presently following the wartime Resistance
(inscribed 'for Edith Sitwell in finds himself unable to write movement, turned to existential-
Englandrn is a bitter little osud' poetry. Frankly, "owl" is quite tam. The so-called Beats have run
book of yarns. The tone of Purdy'so a mediocre poem all dressed up a gamut of mystiques and escapist
short stories is reminiscent of in a fantastic idiom. Nonetheless philosophies from A to Z - Zen
Poe, but much colder and much insbern'stin muN onetyelnss,'Bhuddism being the most recent.
more cnvincng beauseTfhhiscc-iGisbergspinfuenceamongyoung
l centric manipulation of reality er poets has been considerable. This oriental philosophy, more
Of course, there is Kerouac in Lawrence Ferlinghetti, a PhD. a philosophy than a religion,
all his spontaneous splendor. Sev- who runs the City Lights Bookshop stresses the imphanp c sthroug
eral critics have compared his in San Francisco, is both a pub- meditation and simplicity rouv
work with the Celine of "Death on lisher and a poet. His "Pictures of
the Installment Plan" and "Guig- the Gone World" is as bittersweet ing
nol's Band." as poetry comes these days. In an their protest is le-
Actually, you can take a glance attempt to restore the spoken el- CERTAINLY
back at Thomas Wolfe to get an ment to poetry, Ferlinghetti Pio-. gitemately founded. The hope
idea of Keronac's stylistic roois. neered in the presentation of is that their efforts will be turned
His expression of the depth and poetry with jazz in West Coast in a more positive direction, that
intensity of life has rarely been nightspots. their influence will inspire a fresh
equaled in American letters. It is As for Kenneth Rexroth - he's school of writers who will not be
found in the early Whitman and an oldtimer, often regarded as satisfied just knowing the prob-
in Mark Twain, Karouac is an "the spiritual father" of the move- lems but who will also want to
automatic writer, that is to say ment, along with Henry Miller, work at some hathy solutions.
an old "rebel" from way back. After all, you don't have to look
Rexroth's influence is very much far to find that some of the most
Junior Al Young, co-editor ' felt throughout the movement, conforming "squares" are the hip-
of Generation magazine, writes Now in his fifties, poet-scholar- sters themselves who are so blind-
on literature, jazz and folklore musician - painter - mountain- ed by their ersatz "revolt" they
and is a frequent contributor climber Rexroth said on a recent cannot see the direction backwards
to The Daily. visit to Manhattan, "I've lived the they travel in.
Slife Kerouac thinks he's lived." Rexroth himself, believe it or
--- - -----not, put it this way: "The hipster
is the furious square, The Beat
novelists and their camp followers
CLOSEOUT, SPECIAL S ALE ate debauched Puritans. They
-aree with the most hostile critic.
of GUITARS and accessories, of jazz, or for that matter with
s ,the most chauvinistic slanderers of
BONGOS, other small goods the American Negro. They just
like it that way. In their utter
ignorance they embrace the false
LARGE REDUCTIONS! image which their enemies the
squares have painted."
D AAY M USThWhat was it someone said about
/' IQThe Scared Generation being a
508 E. William NO 3-3395 more fitting tag than The Beat
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Page Twelve
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"Perfect freedom is reserved for the man who lives by his on work and in that work
does what he wants to do." -R.G. COLLINGWOOD
THE MICHIGAN DAILY MAGAZINE