The Beat Gen: My Issue

It's pretty much part of the job description that as an English student you must devour books, dissect them and compartmentalise them into your own psyche. I think I can say that this is quite an accurate description of myself, books give me the best kind of shivers. However, as one develops both as a person and as a student, there are certain books that are great to re-visit with a greater understanding of the context and an increased perceptivity. There are also some books that once re-visited, are somewhat desecrated and cannot be held up to the light anymore without seeing the gaping flaws within them.

A year and a half ago, I fell in love with the Beat Generation. I still have a book of Allen Ginsberg poetry with every line analysed in painstaking detail, I would listen to Jack Kerouac's haikus night after night, trying to create my own that matched the style of his cultural appropriation. My DVDs of Howl and Kill Your Darlings are lovingly scratched due to over-use. As a naïve 16 year old, I was nothing like the twisted cynic I am today: I loved the call to revolution, the controversy and the intimacy between them that was felt deeply within their poetry. 

Fast-forward to the present and after months of re-reading and cramming for university interviews, making sure I knew all the books on the English Lit spec back-to-front and generally not having a great deal of time to read for fun - I decided I'd re-visit my old friends and start reading William S Burroughs' Naked Lunch. 

Honestly, so disappointing. After basically unmasking Allen Ginsberg as a phoney for coursework, I knew that I wouldn't hold the Beats in such high esteem ever again, but I was hoping to at least enjoy the book despite this. I must say, it's very clever in some respects. Very clever that a book explicitly about drug abuse can give the impression of taking you on one big trip due to the lack of any coherent structure or sometimes even syntax. Whether deliberate or not, it's the one positive I can take out of the book. 

Unfortunately, its structural brilliance does not make up for the lack of any coherent plot or character development. Though it can be said that this is in-keeping with the mood of the book itself, it feels like laziness to me. Laziness or a simple desire to be renowned for being as outrageously controversial as possible, without any concessions but simple notoriety. Therefore one must question the irony of a sub-culture that so opposes capitalism, consumerism and materialism being so quick to write for capitalist gains. 

The book is supposed to be a sort of terror-filled, dystopian nightmare, recounting the world's vices and repressions and exploring how they would function on a mass scale. Unfortunately, it feels as though Burroughs runs out of ideas a quarter of the way through and therefore resorts to repeating himself and his characterisation  despite having one of the least restrictive writing styles I've ever come across. The book feels like controversy for controversy's sake but has little intrinsic merit, it's sort of tainted my judgement of te Beats as a whole and that makes me really sad.

Sure I can still read On The Road or Pull My Daisy and enjoy the stylistic features and political commentary buried within their works, unfortunately I can't help feeling in the back of my mind that not a single one of them can honestly say they stand by their convictions. 

Thoughts

People always tell you to 'write what you know' and it's incredible how many great works of literature have been influenced by the author's background and experiences. I struggle to write prose and I think it's that Dorian Grey argument, sometimes you can't share things that have too much of yourself in them, sometimes art is the outlet for which one can best represent oneself.

It's then interesting to consider why somebody wouldn't want to share that, why we're not all Walt Whitmans - celebrating ourselves, our lives and our achievements, Writers in general are either egoists or painfully introspective and analytical, which makes perfect sense when you consider the complex nature of some of the thoughts and emotions that they inject into their characters. How would suspension of disbelief prove possible if those thoughts and emotions had not been experienced first-hand?

The nature of the craftsmanship of literature is something that shouldn't be overlooked, it's so easy to become immersed in a story that flows so seamlessly and appears to have been condensed in a single moment of inspiration. Honestly, there's so much painful re-drafting that goes on and nobody no matter how skilled they are, can write flawlessly first time. Hours of time, hundreds of cups of coffee and reams of paper goes in to writing a book worthy of publication. Sometimes the finished product isn't the part that deserves the most appreciation.

Thoughts for Today

I'm muddling my way through today. It's funny how the best news can bring the greatest worries. I've had a week full of celebration and lucky escapes but now I'm numb with the prominence of it all. It's a different kind of numbness from how I felt when I first found out, it's hollow and is easily provoked.

I've been granted an opportunity of a lifetime but there's an ache inside me that feels it was undeserved. There's an erosion of the self-confidence that finding out initially filled me with. I'm reeling with "what if's" and my heart has sunk to the depths of my stomach, which incidentally refuses to keep still.

There is so much to be thankful for, but unfortunately also so much to worry about. So much, that all I can do is lay in bed with a restless mind and hope that sleep will come softly and quickly.