Comments on: Beat Critics http://realitystudio.org A William S. Burroughs Community Mon, 21 May 2012 11:22:06 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Egil http://realitystudio.org/bibliographic-bunker/beat-critics/comment-page-1/#comment-75454 Egil Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:16:32 +0000 http://realitystudio.org/?page_id=1007#comment-75454 I just don't get the Beat thing. It seems like the Tail-End invention of an age defined by the New Critics. They were obsessed by categorizing everything and the Beats were a great Marketing Tool since something was Supposed to follow from the Moderns, another, less marketed, Marketing Thing. There could not be any three writers different than Burroughs, Kerouac and Ginsberg, for instance. But they get lumped together due to friendships. They have no real common interests as the recent 'The Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks' shows. That book was the voice of two completely opposite writers. Only as a reflective template of the Moderns (Hemingway, Fitzgerald, etc.) are they taken seriously. For this reason, I really wonder about Beat Critics, since you have to wonder why they don't put the pieces together on that one. Yes, they were of a similar age as writers, but that doesn't mean much. So was John Updike and he doesn't cut the mustard, as they say. I have to wonder if this Beat Critic designation will stick. If it does, it is a fabrication, quite clearly. If it does not, then it bears out what so many New Critics said, despite the emulation people used to establish the genre in the academy. So weird. I just don’t get the Beat thing. It seems like the Tail-End invention of an age defined by the New Critics. They were obsessed by categorizing everything and the Beats were a great Marketing Tool since something was Supposed to follow from the Moderns, another, less marketed, Marketing Thing.

There could not be any three writers different than Burroughs, Kerouac and Ginsberg, for instance. But they get lumped together due to friendships. They have no real common interests as the recent ‘The Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks’ shows. That book was the voice of two completely opposite writers. Only as a reflective template of the Moderns (Hemingway, Fitzgerald, etc.) are they taken seriously.

For this reason, I really wonder about Beat Critics, since you have to wonder why they don’t put the pieces together on that one. Yes, they were of a similar age as writers, but that doesn’t mean much. So was John Updike and he doesn’t cut the mustard, as they say.

I have to wonder if this Beat Critic designation will stick. If it does, it is a fabrication, quite clearly. If it does not, then it bears out what so many New Critics said, despite the emulation people used to establish the genre in the academy.

So weird.

]]>