what does everybody think about the beat generation authors? (Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kesey...) I think they're amazing, Burroughs' books are all really alike though but Kerouac was a genius and I loved Kesey's 'One Flew Over The cuckoos Nest"
Well Kerouac was pretty good, but more of a "typer" than a writer if you see what I mean, I get kinda tired like if I had been running around for hours when I read his books. I haven't gotten into the others yet.. but will do soon.
The Beatniks were the middle-American fans who bought into the books because they were popular in magazines and then retreated to coffee houses bangin' bongo drums and listening to jazz whilst growing out their goatees.. the actual authors, the Beats, had nothing to do with these people. They were moreso a collection of lost souls with great minds than any sort of social movement. The best thing, I think, about the Beats (esp Kerouac) was that they dragged the stylistic innovations made by guys like Joyce and Proust down from the lofty spires of academia and applied them to modern-life..
