Beat Generation - Couverture souple

Kerouac, Jack

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1847490077 ISBN 13 : 9781847490070

Editeur : Alma Classics, 2007

Synopsis

"Beat Generation" is a play about tension, about friendship, and about karma - what it is and how you get it. It begins one fine morning with a few friends, honest laborers some of them, some close to being down-and-out, passing around a bottle of wine. It ends with a kind of satori-like reaffirmation of the power of friendship, of doing good through not doing, and the intrinsic worth of the throw-away little exchanges that make up our lives. Written in 1957, the same year that "On the Road" was first published, and set in 1953, "Beat Generation" portrays an authentic and alternate 1950s America. Kerouac's characters are working-class men and women - a step away from vagrants, but not a big step. Their dialogue positively sings, suggesting jazz riffs in their rhythm and content, and Kerouac, like a master composer, arranges it to magical effect. Here is the heart and soul of the beat mentality, the zeitgeist that blossomed over the decades and eventually culminated in the counter-culture of 1960s America. It's a spirit that still lives.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

This is Jack Kerouac's great lost work, a play written in 1957, the same year that On the Road was first published. Beat Generation is about tension, about friendship, and about karma – what it is and how you get it. It begins in New York's Bowery, with wine in the morning, and ends with questions of the form of the world. From money and the need for it, to religion and the karma of Christ, to the mysteries and wisdom of life reflected in horseracing, Kerouac touches on the essentials of Beat mentality, the rejection of middle class values and the expansion of consciousness.

With the same biting wit and honest as Kerouac's novels, Beat Generation portrays an authentic and alternate 1950s America. Kerouac's characters are working-class men—a step away from vagrants, but not a big step. His dialogue suggests spontaneous jazz riffs in its rhythm and restless philosophy in its content. Here is the genuine heart and soul of the zeitgeist that blossomed into the counter-culture of 1960s America and lives in restless spirits today.

Revue de presse

'I remember being awed by him and amazed by him' -- Alan Ginsberg

'What are writers trying to do? They are trying to create a universe in which they have lived or would like to live. To write they must go there and submit to conditions they may not have bargained for. Sometimes, as in the case of Kerouac, the effect produced by a writer is immediate, as if a generation were waiting to be written.' --William S. Burroughs

'Kerouac came roaring down each highway like a man possessed...Moving on not from a sense of disenchantment, but with a voracious and insatiable hunger for experience.' --Lester Bangs

'I read On the Road in maybe 1959. It changed my life like it changed everyone else's' --Bob Dylan

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Alma Classics
• Date d'édition: 2007
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1847490077
• ISBN 13: 9781847490070
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 150
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible