Where do I start with the Beat Generation?

Don't. It's literal Jewish homosexual degeneracy.

Here's a serious, short reading list.

PRECURSORS
Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

CORE WORKS

A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
Howl, Allen Ginsburg
On the Road, Jack Keroac
Naked Lunch, William Burroughs

POSTMORTEM

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S. Thompson
The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

Kaddish is just as much an essential for Ginsberg. And if a Supermarket in America isn't in either of those, though I think it is, it should be read too.

I'd add a Dylan album as a postmortem, Ginsberg reportedly cried when he first heard A Hard-Rain's A-Gonna Fall because he felt the torch had been passed to the next generation. But I'm a Dylan freak so take my word with a grain of salt.

You don't.

You would you read a bunch of communist sympathizers?

is there anything that stylistically unifies the beats? i understand that they were all friends/colleagues, and there is a shared fascination with drugs and americana, but the techniques they employed and the feelings they elicited were quite distinct. burroughs was bleak and grotesque, fascinated with language and systems of control, and made use of his cut-up method. kerouac essentially wrote rambling travelogues detailing his search for meaning. admittedly i'm only familiar with howl from ginsberg, but that reads like a countercultural diatribe, the most obviously proto-hippie work from the bunch, and is poetic in form. i guess there are other minor figures associated with the movement, but i'm not familiar with any of their work.

anyway read naked lunch, dharma bums, and howl, and decide from there whether you want to proceed.

kerouac was a supporter of joe mccarthy, and burroughs stated that the only journalist he respected was westbrook pegler, an anti-unionist/new dealer associated with the john birch society. you're right on ginsberg, though.

I didn't know that, user. I retract my somewhat smug statement. I had to read a few of their poems in the 12th grade and thought they were radical communists/environmentalists.

it's a reputation they can't shake. i think it's a case of people conflating ancestor with descendant. is there a term for that?

This. As well as mediocre literature promoted by jewish publishers to subvert the youth.

Why would you start with the beat generation

for the love of god, don't.

There's plenty left out I just wanted something bare bones.

With Howl and moloch

I'm no expert on these facts but darma bums was good better than on the road

Naked Lunch is the worst book I've ever read.

read more books

just read gaddis shitting all over them. he's a much better writer.

I think you mean MDE

Where does Gaddis insult the Beats (note: not beatnik posers)

No, K>B>>>>>>>G

Only ginsberg was a commie

Why yes I would

>Kerouac Ginsberg Burroughs
>KGB

Holy fuck I think I cracked it boys

On The Road is pretty bad but if you are an edgy and romantic teenager you will probably love it. I smoked my first pack of cigarettes reading On The Road in the forest and let me tell you, I thought I was cool as a cucumber.

You seem to merely despise who you once were and trash the novel as a result.

Kerouac is not the best stylist of prose, but he can pack a whole bunch of information in a coherent narrative. On The Road contains a whole lot for it's relatively short length. He should be admired for this talent alone.

Besides, the Beats were romantic as hell, and they were all the better for it. It's supposed to touch that part of yourself that self mythologizes and ego trips.

Not at all. I have fond memories of being that age and feeling like the whole world was opening up before me, and On The Road has a special place in my heart.
I just can't imagine an adult picking it up for the first time and getting near as much out of it.

Good list. I'd add Richard Brautigan and John Giorno to the postmortem.

>is there anything that stylistically unifies the beats?
Writing as improvisation perhaps. Kerouack refused to edit his first draft of On The Road, which he wrote in one sitting, claiming it was writ by the holy ghost, etc.

>burroughs stated that the only journalist he respected was westbrook pegler

I'm quite sure Burroughs' respect for Pegler has more to do with the latters courage (exposing the unions ties to the mafia etc) rather than political views. Burroughs was an anarchist, neither left nor right. He despised american capitalism as much as he despised communism.

Also, Burroughs dont really fit in with the rest of the beats. There is nothing proto-hippie about him or his writings. His prose and themes have more in common with writers like Becket and Joyce. And he spent more time colaborating with french and british avant garde artists than he did mentoring Ginsberg and Kerouack.