From Publishers Weekly
For a fresh take on an often simplified historical moment, look at Beat Down to Your Soul: What Was the Beat Generation? in which Ann Charters has assembled some obscure and some familiar material by and about beatniks. In a letter to poet and critic Richard Eberhart, Allen Ginsberg says, "I was flattered... by the idea of recognition but really didn't agree with your evaluation of my own poetry," and explains, for 11 pages, his aesthetic and social intentions. Henry Louis Gates Jr. explores how writer Anatole Broyard, whose essay "A Portrait of the Hipster" appeared in the Partisan Review in 1948, passed as white early in his career in New York. Diane di Prima's piece about her newsletter with LeRoi Jones, Floating Bear, evokes the excitement of the early '60s East Village poetry scene. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
In this wide-ranging anthology, Beat scholar Ann Charters brings together more than seventy-five essays, reviews, memoirs, poems, and sketches that evoke the credos and the controversies surrounding the Beat generation writers of the 1950s. Charters includes discussions of all the major Beat figures-Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, Diane di Prima, Gary Snyder, and many more-from commentaries by the Beats themselves as well as by such writers as Henry Miller, William Carlos Williams, Mary McCarthy, Joyce Carol Oates, Tom Wolfe, Grace Paley, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.. Charters also explores the humorous side of the Beat generation, its place in post-war American culture, and the contribution of the important women authors who also wrote Beat.
About the Author
Ann Charters has had a thirty-year involvement with Beat literature. She was the editor of The Portable Beat Reader, The Portable Jack Kerouac, and two volumes of Jack Kerouac Selected Letters. She teaches at the University of Connecticut in Storrs.
Beat Down to Your Soul FROM THE PUBLISHER
In this wide-ranging anthology, Beat scholar Ann Charters brings together more than seventy-five essays, reviews, memoirs, poems, and sketches that evoke the credos and the controversies surrounding the Beat generation writers of the 1950s. Charters includes discussions of all the major Beat figures -- Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, Diane di Prima, Gary Snyder, and many more -- including commentaries by the Beats themselves, as well as by such writers as Henry Miller, William Carlos Williams, Mary McCarthy, Joyce Carol Oates, Tom Wolfe, Grace Paley, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Charters also explores the humorous side of the Beat generation, its place in post-World War II American culture, and the contribution of the important women authors who also wrote Beat.
FROM THE CRITICS
Kirkus Reviews
More than 700 pages of pure Beat pleasure. A one-woman Beat industry and an anthologizing demon, Charters (English/Univ. of Connecticut) has edited several collections of Kerouac and other writers of the era (The Portable Beat Reader, not reviewed, etc.). With all her experience, one would expect judicious editorial decisions, clear and accessible introductions to the material, and an expansive breadth of vision—and, once again, she does not disappoint. She lays out a feast of Beat-related belles lettres, criticism, and commentary, dividing her collection into four units: "Writers on the Beat Generation (1948—2000)," "Afterword, Panel with Women Writers of the Beat Generation" (featuring perspectives by Carolyn Cassady, Charters, Joyce Johnston, Hettie Jones, Eileen Kaufman, and Joanna McClure), "Swinging Syllables Beatnik Dictionary," and "Chronology of Selected Books, Magazines, Films, and Recordings Relating to Beat Generation Authors (1950—2000)." Throw in Charters's preface, introduction, bibliography, and index, and the resulting chunky collection of Beat voices and commentary does full justice to the writers and their literature. The big boys of Beat make their obligatory appearance, of course, but Charters refrains from weighing the anthology too heavily in their favor by omitting materials she has previously anthologized. If you've been hankering to know what William Carlos Williams thought of Ginsberg's "Howl" or how Mary McCarthy reacted to Burroughs's Naked Lunch, Charters gives these authors—and many more—in their own trenchant words. In her preface, Charters aims to celebrate "the diversity of voices involved with this literary movement as itdeveloped in post—World War II America." Mission accomplished, and admirably so.
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