h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just curious if anybody's A Kerouac fan. I'm trying very hard to read The Dharma Bums" but it's difficult when the author refuses to use punctuation.

Now that IS true...........either Jacky Boy was a complete illiterate, or he's trying to "keep it real".
You know........beat, street, culturally replete.

Okay, the last description was a bit half-arsed, but who's totting up the scores?
Glad it got named the beat generation........could have been worse...."The Feet Generation" would have particularly poor.

His lack of punctuation is surely only as much of an obstacle as Irvine Welsh writing "in dialect"?

All adds to the experience.

Stay froody, hepcat

My copy of the Dharma Bums has punctuation... but it was printed in the 70's (I stole it from my dad)... Sadly, I have yet to read it, though... Its on my list...

I have read "On the Road" a few times (one of my all time favorite books), and "Visions of Gerard"... along with several of his poems, as well as Ginsberg's.

I find the Beat Generation fasinating and I'm pleased to find others who appreciate it as well...

"...and in their eyes I would be strange and ragged and like the Prophet who has walked across the land to bring the dark Word, and the only Word I had was 'Wow!'" --JK

Blessings...
~The Gypsy~

A lot of Kerouac is a bit dull - he's a great writer and observer, but he has very few ideas, and i don't often get the impression that he even recognises the significance of what he observes. But what he can do marvellously, is recreate the emotional energy of a situation, bind you up in his words and rhythms and make you feel for the trivial minutiae of life which he passes through.

"Tristessa" is a real hidden gem btw. And "Desolation Angels" is probibly his best book (In my humble, but correct, opinion). His poetry is a little clunky, and doesn't read too well (or didn't for me), until you listen to his LP's, and feel the rhythm and the voice with which he wrote, that was the key for me. ("Poetry for the Beat Generation" and "Blues and Haikus" are my favourites.)

But for my money Burroughs was the master, the transcendent genius of the Beats. The only one who escaped writing himself into a corner, but whose broad palette meant he escaped handy definition and classification, therefore escaped mainstream success or recognition ("Naked Lunch" is a slight work in comparison to much of his cannon).

Greetings all - Just reviving the BooK NooK. The newest thread is here http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/F29359?thread=190127 Courtesy