Among the great first lines of literature, “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness” must rank up there with “O! for a Muse of fire . . .” and “It is a truth universally acknowledged . . .”. It’s the start of Allen Ginsberg’s
Howl, the poem that galvanised intellectuals choking in the repressive fug of Eisenhower’s America, shocked the media with its crazed anger and overt allusions to sex and drugs, and was first launched on an unsuspecting world 50 years ago this week, read — or rather, fervently intoned — by its drunk young author in a San Francisco art gallery, while his friend and fellow writer Jack Kerouac chanted “go, go, go!” in the front row.
That event, widely perceived as the defining moment of the Beat Generation, has been lavishly celebrated in America and Britain over the past few days. And rightly so. The date of October 7, 1955, may be misleadingly late (Kerouac coined the phrase “beat generation” as early as 1948, and wrote On the Road in 1952), yet the notion of the Beat poets as the first “counter-culture” rebels of the postwar era — spiritual forerunners of everyone from hippies and punks to eco-warriors and anti-capitalists — is spot-on.
But the 50th anniversary of Howl is not the only reason for recalling that seminal era. Revealed today in New York is a remarkable time-capsule: an unperformed play by Jack Kerouac, dating from 1957 and actually titled Beat Generation. The manuscript — typed up by his mum, but retaining Kerouac’s inimitable syntax — was discovered a few months ago in a New Jersey warehouse. It has now been published (Thunder’s Mouth Press) for the first time.
It’s a wild, woolly, wacky effort: a drunken, garrulous, unhinged conversation between a bunch of blokes who work on the railroad in New York (here, as elsewhere in the Beat poets’ world, women have only walk-on roles), yet who appear to be as conversant with the Buddhist principle of karma, or the intricacies of a Dizzy Gillespie solo, as they are with the odds on the next day’s horses. Indeed, the plot hinges on whether it is better to stick to a system when placing bets, or to let one’s actions be led by chance remarks and random events. Very symbolic; very existentialist; very Fifties avant-garde.
But of course these aren’t any old working-class guys. They are Kerouac and his stoned boho friends (many of whom were on the fringes of the criminal underworld) engaged in one of their rambling, meaning-of-life discussions. Kerouac said that he wanted his characters to “rave on as they do in real life”, and that’s why Beat Generation is so fascinating. It reads less like a crafted play, more like a verbatim transcript of a night with a bunch of libertines who really did change the world, in spite of themselves.
So what was so dazzling about the Beat philosophy? Why, when filtered through the lyrics of Bob Dylan and John Lennon and a host of other hippy heroes, did it have such a profound impact on youth culture?
Well, although the phrase “Beat generation” later came to acquire musical connotations (as in “feel the beat”), that was not in Kerouac’s mind. He meant to imply that the social values with which his generation had to live — and particularly the emphasis on materialism and the American Dream — were “beat” in the sense of being washed-up or worn-out. The term “beatnik”, coined by a journalist in 1958, was a further derivation: a derogatory slur implying that Kerouac and his bearded cronies were all Commies. That wasn’t strictly true. But the Beats did question authority and the values of government and big business, and proffered alternative paths through life, not least through the prodigious intake of drugs and booze. Which, of course, had terrible consequences for Kerouac, who died from liver cirrhosis at 47.
But I think the most valuable legacy of the beats, and one that shines through every page of Beat Generation, is the notion of “doing good by not doing”. Opting out of conformist expectations, in other words. Today, with so many people fixated on the “work and shop till you drop” view of life, and with popular culture so firmly yoked to the values of soulless multinationals, Kerouac’s dissolute dissidence seems as bracing and necessary an antidote as ever. I would love to see Beat Generation staged. It would strike quite a chord at a time when true personal freedom seems ever more circumscribed.
First-class is cheaper by miles
In his infinite (or do I mean infinitesimal?) wisdom, Mayor Ken Livingstone is to increase the cost of a single ticket on the London Underground to a minimum of £3. This prompts me to revive the vexed question of whether the Tube is now not merely the world’s smelliest, slowest and most rib-crushing mode of mechanised transport, but also the most expensive. Three quid to travel, say, the 300 yards between Leicester Square and Covent Garden (a mistake made by many visitors unacquainted with London) works out at an astonishing £17.60 per mile. Travelling from London to New York first-class on BA, by comparison, is a snip at 94p per mile. Or you could splash out £25,909 to make the same Atlantic crossing in a “Grand Duplex” suite on the QE2, and still find that, at about £8.25 per mile, it represents twice the value for money of the Tube. As for a £3,725 ticket from Paris to Istanbul on the Orient Express, that’s a giveaway at £2.66 per mile. No, the only journey likely to exceed the price per mile of a Tube ticket is Nasa’s mission to Mars. Estimated at £500,000 million for a round trip of about 75 million miles, President Bush’s whimsical dream will work out at a cool £6,600 per mile. Perhaps we should buy Mayor Ken a one-way ticket on the rocket. At least that will answer a question frequently on the lips of Londoners these days: “What ****ing planet is he living on?”
High and mighty
Research just published by two psychologists suggests that tall women are more career-minded and competitive than short women. That’s a bit of a shock, because among men the reverse is traditionally reckoned to be true. The “Napoleon syndrome” — a vertically challenged man compensating for his lack of inches with an excess of ambition, ego and bossiness — can be observed in most offices. Still, boardrooms are going to look very odd in the future, aren't they? Once all those ruthless tall women have crashed through the glass ceiling (possibly literally), they will presumably be jostling with lots of equally ruthless little men. Then, perhaps, it will be the blokes who feel that they have to wear the four-inch heels and power shoulders.
