BOOK REVIEW5
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Student’s Name
Women of the beat generation
Knight Brenda
Published by Berkeley, 2010, 366 pages
Book Review
Women of the beat generation Is a book that was written by Brenda Knight. The book was published in the year 2010 by Berkeley. In her book, Knight argues that Beat generation is applied to what has happened in poetry, Jazz, fiction and painting in the latest fifties through the early sixties. Brenda also argues that some women too drugs, walk aimlessly on the roads and also listened to jazz music just as men. The accomplishments of those women were not known. Brenda decided to research to correct the oversight by profiling about 40 women of the beat generation and later publishing the samples of their work. She continued to argue that the media has placed a lot of people and a lot of work under the Beat based on peripheral and loose connections to Kerouac together with his friends.
In her book, Knight stated that about twelve women were very active in poetry as well as in the scene of painting on both coasts commencing from the year 1950. He said that talented individuals are very important due to their work and also due to an association with certain men. Fourteen women based on this book although they may be having some talents, could not work as anthologists if Ginsberg Kerouac could not be involved or any other man that could be present in the scene. The wider range in quality is because the book is schizophrenic. Part of the book is devoted to women writers who carried out their works in the early fifties and late sixties in both coasts. And the other part of the book is surrendered for the women who have decided to devote themselves to the male poets during the same period.
Based on the artists or the musicians there is a kind of overlap, but individual stories of every group of women are different from the other. Knight in her book has described Gregory as explaining the latter group. In Page 141, Knight asks “, why were there very few women among the writers of Beat?” Gregory answered her that at the beginning there were some women who left, but they have been there before, their families forced them into institutions, and since they were new in institutions and they had never handled the electric appliance, they were shocked by electricity. He continues to say that in the early fifties if you were a man, you could be a rebel but if you were a female, your family members would lock you up.
Knight added another three women who were very peripheral but made an inexplicable and a glaring omission of Bobble Hawkins who was married to Robert Creeley during the late sixties and early seventies. Based on my understanding, Hawkins would have been a very fabulous interview since she was wise and charismatic too. Hawkins knew everyone; she had traveled to almost all the places and seen everything in the process. As a painter as well as a writer, her writing skills took of immediately they parted with Creeley.
In this book, every woman is mentioned in a chapter which ends with work selection. The poems together with the chapters obtained from the novels or the printed collections which are very hard to be found make the book to be very useful. Knight, however, concluded her book with unnecessary recollection done by the port, Ted Joan. It is totally out of place and says nothing at all. Did Knight Brenda want the thesis of her book to be validated by one of the men who has been there? Most of the women in the East Coast have been profiled in her book. Some of them have been profiled very well, and others have not. Based on my own opinion, this is not good at all.
Based on her introductory part, Anne, who was born in the year 1945, is among the youngest writers. She tries to describe the growing up in Greenwich in the early sixties. There are some benefits from the trails and examples of young women who are struggling to be assertive as well as being creative. Being dominated by the relationships with men let the talents of the women to lag; this could also lead to dependencies on drugs, abortions and even alienation from family members and friends. I know that a creative woman who stole from their male friends, who revealed their poetic and artistic aspirations. Some of them may be forced to run away from their homes and others may even commit suicide. This book ‘Women of the beat generation’ is a statement to the lives of such women. What comes through is always a glimpse of the original.
According to the book, Ann charter, based on her afterword, tries to capture something of a similar sense of loss, survival, and escape. According to Carolyn, the experience was not golden memory at all. She was a causality of her own time. Knight in her book tries to collect her stories in a flatfooted and admiring tone. She does not look like catching the nuances which Anne and Waldman are trying to express. Knight is a fan of beat men but not the fun of the women who are not associated with men. She is also very wistful to an era. In Page 175, knights write that she hates jack’s woman hatred; she mourns, understands and later forgave. Knight also cannot hear from Vega who had been a very strong relationship with Peter Orlovsky, who was also the lover of Ginsberg. She later said that she would rather meet the painters and musicians and not anybody else.
Some of the strengths possessed by Brenda include the ability to collect the sample of the work be carried out by the 40 women of the beat generation to find out their accomplishment. Based on the findings, Brenda noted that most of the women were not married and they have also been undergoing several difficulties which let then to indulge the habits of drinking and taking illegal drugs. Some women also noted that being drunk and taking illegal drugs was an interesting habit in their lives the work of Brenda was readable and clearly understood. By reading this book, one can be able to advise any women to take part in such habits.
Some weaknesses have been portrayed by Brenda in her book. Brenda is gender biased in that she considers men more than women. In the book, it is indicated that Knight does not even wonder about the women, but she is eager to help the men on their projects. She does not mention that Cowen had typed Kaddish in place of Ginsberg. She also does not wonder about American suburban life in the fifties which propelled young women how ware educated at sweer Briar. She also does not go past the quote of Diane who is a writer and an editor as well. According to this book, I wish knight could realize the waste of talent and very difficult situations in which the women based on the book have gone through. There is a lot of challenges which have been mentioned in the book. Several women had bright expectations during that period. Even some strong women the like Cohen and Diane had a very long struggle and complicated careers.
In conclusion, one of the biggest reasons as to why beat generation holds such a fascinating thing for the media since it is a very nostalgic tale of a gang of white boys. It is implicitly understood that white guys were not trusted with women since they had very bad intention on them. After the beat generation, the whole society remained complicated. Maybe women could not take quite as much. All kinds of music were being played, and the gang also focuses on social media.
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