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The Holy Barbarians
Reprint of the 1959 edition. Mr. Lipton's book is the first complete and unbiased survey of the beat generation and its role in our society. Here are the intimate facts about these people and their attitudes-toward sex, dope, jazz, art, religion, parents, landlords, employers, politicians, draft boards, the law and, most important, toward the "square". The author presents a picture of their way of life, their individual backgrounds, the language they have appropriated, in terms made clear for the first time to those of us who have been confused and puzzled about them. He also provides a balanced discussion of their literature, art and music, of what they produce and fail to produce in the arts they practice.
328 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
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September 27, 2013This is a Rory book. I'm not ashamed to admit it.
I loved that show, and I found some good titles which eventually became awesome books. So, yes. It's a Rory book... Don't question my sources. (?)
September 27, 2013
Update
Oh, yes. Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life will be released on November 25. Two days before my birthday. Perfect gift!
Because, you know, it isn't just a show - it's a lifestyle.
July 31, 16
Update II
Yes, I watched the Gilmore Girls revival. I'll keep my opinion to myself and continue to watch the original series.
Dec 29, 16
I loved that show, and I found some good titles which eventually became awesome books. So, yes. It's a Rory book... Don't question my sources. (?)
September 27, 2013
Update
Oh, yes. Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life will be released on November 25. Two days before my birthday. Perfect gift!
Because, you know, it isn't just a show - it's a lifestyle.
July 31, 16
Update II
Yes, I watched the Gilmore Girls revival. I'll keep my opinion to myself and continue to watch the original series.
Dec 29, 16
July 12, 2013
This was one of the strangest and most amazing books I've ever read. Probably changed the course of my life.
Read
January 1, 2009Second attempt. Not as good as the first one, but it is shorter!
After riding high on Your Erroneous Zones and Doing Nothing, I had to read a book about incompetent, self-indulgent, elitist, hypocritical, vapid, shallow, histrionic, selfish, egotistical, ignorant beatniks.
Everyone in this book talks like they came out of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, and the author Lawrence Lipton (father of James Lipton, and if you want to understand why James is so pretentious and boorish, look no further than this book) records pseudo-objectively the everyday life of the beatnik, in a voice and style reminiscent of Gidget’s father. Unfortunately I wasn’t taking good notes on juicy passages until later in the book, but here’s a random tidbit that expresses adequately the sort of language and conversation that goes on:
“…I couldn’t make it with a bourgeois psychiatrist… He even helped me get over my resentment at being a woman. And that’s why I don’t really agree with Dan about monogamy, I mean for me. I mean, dig, I agree with Dan about being a poet and the need a poet has, his special need, and about being honest about it if it happens, and you need a change. But about monogamy, the whole idea in general, I find it stifling. Definitely. It dulls my sexual appetite (32).”
The Dan in question is Angel Dan Davies, who appears on and off in the book and reminds one of Matt Dillon from Singles, except Dan is presumably a real person and not some caricature of a cartoon copy.
I read a Mad magazine parody once called Beatnik: The Magazine for Hipsters, and it really hits the nail on the head. Never will you hear the term hipster used so admiringly, and never will you hear more spite against the world of the square, so much in fact (once every paragraph at least) that one can’t help but think the hipster protests a little too much. There is much bongo drumming and pseudo-intellectual opining:
“Today Chuck Bennison is bearded and barefoot; he has shaken off John Barleycorn and taken on Mary Juana and burned al his grey flannel britches behind him. He still puts more body English into his jazz-listening than the cool cats approve of, but he is learning. He is searching for the Self and finding God. ‘I’ll never forget the time Dan Davies came to my pad and wrote on the mirror: This is the face of God you see.’ With this sense of holiness goes, of course, a feeling of separateness… We against the Others… ‘They are the Others, the Squares. They don’t dig jazz… They’re not with it… They’re putting on the heat again… They killed the story because it might lose them an advertiser… They rejected my book because it was controversial’ (48).”
There is a childish rebellion at work among the beatniks, a cynical, egotistical revolt against the sameness of the world they see around them, and a retreat into a selfish world of crass desires and entitlement. None of the beatniks put anything truly positive forward: their poetry sucks and their insights are insignificant. The best among them, Kenneth Rexroth, looks like a child molester.
But it’s hard to not enjoy a book where subject headings read “Holiness? Crazy, man! But you can flip your wig on it (79)” and paragraphs full of episodes like this: “One amateur I know found herself confronted one day with an ideological, if not a moral, problem. The supermarket where she sometimes shoplifted a quarter of a pound of butter- more as social protest when butter prices took a sudden jump than from any actual necessity- was being picketed by strikers. Out of sympathy with the striking union she went across the street to the little independent grocer and did her shoplifting there till the strike was over (155).”
Yet right around when the author starts using footnotes the book becomes boring, and reminiscent of the last book I read, Doing Nothing. Lawrence sets out to document the lives of the beatniks, what they do, what makes them cool and hip, and then deconstruct how they came to be, what they want, why they are different than what came before. In stark contrast to the hippie movement which would be the direct follower of the beatniks, beatniks were apathetic to political causes and cynical of humanity in general. They retaliated against the 20’s youth movements, much as the slackers of the 90’s revolted against the 60’s, and invested in a life that (without there knowing or acknowledging it) was almost purely based on superficial pleasures, hedonistic sensations, and abstract me-ism. It was an elitist sect, but very proud and unabashedly elitist, much unlike the hipster of today, who would think it unhip to think in terms of hipness. To be a beatnik you had to hate the Squares, dig jazz music, wear the right clothes and have the right books on your shelf. It seems to be just as suffocating an environment as the Squares they so vehemently dislike. It is an alternative form of the same atmosphere, but like the Mall Punk of suburbia today, options were limited for the beatnik to escape this Us vs. Them duality. Beatniks were insecure and territorial: anything could shatter the hipster funland they created.
“Nobody paid any attention to the newcomer till Grant [a Square] tried to start up a conversation with Chris Nelson. Above the din, Angel’s keen ear detected the accents of the square, and he laid aside his bongos long enough to get an earful of what the stranger was putting down. He didn’t like it. When Don finished blowing his poem, Angel had a word with him in the kitchen and when they came back the whisper was passed around that if anybody was holding they had better not turn on till after the square could be gotten out of the pad. He might be a narcotics agent. Unaware of what was going on, Grant tried to engage in conversation- only to meet with stony silence. He had expected to find these cats cool, but not this way. After one last stammering, stuttering attempt he got out of there and walked the ocean front all the rest of the night talking to himself in a paroxysm of choking chagrin that more than once boiled over into tears (128).”
This scene, told in total earnestness, reminds one of Bob Dylan’s Ballad of a Thin Man, and in fact that song could’ve been based on this book. It’s important to note that while this story seems to portray the beatniks in a negative light, that isn’t actually the case. We are dealing with a society so pretentious and full of themselves that they cannot let anything stand in their way or ruin their buzz. Here is the author, Lawrence Lipton, speculating after a poetry reading he gave at a Square establishment:
“Wrong poem, wrong people, wrong place. Some poems require study before hearing and Rainbow [his poem] is one of them. Although there are parts that are clear enough at first hearing, the structure and many of the metaphors and allusions require study before they yield their full meaning. The voice, the sound, does add a dimension to the meaning, but not until the other dimensions are already present in the mind of the listener. This is not true of all poems but it is true of a poem of any length or complexity (202).”
Portrait of a person who has eliminated all erroneous zones? Perhaps, but there is much too much hatred of the Squares, too much labeling and identifying and organizing and categorizing of what is and isn’t cool for the beatnik to end up anywhere but as a consumer subset worshipping superficialities.
If Jack Kerouac is the Jesus Christ of the Beat religion, and Allen Ginsberg John the Baptist or some other prophet, the beatniks are some long forgotten sect (or, if you are anti-religious, all of Christianity) that has warped and twisted the ideas of its originators into a calling and philosophy of ritualistic adherence and hate. My view of Jack Kerouac was never phased by this book: I don’t remember Jack Kerouac ever using the term Square, and his childish loving of every situation is a relief after the serious pursuit of hedonism of the beatniks. I also gained new respect for Allen Ginsberg, who comes off beautiful in his rare appearances in this book and answers the age-old question of what to do when you’re performing a “far-out” poetry reading and some drunk square is hassling you: you take all your clothes off and pester the square to do the same until he backs off.
The beatniks were wrapped up too much in their own worthless pursuits. The beatniks were too afraid to open themselves up, much like the youth culture of now. They were cynical and believed everything to be phony and regimented and Square, yet they yearned for an authentic experience, for something “holy.” There own insecurities, their own spiteful projections onto the world, their own adherence to a bible of cool lead to their downfall. When all you do is self-deconstruct and criticize and scrutinize, you leave no room for creation. You become swallowed up in the Ego, and not even your own ego, but the ego of a collective Hipster Consciousness, which inevitably leads to a counter-consumer youth culture of no indefinite value. As a historical document, this book is great, but as a book of a way of life, it is a dead end.
Glossary [from back of book]:
Joint- a place, a penis, a marijuana cigarette, preferably a combination of all three.
Later- When you’re ready to leave the pad you cut out and say, “Later.”
Like- The theory of relativity applied to reality. “Like that’s your reality, man.”
Make- To act, as in “make the scene.” To “make it” may be said of anything that succeeds, whether a dental appointment or a crazy chick.
Nowhere- If you’re not with it, you’re nowhere (see With it).
Square- Conformist, Organization Ma, solid citizen, anyone who doesn’t swing and isn’t with it. Also called Creep and Cornball. Man, if you still don’t dig me, you’ll never be anything but-
After riding high on Your Erroneous Zones and Doing Nothing, I had to read a book about incompetent, self-indulgent, elitist, hypocritical, vapid, shallow, histrionic, selfish, egotistical, ignorant beatniks.
Everyone in this book talks like they came out of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, and the author Lawrence Lipton (father of James Lipton, and if you want to understand why James is so pretentious and boorish, look no further than this book) records pseudo-objectively the everyday life of the beatnik, in a voice and style reminiscent of Gidget’s father. Unfortunately I wasn’t taking good notes on juicy passages until later in the book, but here’s a random tidbit that expresses adequately the sort of language and conversation that goes on:
“…I couldn’t make it with a bourgeois psychiatrist… He even helped me get over my resentment at being a woman. And that’s why I don’t really agree with Dan about monogamy, I mean for me. I mean, dig, I agree with Dan about being a poet and the need a poet has, his special need, and about being honest about it if it happens, and you need a change. But about monogamy, the whole idea in general, I find it stifling. Definitely. It dulls my sexual appetite (32).”
The Dan in question is Angel Dan Davies, who appears on and off in the book and reminds one of Matt Dillon from Singles, except Dan is presumably a real person and not some caricature of a cartoon copy.
I read a Mad magazine parody once called Beatnik: The Magazine for Hipsters, and it really hits the nail on the head. Never will you hear the term hipster used so admiringly, and never will you hear more spite against the world of the square, so much in fact (once every paragraph at least) that one can’t help but think the hipster protests a little too much. There is much bongo drumming and pseudo-intellectual opining:
“Today Chuck Bennison is bearded and barefoot; he has shaken off John Barleycorn and taken on Mary Juana and burned al his grey flannel britches behind him. He still puts more body English into his jazz-listening than the cool cats approve of, but he is learning. He is searching for the Self and finding God. ‘I’ll never forget the time Dan Davies came to my pad and wrote on the mirror: This is the face of God you see.’ With this sense of holiness goes, of course, a feeling of separateness… We against the Others… ‘They are the Others, the Squares. They don’t dig jazz… They’re not with it… They’re putting on the heat again… They killed the story because it might lose them an advertiser… They rejected my book because it was controversial’ (48).”
There is a childish rebellion at work among the beatniks, a cynical, egotistical revolt against the sameness of the world they see around them, and a retreat into a selfish world of crass desires and entitlement. None of the beatniks put anything truly positive forward: their poetry sucks and their insights are insignificant. The best among them, Kenneth Rexroth, looks like a child molester.
But it’s hard to not enjoy a book where subject headings read “Holiness? Crazy, man! But you can flip your wig on it (79)” and paragraphs full of episodes like this: “One amateur I know found herself confronted one day with an ideological, if not a moral, problem. The supermarket where she sometimes shoplifted a quarter of a pound of butter- more as social protest when butter prices took a sudden jump than from any actual necessity- was being picketed by strikers. Out of sympathy with the striking union she went across the street to the little independent grocer and did her shoplifting there till the strike was over (155).”
Yet right around when the author starts using footnotes the book becomes boring, and reminiscent of the last book I read, Doing Nothing. Lawrence sets out to document the lives of the beatniks, what they do, what makes them cool and hip, and then deconstruct how they came to be, what they want, why they are different than what came before. In stark contrast to the hippie movement which would be the direct follower of the beatniks, beatniks were apathetic to political causes and cynical of humanity in general. They retaliated against the 20’s youth movements, much as the slackers of the 90’s revolted against the 60’s, and invested in a life that (without there knowing or acknowledging it) was almost purely based on superficial pleasures, hedonistic sensations, and abstract me-ism. It was an elitist sect, but very proud and unabashedly elitist, much unlike the hipster of today, who would think it unhip to think in terms of hipness. To be a beatnik you had to hate the Squares, dig jazz music, wear the right clothes and have the right books on your shelf. It seems to be just as suffocating an environment as the Squares they so vehemently dislike. It is an alternative form of the same atmosphere, but like the Mall Punk of suburbia today, options were limited for the beatnik to escape this Us vs. Them duality. Beatniks were insecure and territorial: anything could shatter the hipster funland they created.
“Nobody paid any attention to the newcomer till Grant [a Square] tried to start up a conversation with Chris Nelson. Above the din, Angel’s keen ear detected the accents of the square, and he laid aside his bongos long enough to get an earful of what the stranger was putting down. He didn’t like it. When Don finished blowing his poem, Angel had a word with him in the kitchen and when they came back the whisper was passed around that if anybody was holding they had better not turn on till after the square could be gotten out of the pad. He might be a narcotics agent. Unaware of what was going on, Grant tried to engage in conversation- only to meet with stony silence. He had expected to find these cats cool, but not this way. After one last stammering, stuttering attempt he got out of there and walked the ocean front all the rest of the night talking to himself in a paroxysm of choking chagrin that more than once boiled over into tears (128).”
This scene, told in total earnestness, reminds one of Bob Dylan’s Ballad of a Thin Man, and in fact that song could’ve been based on this book. It’s important to note that while this story seems to portray the beatniks in a negative light, that isn’t actually the case. We are dealing with a society so pretentious and full of themselves that they cannot let anything stand in their way or ruin their buzz. Here is the author, Lawrence Lipton, speculating after a poetry reading he gave at a Square establishment:
“Wrong poem, wrong people, wrong place. Some poems require study before hearing and Rainbow [his poem] is one of them. Although there are parts that are clear enough at first hearing, the structure and many of the metaphors and allusions require study before they yield their full meaning. The voice, the sound, does add a dimension to the meaning, but not until the other dimensions are already present in the mind of the listener. This is not true of all poems but it is true of a poem of any length or complexity (202).”
Portrait of a person who has eliminated all erroneous zones? Perhaps, but there is much too much hatred of the Squares, too much labeling and identifying and organizing and categorizing of what is and isn’t cool for the beatnik to end up anywhere but as a consumer subset worshipping superficialities.
If Jack Kerouac is the Jesus Christ of the Beat religion, and Allen Ginsberg John the Baptist or some other prophet, the beatniks are some long forgotten sect (or, if you are anti-religious, all of Christianity) that has warped and twisted the ideas of its originators into a calling and philosophy of ritualistic adherence and hate. My view of Jack Kerouac was never phased by this book: I don’t remember Jack Kerouac ever using the term Square, and his childish loving of every situation is a relief after the serious pursuit of hedonism of the beatniks. I also gained new respect for Allen Ginsberg, who comes off beautiful in his rare appearances in this book and answers the age-old question of what to do when you’re performing a “far-out” poetry reading and some drunk square is hassling you: you take all your clothes off and pester the square to do the same until he backs off.
The beatniks were wrapped up too much in their own worthless pursuits. The beatniks were too afraid to open themselves up, much like the youth culture of now. They were cynical and believed everything to be phony and regimented and Square, yet they yearned for an authentic experience, for something “holy.” There own insecurities, their own spiteful projections onto the world, their own adherence to a bible of cool lead to their downfall. When all you do is self-deconstruct and criticize and scrutinize, you leave no room for creation. You become swallowed up in the Ego, and not even your own ego, but the ego of a collective Hipster Consciousness, which inevitably leads to a counter-consumer youth culture of no indefinite value. As a historical document, this book is great, but as a book of a way of life, it is a dead end.
Glossary [from back of book]:
Joint- a place, a penis, a marijuana cigarette, preferably a combination of all three.
Later- When you’re ready to leave the pad you cut out and say, “Later.”
Like- The theory of relativity applied to reality. “Like that’s your reality, man.”
Make- To act, as in “make the scene.” To “make it” may be said of anything that succeeds, whether a dental appointment or a crazy chick.
Nowhere- If you’re not with it, you’re nowhere (see With it).
Square- Conformist, Organization Ma, solid citizen, anyone who doesn’t swing and isn’t with it. Also called Creep and Cornball. Man, if you still don’t dig me, you’ll never be anything but-
Want to Read
May 20, 2021ty rory and jess for the book rec 🙏🏾😌
October 28, 2015
I purchased this book for $2 from an online Christian bookstore. Based on their other available selections I can only presume they had this in stock for the title and not the contents.
It is a hardback edition from 1959, black cover with lime green lettering. The pages are a comfortable color of weathered cream and the smell takes me back to my childhood, to our old library that is now a police station for offices only. Under the staircase in the back of the building was the children's room: a 10X10 floor-to-ceiling alcove with a small square table in the middle. It had one of the rolling ladders to push along the wall to reach the upper shelves. I spent hours in that room delving Nancy Drew and perusing Island of the Dolphins.
I keep losing myself in these fond memories and having to start over paragraphs, and at times, whole pages.
As for the book review, I'm having a hard time finding shelves to file this under. It's weird. Like being in Jack Kerouac's high while he's passed out on the side of the road.
It is a hardback edition from 1959, black cover with lime green lettering. The pages are a comfortable color of weathered cream and the smell takes me back to my childhood, to our old library that is now a police station for offices only. Under the staircase in the back of the building was the children's room: a 10X10 floor-to-ceiling alcove with a small square table in the middle. It had one of the rolling ladders to push along the wall to reach the upper shelves. I spent hours in that room delving Nancy Drew and perusing Island of the Dolphins.
I keep losing myself in these fond memories and having to start over paragraphs, and at times, whole pages.
As for the book review, I'm having a hard time finding shelves to file this under. It's weird. Like being in Jack Kerouac's high while he's passed out on the side of the road.
July 22, 2012
I read this book in the late 70s, about 20 years after it was written. That was about 5 years after I spent some time in Los Angeles, hoping to experience the Beat subculture. I enjoyed and appreciated the book, largely because I had experienced a little of the Venice scene it describes. But it was already ancient history when I visited. The Beat concept had already been subsumed, for better or worse into the overall American Experience. I hope to reread it soon and, if I do, I'll expand my review and may revise my evaluation. In the meantime, anyone who thinks they may be interested should give it a shot; it was/is part of America.
January 30, 2021
This is a legit history book from the viewpoint of a first-hand observer and it's incredible.
This book probably just chnaged my life forever because it woke up something inside of me that I thought I'd never have back after having forbidden myself from valuing anything that was logically flawed, say, the sense of hope and responsibility for ameliorating the human life and destiny.
I love the holy barbarians, the beatniks, who are not comparable to the hippies taking over the 60s.
These people were the actual intellectuals who were actually fighting against the world not relying on any kind of ideology whatsoever (which is exactly why they are so respectable to me, they were not just some other idiots backing another stupid ideology promising to save humans).
The only thing the hipsters actually inherited or as I'd like to put it "imitated" from the Beat Generation, was the reckless consumption of the junks of all sorts (The ones that William Burroughs, a giant of the beats himself, condemns in his masterpiece "Naked Lunch" and the ones that led Kerouac to an untimely death) and that's it.
This book is a full recount of the setting that gave birth to a new way of believing in liberty w that didn't require labeling yourself as a follower of some moronic ideology that was in fact set to grab the power over people in some new way and always ended up being the base for a new sort of dictatorship.
These people, writers, artists, poets, musicians, were holy in their independence even if they lived like barbarians.
This book probably just chnaged my life forever because it woke up something inside of me that I thought I'd never have back after having forbidden myself from valuing anything that was logically flawed, say, the sense of hope and responsibility for ameliorating the human life and destiny.
I love the holy barbarians, the beatniks, who are not comparable to the hippies taking over the 60s.
These people were the actual intellectuals who were actually fighting against the world not relying on any kind of ideology whatsoever (which is exactly why they are so respectable to me, they were not just some other idiots backing another stupid ideology promising to save humans).
The only thing the hipsters actually inherited or as I'd like to put it "imitated" from the Beat Generation, was the reckless consumption of the junks of all sorts (The ones that William Burroughs, a giant of the beats himself, condemns in his masterpiece "Naked Lunch" and the ones that led Kerouac to an untimely death) and that's it.
This book is a full recount of the setting that gave birth to a new way of believing in liberty w that didn't require labeling yourself as a follower of some moronic ideology that was in fact set to grab the power over people in some new way and always ended up being the base for a new sort of dictatorship.
These people, writers, artists, poets, musicians, were holy in their independence even if they lived like barbarians.
March 1, 2009
This is a 300+ page argument that the Beat Movement was as much political as it was a artistic. Lipton tries to draw a line from leftist movements of the 20s and 30s to the Beat Generation. It's a stretch. He takes the whole Beat Generation too seriously. So much so that's unintentionally humorous at times.
October 14, 2007
Like hey man, those beatniks were groovy. If the planet Earth is like a tiny speck in the thumbnail of the universe, does that mean I could like have a tiny universe in my thumbnail? Blows my mind. You dig?
March 23, 2015
I read this book when I was in about 7th grade age 14. I realised then and there - 1961; that this was the life for me. I left home a couple of years later and started my life via Greenwich Village and Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco. And a good life it has been. In other words probably the most influential book I read as a teenager.
February 14, 2017
Reading this book, I could see a lot of similarities with the Beatniks and the Millenial generation - but with a big difference being that in general, the Millenial doesn't live in a state of poverty by choice. With this point of view in mind, it was incredibly interesting to read about the sex, art, jazz and politics of the Beatniks. They were more than just poet reading jazz lovers, they were a movement away from societal norms that Lipton could write about so well because he was one of them.
May 6, 2025
This book was just not for me, whatever the beat is I want to stay far from it LOL, was very grateful the last 40 or so pages were a picture gallery
January 27, 2014
A fascinating participant-observer study of the Beat Generation by a slightly older participant. An excellent illustration of qualitative research written well, Lipton lives and works among these radical dropouts and collects their stories to group them into a mosaic of the alternative lifestyle. Rejection of the capitalist myth, the importance of jazz to alternative consciousness, marijuana as communal bonding agent, and alternative sexuality - Lipton tells it all with detail but with an intelligent eye to the bigger picture, situating the movement in the constant surges of youth rebellion in the early twentieth century. I don't know if I would have wanted to be a beatnik, but after reading Lipton's work, I bet they sure would have been interesting to hang out with.
November 19, 2013
Took me a little while to get into this book, and Lipton's rambling style takes some getting used to, but despite my misgivings about his abity as a writer, I enjoyed this self-indulgent 'history'. Much of the material is oral history, transcribed directly from interviews or other texts, and other writers often have more interesting things to say about the Beat Generation than Lawrence Lipton does, but it was a useful introduction to the material.
August 22, 2021
3.5 is more accurate but definitely enjoyed reading. Some of the beat accounts get a little eyeroll and redundant but other times there’s a freshness that still feels relevant. The more interesting parts imo were the analysis of art & jazz in relation to religion and what differentiates the holy barbarians from the 20s
May 30, 2023
What’s opposite of “squares?” A group of drug, sex, art, jazz, religious, outcasts best known as the beat generation. This goes on to tell the story of this group living in California learning the ways of the best era.
May 19, 2018
The best book i have read so far of this type. It’s more explaining than just high rambling.
January 18, 2023
Die Beat Generation ist eine Richtung der amerikanischen Literatur in den 1950er Jahren. Eingeführt wurde der Begriff von Jack Kerouac. Nur wenige Autoren wie z.B. Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg und William S. Burroughs zählten zu der Gruppe, was ihre Wichtigkeit für diesen Stil betonen sollte. Lawrence Lipton beschreibt in seinem Buch das Leben der Beat Genearation.
Ich habe von den Autoren aus der Beat Generation schon etwas von William S. Burroughs und Jack Kerouac gelesen. Beide mochte ich nicht wirklich, vielleicht hätte mir das eine Warnung sein sollen. Denn auch mit Holy Barbarians hatte ich meine Schwierigkeiten. Über weite Strecken erschien mir das Buch wie eine Aufzählung von belanglosen Ereignissen. Ab und zu gab es eine Unterhaltung oder Bemerkung, die mich kurz gepackt haben. Aber nicht lange genug, um einen guten oder bleibenden Eindruck von dem Buch zu gewinnen.
Ich habe von den Autoren aus der Beat Generation schon etwas von William S. Burroughs und Jack Kerouac gelesen. Beide mochte ich nicht wirklich, vielleicht hätte mir das eine Warnung sein sollen. Denn auch mit Holy Barbarians hatte ich meine Schwierigkeiten. Über weite Strecken erschien mir das Buch wie eine Aufzählung von belanglosen Ereignissen. Ab und zu gab es eine Unterhaltung oder Bemerkung, die mich kurz gepackt haben. Aber nicht lange genug, um einen guten oder bleibenden Eindruck von dem Buch zu gewinnen.
July 22, 2025
The folks in this book are too far into heroin to make any sense, - at least the ones in the scene the author hangs out in, not the ones he describes from other places. Ripoffs are cool & so is living off the state, and that junkie kind of life was no match for joie de vivre of the acid and weed culture that came ten years later. While dedicated artists in bohemia is one thing, a utopia it wasn't, but since it was before my time, what do I know. Historical value, though.
December 3, 2025
I loved this book. I adore Beat generation literature, especially the poetry, so it was amazing to delve deeper into the culture and philosophy that inspired it. I especially enjoyed the scenes depicting real-life events that the author was present for, where it feels as though we, the reader, are seeing these scenes and meeting these people. A thought provoking, entertaining and inspiring read. Loved it.
February 1, 2024
3.5 stars overall. Interesting account of the beatnik generation but can be repetitive and sometimes the authors feelings came on a little strong. But he was there and fully emerged in the culture unlike a lot of other popular books on the beat generation. There are parts of me that relate to the generation especially when it comes to influence of music in their lives and social circles.
March 16, 2018
3.5 stars.
April 17, 2022
I’m so happy I’ve read this! Read it, read it, read iiiiiit! That’s how my review goes. READ! IT!
September 24, 2022
God bless "Angel" Dan Davies
Did Not Finish
January 27, 2026DNF
September 5, 2013
All in all a decent read. Obviously it is a bit dated, and some or rather, most of the pieces that felt like they are suppose to be shocking to the average reader, probably were quite shocking to the average reader when this books was released. Girls who sleep with boys before marriage and curse? Boys with beards? Not wanting to live the American Dream? The horror, the horror...
I also probably should have read this book sooner. I've had a copy for the better part of a decade, sitting on my to read shelf in every apartment I've lived in. Expectations get built up, although I don't really know what I was expecting.
Still hard to believe the dude who wrote this book is the dad of James Lipton.
I also probably should have read this book sooner. I've had a copy for the better part of a decade, sitting on my to read shelf in every apartment I've lived in. Expectations get built up, although I don't really know what I was expecting.
Still hard to believe the dude who wrote this book is the dad of James Lipton.
May 13, 2014
Based on annotations and highlighting of my nook version of this book, this was one of my best reads. Lipton does an excellent job of capturing in detail the beat generation and tracing similar movements, from his first hand experience, from the twenties, thirties and the immediately proceeding developments of the forties. The details of beat personalities, music, attitudes, religion were all insightful. All of this was new to me. His experiences with luminaries, such as Allen Ginsberg, were fascinating and made these people seem human. It was my first read of beat poetry. All in all, one of my favorites.
January 27, 2016
Written in such a fluid manner, I felt like I was reading a story rather than a comprehensive history of a movement. This book delves into every aspect of the "beatnik" movement, letting you into the thoughts and minds of many of the key creative people that grew out of the era. This book covers not only the history of the movement but also gives you a portrait of the social and cultural climate of the country as a whole. It also expands the oft misconceived view the beat generation began and ended with Jack Kerouac. The era of the beatnik is much richer than a singular person.
June 19, 2013
Lipton's THE HOLY BARBARIANS is a study of beatnik and a book of two halves. The first reads like a roman à clef journal of life in Venice West, the second a paper on beat versus the ever commercial modern America and it's origins. An odd mix of entertainment and education which manages to capture the essence of beat in an organised way that doesn't let it shatter in your hands.
Squares beware. There's little for you here.
Squares beware. There's little for you here.
Read
July 16, 2016A very thorough and thoroughly fascinating look at the 'beat' culture and what it all meant. Their ethics, music, literature and way of life from the point-of-view of a proud insider. Lipton pays some passing reference to the 'name-brand' beatniks but focuses on those he knew from his own community of Venice West, CA.
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