The Beat Hotel: Ginsberg, Burroughs & Corso in Paris, 1957-1963 - Softcover

Miles, Barry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802138179 ISBN 13: 9780802138170

Publisher: Grove Press, 2001

Synopsis

The Beat Hotel is a delightful chronicle of a remarkable moment in American literary history. From the Howl obscenity trial to the invention of the cut-up technique, Barry Miles's extraordinary narrative chronicles the feast of ideas that was Paris, where the Beats took awestruck audiences with Duchamp and Celine, and where some of their most important work came to fruition--Ginsberg's "Kaddish" and "To Aunt Rose"; Corso's The Happy Birthday of Death; and Burroughs's Naked Lunch. Based on firsthand accounts from diaries, letters, and many original interviews, The Beat Hotel is an intimate look at an era of spirit, dreams, and genius.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Miles (Jack Kerouac: King of the Beats, etc.), who has been intimately involved in the documentation of the Beat scene, focuses here on an international aspect of Beat work: Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Gregory Corso's escape from "the conformism and Puritanism of fifties America" during the six years (1957-1963) they lived at a cheap hotel on Paris's Left Bank. During this period, the three pursued such now-famous creative endeavors as "Kaddish," Naked Lunch and "Bomb." Their important work during this time, particularly the "cut-up" method pioneered by Burroughs, had an important formative influence on the next generation of artists, according to Miles. Part scholarly study and part gossip-fest, this account traces the aesthetic, sexual and social goings-on in Paris: "Within the shelter of the Beat Hotel," Miles writes, "they had mapped out many of the paths that the 'sixties generation' was to actually follow: the recreational use of drugs and experiments with psychedelics..., investigations into magic and mysticism..., gay rights and sexual freedom , the legalization of 'pornography' and challenges to obscenity laws." The hotel on rue Git-le-Coeur, closed for nearly four decades now, still symbolizes the fruitful ground of collaborative creation among the Beats. The significance of this period in Paris for the Beats may be slightly exaggerated by Miles to justify this book-length study, but those interested in the lives of these cult figures will most likely forgive such overdetermination in the interests of learning in an entertaining narrative about important writers now considered American literary heroes. (July)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

The cheap rooming house at nine rue Git-Le-Coeur became known as the Beat Hotel after several Beat writers made it their home in Paris. In this interesting blend of sexual gossip and literary scholarship, Miles, author of full-length biographies of Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and Jack Kerouac, paints a vivid picture of literary life along the Left Bank in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He recounts not only the Beat writers' creative interactions with one other but their relations with such Frenchmen as Maurice Girodias, publisher of the Olympia Press, and Henri Michaux, an author who shared their fascination with the use of drugs to heighten consciousness. Miles also documents the influences of a number of European writers on the Beats, including Andr Breton, Louis-Ferdinand C line, and Sergei Esenin. Finally, he is particularly good at exploring the collaboration between Brion Gysin and Burroughs that led to their famous cut-up method. This is fun reading, especially for those steeped in the Beats. Recommended for academic and larger public libraries.
-DWilliam Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., NY
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Grove Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0802138179
• ISBN 13: 9780802138170
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304