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  1. Hey, I feel you that there are very few people you can discuss America's Beat Generation period. This is no surprise, as the period itself was short-lived, and the "generation" was more like a group of people, around 10, which is hardly a "generation" at all. It was skipped pretty quickly from the Lost Generation (writers like Hemingway and Fitzgerald) straight to Hippies (beginning with Ken Kesey, I suppose). And it is always great to find someone you can have a talk about the subject with. What I would suggest is put Naked Lunch on hold for now, and get to know William Burroughs as a person before you start reading it, this will help to understand the book better. I, while reading, would have struggled even more if I didn't know anything about him, but I've research a lot in a last couple of years, but it is still a bit too heavy. I've never read anything from Will Self, and while his writing also covers subject of drug usage and similar stuff, I'm not sure if he can be considered as a Beat writer, even if his style is inspired by William Burroughs himself, as he is a bit too young for that. On The Road is a great book, but if you're looking for more prose, I'd give Kerouac's The Dharma Bums a try as your next reading. If you liked On The Road, you'll love this one too. If you're interested in understanding beatniks more, obviously give Howl and Other Poems by Ginsberg a try, and any other writing from the original group - Corso (Bomb), McClure (Dark Brown), Snyder (Riprap), Holmes (Go), Ferlinghetti. There are some other writers, slightly less known, you might want to look into as well. Names like LeRoi Jones, Philip Whalen, Diane DiPrima, John Wieners. I've your fascinated by the Beat Generation itself, read The Beat Hotel by Barry Miles, which I absolutely LOVED. There's also a book called The Portable Beat Reader, don't remember by who, which consists of a lot of stories, history and excerpts of and from most of beatniks' writings. It was a fascinating time, wasn't it? By the way, I'm from UK too. Have a nice read through, let me know how you're liking it.
  2. Hello everybody, I'm new here and I'm not sure if I'm posting in the right section, so if not - please feel free to move it. I was wondering if there are any followers of the Beat Generation poets? I'm a fan of the work of the whole group, however I always hesitated to read anything from William, because I felt that his stuff, composed under a massive heroin influence, might just be too heavy for me. Anyway, I finally gave it a shot, and you know... I was right, it's too abstract. Anyone who read Naked Lunch, would you like to discuss the book with me? I've gone through to around page 100 now, and I'm EXTREMELY confused. There are some great parts of writing, especially describing effects of C and H, but there are some parts that lasts for 3-5 pages and I'm just so confused that I have no idea what I am reading, I'm absolutely clueless. Any thoughts here from anyone on this particular piece? Or even better - advice on how to read it? How to approach that kind of writing?
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