Adapting the Beat Poets: Burroughs, Ginsberg, and Kerouac on Screen

(Hardback)

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In the post-World War II era, authors of the beat generation produced some of the most enduring literature of the day. More than six decades since, work of the Beat Poets conjures images of unconventionality, defiance, and a changing consciousness that permeated the 1950s and 60s. In recent years, the key texts of Beat authors such as Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Jack Kerouac have been appropriated for a new generation in feature-length films, graphic novels, and other media. In Adapting the Beat Poets: Burroughs, Ginsberg, and Kerouc on Screen, Michael J. Prince examines how works by these authors have been translated to film. Looking primarily at three key worksBurroughs Naked Lunch, Ginsbergs Howl, and Kerouacs On the RoadPrince considers how Beat literature has been significantly altered by the unintended intrusion of irony or other inflections. Prince also explores how these screen adaptations offer evidence of a growing cultural thirst for authenticity, even as mediated in postmodern works. Additional works discussed in this volume include The Subterraneans, Towers Open Fire, The Junky's Christmas, and Big Sur. By examining the screen versions of the Beat triumvirates creations, this volume questions the ways in which their original works serve as artistic anchors and whether these films honor the authentic intent of the authors. Adapting the Beat Poets is a valuable resource for anyone studying the beat generation, including scholars of literature, film, and American history.

Reviews

This work taps into the growing interest in the Beats as expressed through film. Prince is thorough for the most part. He works forward from the rather calamitous 1960 film adaptation of Jack Kerouac's The Subterraneans, released two years after the publication of the novel, with the change of the role of Mardou Fox from African American to French. Prince then delves into films such as Heart Beat (1980) and Naked Lunch (1991), providing a clear vision of their place within the contours of Beat adaptations, before turning to the recent spate of films that have brought Kerouac and company to life. Here, too, the authors examination is comprehensive. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers. * CHOICE *

Author Bio

Michael J. Prince is associate professor of American literature and culture at the University of Agder in Kristriansand, Norway. He is the author of Myth Making Man: Myths of Human Evolution in the Science Fiction of Philip K. Dick, Doris Lessing and Octavia Butler (2010).