The Beat movement - history and influence on modern times. The essence of the literature of "beat" writers briefly Who is a beatnik

In the 1950s, a new cultural and literary movement claimed a dominant role in the minds of Americans. The Beat movement was never as large as the Lost Generation or other movements, but its influence on cultural status was perhaps the most noticeable among competing groups. The first years after World War II saw dramatic shifts in general social awareness. As the post-war economic boom swept America, many students began to question this unbridled pursuit of materialism. The Beat movement was a product of these doubts. They saw the capitalism reigning then as a threat to the human spirit and social equality. In addition to their dissatisfaction with consumer culture, the Beats opposed the demeaning prudery of their parents' and grandparents' generation. They viewed the taboo against open discussion of human sexuality as unhealthy and even potentially harmful. In the world of literature and art, the beatniks took the side of opposition to the immaculate, almost sterile, formalism of the era of modernism. They enjoyed open, direct and expressive literature. Very often, the cultural creations of the beatniks crossed the line of what was permitted, and therefore the censorship often vetoed them. Many exclude beat literature from the category of serious art, but time has shown that the cultural heritage of the beat generation turned out to be more durable, and its influence more widespread.

First steps

The founders of the Beat Generation met at Columbia University in the early 40s. Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg became the driving forces of that initial group of like-minded people for many years to come, which also included Lucien Carr, John Clellon Holmes and Neal Cassady. Gregory Corso was the first beat poet Ginsberg met. Despite their anti-scientific, or rather anti-academic, claims, the entire Beat generation was quite educated and came from the middle-income classes. It was Kerouac who came up with the name “Beat Generation”, and oddly enough, he hit the nail on the head. William Burroughs was another writer of the Beat movement, although slightly older and more experienced than his contemporaries. Burroughs was declared unfit for military service during World War II, so he spent several years wandering around the country aimlessly, taking on the strangest jobs. Probably, some supreme forces intervened in this scenario of events, and therefore the paths of Burroughs, Kerouac and Ginsberg were destined to intertwine together. It was their creative searches that gave birth to beatnik literature.

The Beat Generation had to wade through many different styles, ideas and trends before they managed to create their own unique concept. There is a theory that the poetry of Romanticism had a greater influence on the consciousness of the beatniks, especially the work of poets such as Percy Bysshe Shelley and William Blake. Surrealist and absurdist movements did not bypass them either. At the same time, 19th-century American Transcendentalism served as a powerful source of inspiration for the confrontational politics of the Beat movement. For example, Henry David Thoreau was elevated to the status of a symbol of his protests. In particular, the beat movement played important role in restoring Thoreau's reputation and raising it to the position in which it now stands. In the opposite direction, American modernism became the target at which all the abuse and insults of the beatniks were directed. For example, Thomas Eliot's formalism was completely rejected for the reason complete absence connection with real life. Eliot achieved recognition as a true scientific luminary, while the Beat generation mistook him for just another elitist upstart with aspirations for greatness.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

The poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti is considered a late representative of the beat movement. The son of immigrants, Ferlinghetti became a Navy veteran who worked with resistance forces in World War II. After the war, he settled in San Francisco, where he opened the City Lights bookstore. His bookstore quickly became a gathering place for many of the Beat Generation's literati. Around the same time, Ferlinghetti began to engage in publishing activities, publishing works of status poets, but did not bypass young ones. In his own work, Ferlinghetti demonstrates a jazz-inspired style and a spirit of improvisation. Ferlinghetti is known for his skillful combination of humor and darkness, as well as topical reflections on the state of America and the world in the middle of the last century. He denounced the decadence and hypocrisy of American culture, as well as the destructive potential of capitalism, but his main tool was ridicule of all this absurdity. It just so happened that Ferlinghetti’s poetics did not have such a strong place among beatnik literature. His humor and satire make his work more universal, and therefore less exclusive to one movement.

Allen Ginsberg

The publication of Allen Ginsberg's Howl in 1956 marked a turning point in the history of Beat literature, if not American literature in general. This poem was designed to be read aloud, thereby bringing back an oral tradition in literature that had been neglected for generations. The free content of the work surprised everyone, and this will be an understatement, because its problematics were indeed perceived by the court as outright pornography. However, Ginsberg won this confrontation with the public, and as a result, literature and the visual arts were given a special place outside the strict censorship that reigned at that time. With his “Howl,” Ginsberg invites the reader/listener to take a tour of the dark side of America, where drug addicts, tramps, prostitutes and swindlers have found their place; the side that harbors inner anger against the system and demands due equality. Dirty speech and slang are elevated to the level of everyday life, along with drugs and crime. All these things shocked the public of the 50s. But Ginsberg was just following the path of his own inspiration. He quotes fondly from Walt Whitman, whose echoes can be seen in Ginsberg's writings with the naked eye.

As the affluent 1950s gave way to the chaos of the 1960s, Allen Ginzurg's poetics also underwent significant changes. His work has always been the personification of inner turmoil and the search for meaning. And when his person found himself in a certain center of attention of the entire society, there was simply no more fuel inside that would live the engine of his creativity. No one said that Ginsberg had strayed from his beaten path; critics only argued that his work had become more “mature” and therefore less explosive. He spent most of his time in the 1960s as an expert invited by various universities. Ironically, the institutions to which he had turned his back were waiting for him with open arms. But as fate would have it, Ginsberg himself certainly enjoyed being a mentor and mentor to others. Instilling faith in the human spirit in future generations became Ginsberg's true calling as a visionary writer.

Jack Kerouac

But not Ginsberg alone! Perhaps no other writer from the Beat movement attracted more attention than Jack Kerouac. His life was full of conflicts, turmoil and critical depression. In the end, dying of alcoholism, Kerouac could not come to terms with the role of the mouthpiece of an entire generation of beatniks. According to the recollections of those close to him, he was a shy person, and therefore he had a difficult time during those periods when the public rejected his works. His only success was On the Road, a philosophical travelogue that skillfully mixed streams of consciousness, drug addiction, and insightful observations of events that resonate for generations to this day. This book made him famous literally on the very first day. Even members of the Beat Generation circle were incredibly surprised by the passion and enthusiasm with which the seemingly quiet Jack Kerouac worked. In addition to novels and philosophy, he wrote generally about the artistic craft, or at least that's what he called it. It was these semi-understandable and spatial reflections on literature that became a kind of window into the consciousness of the beatniks. There is certainly great potential to be found in it, but often that potential is dashed by mental clutter and undying idealism, despite the bitter reality of America's consumer culture. In some ways, Jack Kerouac was the most vulnerable figure of the entire beat movement. He succumbed to the pressure of fame and public attention. While Ginsberg distanced himself from the importance of mass anticipation, Kerouac carried it on his own shoulders and eventually broke down.

William Burroughs

Even if Burroughs had written nothing but Naked Lunch, he would likely remain in the pantheon of beat writers. He, perhaps more than anyone else in the Beat movement, embodied in his writings the spirit of recklessness for which his generation was known. One day in Mexico City, in an alcoholic stupor, he accidentally shot and killed his first wife, Jane Volmer. The reason he ended up in Mexico was painfully prosaic: he was trying to escape justice in the States. He transfers many of the terrible features of his life to paper. It is impossible not to note Burroughs' special style. He clearly neglected descriptive elements, which directly reflects his emotional state, fueled by his struggle with alcohol and drug addiction. "Naked Lunch" is a very complex and sometimes frightening work, but despite all counter-arguments, this work still finds its readers.

Criticism of the beat generation came from completely different parts of the planet. Academic circles derided the beatniks as crude and uncouth pseudo-intellectuals. The American public was frightened by their sexual deviations and open drug addiction. Status writers of those times looked down on the works of the beatniks. Some politicians, such as Joseph McCarthy, found elements of communism and a threat to national security in the Beat ideology. The beatniks steadfastly listened to all these barbs directed at them; on the contrary, this event brought them together. However, their relatively short stay on the world literary stage can certainly be attributed to the amount of negativity poured on them during this time. original name“Beat” meant people who were broken and unnecessary, and for the early 1950s such an interpretation could not have come at a better time.

The Beat Generation greatly influenced the structure of modern American society. With the publication of Ginsberg's Howl, opinion quickly spread about what "acceptable" literature should be. Censorship as a tool for the formation of human consciousness, at least within the framework of artistic creativity, ceases to be such. Perhaps the main achievement of the beatniks is the active discussion of environmental issues. Before the 1950s, environmentalism did not exist in the form it does today. Ideological similarities between the beatniks and Native Americans eastern culture gave impetus to the emergence of modern environmental ethics. Modern poetics has undergone fundamental changes in its structure and style, allowing anyone to openly express their opinion regarding a certain subject. Experimentation took center stage, thereby relegating close formalism to the background. But the bit generation disappeared over the horizon as quickly as it had risen above it.

Informals. A whole group of youth movements in the USSR in the 80s and 90s. In general, they were not very diverse. Nevertheless, they have formed their own language of self-expression, street styles, fashion, art, communications, and a self-sufficient music lovers market.

Mods

At the instigation of the first “new dudes” and receiving its starting impetus from the mod movement of the 60s, in the USSR it received a reverse vector of development from Soviet punk to the vintage motifs of the past. At the same time, without losing any of its radicalism, the Soviet “fashion styling” of the period of the avant-garde artistic movements of the 80s became a calling card for many participants in musical and artistic projects, uniting a diverse artistic people who gravitated towards music lovers omnivorous and passed through all the latest innovations in fashion and music. Such characters, disparagingly called “mods” in the art community, participated in most key shows and performances, were carriers of the latest fashionable and cultural information and often shocked the population with parodies of social nomenclature costumes and punk antics.

Fashion. Moscow, 1988

Fashion. Moscow, 1989. Photo by Evgeny Volkov

Fashion. Chelyabinsk, early 80s

Hardmodes

The short-term manifestation of this intermediate foreign style of the 70s occurred at the end of the 80s, due to the consolidation of radical informal circles during the resistance to pressure and the influx of a new wave of truly marginal elements, following the popularization of informal movements at the turn of 87-88 (exactly after turning point in street battles with “Lyubers” and Gopniks). It is worth noting that such manifestations in a caricatured ironic form were present in the vastness of our homeland, when radical informals dressed up in proto-Skinhead outfits, cut their heads bald out of spite, and crowded in crowded places. Frightening with his appearance the policemen and ordinary people, who were seriously listening to Soviet propaganda, that all informals were fascist thugs. The hardmods of the late 80s were a sublemation of the punk, rockabilly and militaristic style, and of course, having never heard about what they should be called according to the stylistic classification, they preferred the self-name “streetfighters” and “militarists”.

Hardmodes. Red Square, 1988

Hardmodes. Moscow Zoo, 1988

Psychobills

Psychobilly, being to a greater extent manifested itself in Leningrad at the turn of the 90s, together with the groups Swidlers and Meantreitors, when groups of young people formalized this direction musically, standing out from the rockabilly environment. But even before this, there were individual characters who fell outside the framework of the new subcultural leagues and who preferred polymelormania of the rock and roll variety. In terms of dress code, this tendency was close to punk aesthetics

Psychobills. In the courtyard of a rock club, 1987. Photo by Natalia Vasilyeva

Psychobills. Leningrad, 1989

Psychobills. Muscovites visiting Leningraders, 1988. Photo by Evgeny Volkov

Bikers

During clashes with gopniks and “lubers” in the period from 1986 to 1991, special active groups emerged in the rocker and heavy metal environment, which at the turn of the 90s transformed from motto gangs into the first motto clubs. With its own visual attributes modeled on foreign bike clubs, and on heavy motorcycles, modernized by hand or even post-war trophy models. Already by 1990, in Moscow one could distinguish the groups “Hell Dogs”, “Night wolves”, “Cossacs Russia”. Also present were shorter-term motorcycle associations, such as “MS Davydkovo”. The self-name bikers, as a symbol of the separation of this stage from the rocker past, was first assigned to the group rallied around Alexander the Surgeon, and then spread to the entire moto movement, gradually covering many cities in the post-Soviet space

Bikers. Surgeon, 1989. Photo by Petra Gall

Bikers. Kimirsen, 1990

Bikers. Night wolves on Pushka, 1989. Photo by Sergey Borisov

Bikers. Theme, 1989

Beatniks

A phenomenon no less multifaceted than the aesthetics of punk, Soviet beatism dates back to the distant 70s. When this term included fashionable decadents visiting hot spots, growing their hair below their shoulders and decked out in leather jackets and Beatles. This term also included “labukhi” - musicians making music to order in Soviet restaurants, and simply people outside any “leagues”, leading an isolated and immoral, from the point of view of Soviet aesthetics, lifestyle. This trend in the early 80s was aggravated by a careless appearance, defiant behavior and the presence of some distinctive element in clothing. Be it a hat or a scarf or a bright tie.

Beatniks. Bitnichki, Timur Novikov and Oleg Kotelnikov. Photo by Evgeny Kozlov

Beatniks. Parade on the first of April, Leningrad-83

Beatniks. Chelyabinsk, late 70s

Fans

The movement, which originated in the late 70s and consisted of “kuzmichas” (ordinary visitors to stadiums) and the visiting elite who accompanied teams at matches in other cities, by the beginning of the 80s had already acquired its regional leaders, acquired “gangs”, merchandise and turned into football-related communication. Following the quick start of Spartak fans (the most famous center of the party in the early 80s was the Sayany beer bar at the Shchelkovskaya metro station), holding their city actions and parades, “gangs” just as quickly began to appear around other teams

Fans. Moscow, 1988. Photo by Victoria Ivleva

Fans. Moscow-81. Photo by Igor Mukhin

Fans. Reception of a Zenit fan in Dnepropetrovsk-83

Lyubera

A unique direction formed at the intersection of the hobby of bodybuilding and youth supervision programs.
Initially assigned to a local group of people from Lyubertsy, who often traveled to the capital to vacation spots for young people, the name “Luber” already from 1987 was interpolated not only to heterogeneous groups not connected with each other, but also to larger groups concentrated during this period in the Central Park of Educational Institutions named after Gorky and Arbat. Zhdan, Lytkarinsky, Sovkhoz-Moscow, Podolsk, Karacharovsky, Naberezhnye Chelnovsky, Kazan - this is an incomplete list of the “brotherhood near Moscow”, which tried to control not only the designated territories, but also other hot spots and station squares. Initially encouraged by the authorities, they hoped to place these formations into the fabric of the “people’s squad” ", these groups did not have a common dress code except for their affinity for sportswear, but they also had conflicting interests that were consolidated only within the framework of aggression against fashionistas and "informals."

Lyubera. 1988

Lyubera. Africa and Lubera, 1986. Photo by Sergey Borisov

Lyubera. Lyubera and Podolsk in the Gorky Central Park of Education and Culture, 1988

Despite the fact that the United States emerged from World War II as “the only victorious country,” as historians ironically say, and very soon became a prosperous superpower, the general mood of American literature in the first post-war decade was very far from festive and optimistic. The most indicative in this regard is the work of the then younger generation of writers, the “children” of US literature of the 50s - military novelists and their peers who turned to other topics. The historical horror of World War II certainly traumatized more than one generation, but it especially affected young people.

The whole electrified atmosphere of the “silent fifties” turned out to be a kind of “long-term compression syndrome” for them: “ cold war"and the frighteningly real nuclear threat, the persecution of dissidents that marked the era of Senator Joe McCarthy, the conformist unanimity of the nation, its nouveau riche arrogance with its newly acquired material well-being. All this caused a sharp rejection of young Americans, which was imprinted in the works of writers of the generation of "children ".

Children, however, are different even under the same conditions of upbringing. Likewise, among the literary youth of that time, there stood out a group of those whose protest was expressed in extreme forms, who rebelled against the “tyranny of their fathers” and programmatically broke with them. They called themselves the "beat generation"; criticism started talking about the “beaten (or “broken”) generation,” although the “apostle” of beatism, Jack Kerouac, who came up with this definition in 1952, put a different meaning into it: “Beat means rhythm, pulsation, not brokenness.” Beatism was a spontaneous nonconformist movement of creative youth and their like-minded people for the creation of a new culture, a new way of life.

It all started spontaneously. Back in the mid-1940s, the West Coast, especially San Francisco, California, and its environs, saw an extraordinary increase in creative activity—music, painting, poetry. In 1944, a scandalous celebrity, perhaps the only immoralist of American literature at that time, an expatriate of the 20s and 30s, Henry Miller (1891-1980), moved to Big Sur. He seemed to pave the way for others - both literally, physically, and spiritually. California has become a place of pilgrimage for creative youth, just as Paris was for young expatriates in the 1920s. It was a path of voluntary exile and, a kind of, internal expatriation - into untrodden regions of the spirit.

From the cities of New England, from the city of New York, where most of the beatniks were born and lived, across the entire continent, these unconventional, restless Americans moved to Pacific Ocean. From the late 40s to the mid-50s, poet and prose writer Jack Kerouac, poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and Peter Orlovsky moved there, who joined the bohemians of the West Coast - artists, musicians, poets. It was they, and the eldest of them all, the prose writer William Burroughs, who formed the core of the beatnik movement. Many followed them. Critics wrote: “Like an island of volcanic origin, the “beat generation” unexpectedly appeared on the literary latitudes of America and over the following years its size grew, approaching the outlines of an entire continent.”

The movement peaked in the mid-50s, then gradually declined (in the early 60s, almost all the “outsiders” left California), but the resonance was felt throughout the next decade. Beatism was elevated to a kind of national nonconformist religion. It represented a new, anti-academic art of open forms, striving for direct contact with the audience. It also presupposed a special lifestyle that rejected urban civilization, the comfort of consumer society, bourgeois ideas about marriage, love and friendship, and the criteria for the value of the human personality accepted in America - the level of material well-being and educational qualifications.

The main thing in beatnikism, however, is that both art and lifestyle were thought of as a way of communion with God - bypassing the traditional institution of the church, through direct “seeing”, through a rhythmic trance, enhanced by drug use and liberating consciousness. Despite the programmatic challenge to modern American culture, this is a very American phenomenon: in its own way it develops specifically national spiritual traditions. The origins of beatnikism are a transcendental interest in Eastern philosophy and the mysteries of nature, Emerson's concept of the Oversoul and Thoreau's doctrine of "civil disobedience", Whitman's sense of the "open road", the self-awareness of a person who relies only on himself and strives for communication with the Earth, nature and other people - for the sake of mutual joy.

In literature, beatism was revealed in new, spontaneous poetry of free form (the poem "Howl", 1955 by A. Ginsberg, etc.); in prose, it is associated primarily with the names of William Burroughs (Nark, 1953; Naked Lunch, 1959) and Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), whose autobiographical novel On the Road (1958) was a kind of canonical text of beatnikism.

The novel depicts the programmatically nomadic, homeless, semi-impoverished life of Sol Paradise and his like-minded friends, who abandoned their careers and money - from the ideals of bourgeois prosperity and fled away from the technological cities to the freedom of their own elemental nature. This freedom is achieved by the heroes through jazz, drugs, sex and pure movement - traveling along the roads of America. Kerouac uses it as a metaphor for traveling along the roads of life, leading to the truth, to God.

Kerouac published a novel every year, and in some years two or three novels until his untimely death in 1969. He considered himself the creator of a kind of “spontaneous method”, in which thoughts are written down in the form and order in which they first came to mind, without further processing. According to the author's idea, in this way maximum psychological truthfulness is achieved, eliminating the difference between life and art. Kerouac's best novels remained On the Road and Dharma Bums (1958).

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Beatniks(English) Beatniks; beat - like broken; niks - Russian suffix as “Sputnik”, which was then on everyone’s lips) youth, which became popular in the 50s-60s. One might say, the first youth group with which everyone else “grew up.”

Why did the beatniks arise?

The ideology of the beatniks began to take shape during the war years, when, after the victory over Nazi Germany and its allies, the victorious countries began to actively develop their economies, which contributed to the enrichment of the population and an increase in living standards.

The USA was especially different in this regard, where even the way of life arose « American dream» - well-groomed housewife wife, rosy-cheeked children, work in a large corporation, good car, the house is a “full cup”, etc. Not everyone liked consumer culture and boasting about their income, and there were young people who began to openly protest against this lifestyle.

Three figures stand in line with the beat movement. These are writers Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, who with their works spread the ideas of freedom and protest against the society of that time. For many young people, this idea of ​​rebellion was much more interesting than the monotonous life of an ordinary American.

What is the ideology of the beatniks?

The ideology of the beatniks is based on protest, supported by Marxist ideology, and freedom from social and religious norms. These ideas seemed especially interesting to artistic youth. Poets, artists, musicians began to profess an almost beggarly lifestyle: they hung around in shabby cafes, gathered in basements and demonstrated their works to people like them, to those who would understand, and all this was seasoned with the jazz that they loved so much.

Separating themselves from a society that ridiculed them, they resorted to backpacking across the vast expanses of America, experimenting with alcohol and drugs (and), and homosexuality, which was considered very fashionable among the beatniks.

How did the beatniks dress?

A common image of a beatnik is a dark figure wearing dark, opaque glasses with a beret on his head.
A black or horizontal striped turtleneck and a white, unpatterned T-shirt were very popular. The girls wore dark leggings, long skirts, tights, a sweater, and capri pants. The guys put on baggy pants and let go "goatees". The beatniks wore sandals, sneakers, and leather boots.
A beatnik with bongos was often seen as a show of support for African culture.

What kind of music did the beatniks listen to?

The beatniks idolized jazz, with its improvisations, anarchic spirit, and no desire to correct anything, but only to do as they pleased. They saw it as a manifestation of their ideology.

The beatniks were the first, and the following ones, such as hippies, hipsters, etc., borrowed a lot from them. They had their own slang that we still use today, such as “cool” - cool, “cat” - dude, “dig” - get it.
Currently, there is some reconstruction of the beatniks among “people of art”.

I hope that this information was useful and interesting for you.

Write comments. Dima. M.D. “The Power of the Young” Ukraine.

Human society has always been divided into layers, classes, groups according to certain characteristics. In our time, the boundaries of such classifications have certainly become less noticeable than before, and some have completely disappeared.
However, social groups that stand out from the general mass by their features, be it ideas, beliefs, political views, appearance, tastes and preferences have always existed and will exist. There are quite a lot of subcultures, but we decided to talk about the three most popular and significant, in our opinion, and let’s start with one of the most striking and remarkable, which gave impetus to many subcultures of our time - the beat generation, or beatniks.

Beat culture originated in post-war years(1950), when four young writers met at the University of California: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady and William Burroughs. Aimlessly wandering the streets with a bored look, they tried to go beyond traditional literature, rejecting the generally accepted norms of art and American politics and life in general. Later other young people began to join them creative people and simply middle-class youth with similar nonconformist views.

“We're beatniks, man. Beatnik means blissful, it means your heart is beating, it means something. I invented it."
Jack Kerouac.

The beat generation owes its name to Jack Kerouac - one might say, the founder and ideological leader of the beatniks. Then the word “beat” already meant in colloquial language “worn by life”, “tired”, however, having come up with the neologism “beatitude” (from the words beat and attitude, “tired attitude towards life”), Kerouac finally fixed the name of an entire generation: beat- generation. The word “beat” also had another meaning: it was the name of the musical rhythm in jazz. And what could accompany their literary rebellion if not bebop jazz, a symbol of musical rebellion? Then the musical idols of the beatniks were the founders of bebop - the legendary Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and the icon was Charlie Parker, whose lifestyle was not alien to the beatniks. It was from bebop jazz that such a technique as spontaneity migrated into the work of the beatniks, which became one of Kerouac’s main literary techniques. Jack encouraged writing spontaneously, artlessly and freely, suggesting not even using punctuation marks, and using spaces only to emphasize intonation, to exhale or inhale before a new thought.

In the work of the beatniks, the so-called “psychedelic insight” was considered quite normal; drugs took place in their lives, but were not a fundamental source of inspiration. At that time, there had not yet been a drug boom among artists, but the lives of Miles Davis and Charlie Parker, beloved beatniks, were cut short thanks to drugs.

An interesting fact is that slang, as we know it now, originated in beat culture. For example, the ubiquitous American “cool” and the later rock and roll stamp “live fast die young” appeared precisely then. Outwardly, the beatniks were easy to recognize by their black turtlenecks, beard, long hair, black glasses, sandals, and in cartoons they were often depicted with bongos (African drums).

The “Bible” of beatnikism is rightfully considered Jack Kerouac’s novel “On the Road,” which absorbed all the ideas of the beat generation, freedom, and denial of traditional values. The novel was written in three weeks and was actually “on the road”: Kerouac was a wanderer after he was discharged from the Navy due to a suspicion of schizoid personality disorder, which was then the norm among beatniks. Initially, Jack wanted his book to be published in a roll, so that as he unfolded each piece, the reader would feel the same movement that he experienced during his wanderings. Due to the fact that the mass of emotions, thoughts and feelings that befall the writer is difficult for him to adapt for the reader (or perhaps Kerouac simply did not see the point in this), Kerouac’s works are very difficult to read, neither in translation nor in the original . However, the contribution to literature made by the beatniks is invaluable.

“I love crazy people, the kind who madly want to live, madly want to talk, madly want to be saved, who want to have everything at once, who never yawn and never say vulgarities, but are always burning, burning, burning.”
"On the Road" by Jack Kerouac.

The beatniks were quite militant against the American "system", inspired by Marxism and Russian anarchism. On a road paved with drugs, alcohol, unconventional sexual orientation, rebellion in everyone possible manifestations, they fell into oblivion, perhaps realizing that The best way to escape the system they opposed—to withdraw into themselves.