The Beat Generation: When Mad Men Write,

 "The Beat Generation was a group of authors whose literature explored and influenced American culture in the post-World War II era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized throughout the 1950s. Central elements of "Beat" culture are: rejection of standard narrative values, the spiritual quest, exploration of American and Eastern religions, rejection of materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration." (src: Wikipedia)

Have you guys ever watched "Kill Your Darlings"? A movie that was played by Daniel Radcliffe and Dane DeHaan, about the becoming of The Beat Generation?

I've always loved the way male people write. Their writing sounds so simple yet so strong. Really different from the girls' writings. They're full of allegories, being weak, and demanding, and just so self-conscious. I bet you have seen me writing as a male before. When I used the word "She" or "her" instead of "he" or "him", I was writing by putting myself as a position of a boy.

Some male authors have produced so many strong writings, including song writers like Jason Mraz, Sameer Gadhia, Bon Iver,  and so many many song writers out there. But I actually kept myself listening to the words that were said in that movie, "Kill Your Darlings". Some sentences ended up so rebellious yet so strong yet so alive. And then I started to google it, what the movie was about. And The beat Generation came up.

The Beat Generation is a group of authors who defeated the rules of writing, they liberated themselves with their own style of writing. That's why their writings sound so so so so free, so liberated, so individualistic, so precious. It's kinda like Chairil Anwar's style of writing, but they're braver. This group consisted Allen Ginsberg, William S.Burroughs, Lucien Carr, and Jack Kerouac.


 1. Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg was born on the 3rd of June 1926 and he died just when I was a year old, he died on April 5 1997. He was just a regular guy whose mother was diagnosed with mental illness. Secretly, he applied to Columbia University to study English Literature, and he got accepted. Still worried about his mother, Ginsberg however went to the university afterall. At the university, Ginsberg then befriended with Lucien Carr, a guy whom he later fell in love with.Along with Lucien Carr, WIlliam Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, they created their own writing project. They did rebellious acts, liberating the students from the classical writing mindset, where poems had to be sweet and loving, they were mad people who chose to write.

 “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and
saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes
hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy
among the scholars of war, ”  - Allen Ginsberg

2.WIlliam S. Burroughs

William S. Burroughs was born on February 5th 1914 and died on August 2nd 1997. Burroughs was one of the Beat Generation, he actually was a drug guy. Allen and Luncien were trying to explore inside their minds to obtain inspiration, and Burroughs helped them "getting high" with his experimental drug and acid. He graduated from Harvard English Literature Major, but he was still the calm, cool, drug guy. He had published so many novels, they're quite interesting novels.

"After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say 'I want to see the manager.”
― William S. Burroughs, The Adding Machine: Selected Essays.

3. Lucien Carr

Lucien Carr was born March 1 1925 and died on January 28 2005. He was also a part of Beat Generation, he contributed the ideas, he contributed how they'd do the ideas, how they'd find the inspiration, but he tore the Beat Generation apart too. He had this friend named David Kammerer, a man whom he had this complicated relationship with. I was not sure if he first felt "molested" or he really liked it, but Kammerer would always follow him, like a soul attached to a body, where there is Lucien, there is David, until one day. One day, things got so out of control that when Lucien Carr was about to run away to Paris, David Kammerer followed him to the port. Lucien was so pissed that he was being followed (again). They got into a fight, and Lucien finally killed David, stabbed him a few times and let him drown in the lake.

Despite of the bad things he did, Lucien Carr was the idea contributor when the rest of his friends were the ones who did the ideas that he had given.

"It's our duty to break the law. It's how we make the world a better place." - Lucien Carr

4. Jack Kerouac

 Kerouac was born on March 12 1922 and died on October 21 1969. He was a part of this group also. He was responsible for the murder of David Kammerer as a material witnessed. After his bail got paid, he and Bourroughs decided to write a collaboration novel, "And The Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks."

 "My manners, abominable at times, can be sweet. As I grew older I became a drunk. Why? Because I like ecstasy of the mind. I'm a wretch. But I love, love." - Jack Kerouac

Yup, so these are the Beat Generation. I even stole my blog tagline from them.
Good times, old times.