[pcthrowaway]

Agreed with everything you've said, but I'd note that Tom Wolfe is definitely one of the talented ones to come out of that circle.

Ginsberg as you noted also had his moments of literary height. And I can appreciate some of the artistic merits of Burroughs' work as well, though as you note, he was either a sociopath or at least incapable of critical self-reflection in his writing.

On the Road, for whatever reason, was a complete miss for me.

[notmyjob]

There are others. Ferlingetti as just one example had some great stuff. That was the critical lesson for me: you have to evaluate works by big names with self blinding to the person’s reputation. Real life reviews aren’t that different from yelp. I ask myself, is a work good on its own, not because of who did it or what other people tell you to think or how often you hear the artist’s name referenced. Doing so opens a whole world of beauty and saves you from so much dreck and wasted time. So much is overrated and so much is underrated. There’s a lot to gain by understanding that and then seeking to refine one’s own sensitivity to what is good.

[jonjacky]

Ferlinghetti was remarkable. He started before the Beats and outlived them all. He said he wasn't a Beat poet but the City Lights Bookstore he co-founded gave them an outlet and a publisher. He published his last novel, Little Boy, when we was 100 years old.