What I am reading

The first 121 pages follow a clear concept, namely to explore the life of the Core-Beat poets Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs. Those stories are either pretty much focused on their homoerotic sexlife or on the very basics of them moving around a lot while switching from one odd job to the next or running out of money. And those facts are somehow presented in a less entertaining way than in any reasonable wikipedia article.

The second half is a bit more random. Different illustrators and writers focus on various poets, on some special perspective or aspect associated with the Beats, but they never get enough space to adequately deal with the subjects. I got the impression, that their goal was to somehow cram as many poets in there as possible, sort of a better-than-usual-because-illustrated name-dropping.

The constant changing in the style of the artwork in the second half of the book gets really annoying and speaking of the artwork in general, I think it was shockingly mediocre and the portrayed poets did not necessarily resemble their real life alter egos if you compare them to actual footage or photographs. Don’t get me wrong – it is better than anything I could ever do, but also, I am not earning my living as an illustrator.