Memoirs of a Beatnik

 (21 customer reviews)

a recent article on diane diprima in the chicago tribune (4/19/2000) called di prima's "memoirs of a beatnik" - "a sort of insider's Beat exploitation book Di Prima wrote in 1968 for Maurice Girodias' Olympia Press in Paris because she needed money badly--and quickly." It goes on to state that "It is mostly accurate, [di prima] said, except for the sex parts."with that said, i doubt the book aspires to make any type of high-brow feminist or literary statement. the fact that is does make any such statement can be attributed to the time in which it was written. it is basically an account of a young woman venturing out on her own in times when young women did not do such things. young women lived at home, maybe went away to college, met a nice suitable young man, and got married. maybe had a job as a typist in the meantime. sex was not something young women from nice families experimented with. this is not to say the book does not have its...Read more

This is basically erotica, but with a beat generation edge. If you want to peer into a sexual encounter with Jack Kerouac or Allen Ginsberg this is for you, but you'd probably be better off reading Off the Road by Carolyn Cassidy. What I loved about this book was the theme of emerging femanism and sexual freedom. DiPrima did a great job giving a sex book a plot and a literary feel.

Not for the faint of heart, Memoirs of a Beatnik was a written-for-hire erotica piece. Di Prima delivers on raunch, providing a wild tale of sexual exploration that begins with the main character (arguably Di Prima, who drew heavily from personal experience) losing her virginity and ends with the character's first pregnancy. Though sex is certainly the book's most prominent feature, Di Prima, a respected poet and one of the few female Beat writers to make a name for herself, also discusses her own artistic development and describes the life of a starving artist in New York in the fifties. Di Prima's no-holds-barred honesty (the sex is real, with all of the funky smells and personal quirks) and her joyful appreciation for the finer details in life (e.g., a good cup of coffee, well-sugared) separates this book from the murky sea of erotica