We talk a good bit every now and again about how our cultural perception of romance has changed, especially as pertains to rape scenes, secret babies, or even the careers of the heroes – are cowboys on the way out?
Similarly, thanks to the fabulous V., here’s a link: David Brooks from the NY Times (Motto: “We won’t print the title of your Bitchy website, but we’ll publish pictures of corpses whenever we want. Because we are a ‘family newspaper.’”) compares the perceptions of Kerouac’s On the Road now that the book is 50 years old. Now, instead of a book about wild celebration and savoring the enjoyment of life, it’s a book about “loss,” “death” and the melancholy of life.
Brooks’ column is largely a WTF? directed at the aging Boomers who he blames for “the great geriatric pall settled over the world, before it became illegal to be cheerful.” Seems On the Road no longer sucks the marrow out of life, to mix literature quotes, but instead wants life pureed and boiled into mush because the readership no longer has the teeth to chew it.
Brooks predicts that the over-safety-belted culture in which we now live will produce another revolutionary piece of literature: “Someday some hypermanic kid will produce a moronically maxed-out adventure odyssey that will spark the overdue rebellion among all the over-pressured SAT grinds, and us grumpy midlife critics will get to witness a new Kerouac, and the greatest pent-up young-life crisis in the history of the world.”
(Dude. I so hope it’s a romance.)
Aside from predictions of what rebellious literature will emerge next, I am fascinated by how time and aging of the audience changes perceptions of literature, and the condemnation of that which was celebrated and the celebration of that which was condemned come circling around each other time and again. The Flame and the Flower was reissued shortly after Claiming the Courtesan – and both ask readers to reexamine rape and the sexual power plays that occur in every romance novel (though not always through rape). The passage of 30 years of readership between those two books, for example, creates an entirely new attitude toward the balance of sexual power, but no shortage of controversy.
Brooks’ opinions on our over-professionalized society I’m going to have to think about some more, though. It’s also feeding time, so Baba says “Get off the computer already, woman.”
Romeo and Juliet- the greatest love story of all times or… a tale about all the bad things that might happen to you if you don’t listen to your parents?
According to some scholars it was intended to be considered in the latter way.
Cecilie, when I took my MA (on R&J) the thought was that it was a warning to PARENTS to not force their children into an arranged marriage at an early age. Remember that Juliet is 13 (not 16 like the movies portray) and, in some copies of the first Folio, Romeo is 20. Romeo was also a very well-known stock character – the rake who seduces a young girl under a pretense of false marriage and kills himself before he can be accused of her murder.
Also, church records confirm that the average age of marriage in 1600 was the same as it was in 1960, so Juliet’s marriage at 13 would have been seen as something shocking.
“over-safety-belted culture.” I have to comment on this one. My kids are 8 and 5 so they are not that old, but my have things changed since my kids were babies!
I saw a new high chair~with FIVE POINT HARNESS seat belt. They are EATING folks, not getting shot to the moon! I think a regular old seatbelt will work considering that there is a huge chunk of plastic between their legs so it’s not like they can slide right out of that seat!
The rest of what you said it too deep for me right now. Will think on it later LOL
heh, word verification: GROWTH77
“over-safety-belted culture.â€
The favorite story I tell my kids (totally true, btw)is how my grandparents had this tree-swing made out of a honkin’ chain and a barbell weight.
My older male cousins used to freakin’ whale me to the moon on that swing. The only thing was, there were two electrical lines in the path of the swing-arc.
One was the telephone wire leading into the house. We used to aim for that with our toe. But the other one, 6 inches away, was the high voltage wire.
All our protectors said to us was “Don’t touch that wire.” And we didn’t. Not really knowing what the words “fried to a crisp” meant. We just didn’t touch that wire. Although we could’ve. Accidentally. Very easily.
Yes, we live in a safety-belted-culture. And I try not to belt my kids because I think they grow better if they have more freedom.
I could say alot more on this. But for right now, that’s just my take.
Haven’t read On The Road, but still, sounds like the Brooks dude has a point. Those bloody annoying Boomers! The only important cultural experience is whatever they’re going through!
Dammit, I’m not in menopause yet,and I’m sick of hearing about it!
I’ll tell ya, it’s a bitch getting my Boomer ass up every morning and dragging my Great Geriatric Pall to the computer so I can write quality smut for the discriminatingly oversexed, yet overbelted, youth of the twenty-first century. (Ever try typing with one of those heavy sonsabitches draped over you? Heh, thought so.)
I’d like some appreciation for my efforts.
WTF indeed.
As a matter of fact, I’ve run a business, which many employees depended on paychecks for, with a brat strapped to me….it sucks!
Other than that, you go on with your bad self Wry Hag! I sooooo needed the humor tonight.
“Over-seat-belted culture”…yeah, on several levels.
Kinda tired of hearing about the Boomers, like they are the only generation in existance.
Ann W…when our (3)teens were small hubby kept telling me to “put that up, cover that, etc.” My answer was “let’s just teach them not to play with it”. Our youngest is now 15, and the sum total of the damages is one broken window, one broken tea-cup, and one broken clock (ok it was an antique).
Wry Hag…I appreciate your continued efforts in writing quality smut, many thanks!
My spelling sucks.
Cultural, yeah. Where I’m from cowboys wear their jeans outside their boots, and jeans so long they “stack” at the ankle. But I’ve read books discribing cowboys tucking jeans into their boots only crass goat ropers folks…beyond yuck. Not under any circumstances, not on your deathbed.
I’m from New Hampshire.
Let’s not get me started on saftey belts.
Puh-leeze. 🙂
*safety
There’s something comforting about the predictable regularity with which the writers of the Times, Post, and Globe will go to stratospheric lengths to seem enlightened by blathering the same shit they blathered a year ago about a similar, but different, subject.
Please feel free to erase all proper nouns with your own white-out and save the Very Important Essay til next spring. You can, at that time, insert any other cultural reference in the empty spaces, re-read, and save yourself a quarter.
Cuz we luvs to recycle and all.
I’m not sure that I’ve held to closely to what other’s think I should consider a good book. I have always loved reading yet most of the books I was assigned I bought cliff notes for and passed the class but not with an A+. Since leaving academia, I’ve learned that I don’t like reading books that leave me wishing I had a straight blade and could drain all the blood from my body.
Ha! He evidently did not know that The Cat in the Hat turned 50 this year also.
As one who was not quite in the baby boomer generation and not quite a Gen Xer, I have to say I get frustrated with the influence that Boomers have over culture.
I’m caught in the middle. I’m not a Baby Boomer and my parents weren’t Boomers. I’ve got a huge population I’m supporting with my Social Security in front of me and their kids that I’m supporting with taxes behind me.
*sigh*
Can’t I just read a book without the usual “Let’s analyze the social significance of this work”?
Maybe Jack was just stoned out of his mind.
Over seat belted cutlture, indeed:
My girlfriend asked me the other day if my youngest, age 11, had ever crossed the street by herself. WTF??? Yes, I said, cuz I’m a bad mom. She said “I just realized that she’s going to get her period soon, and she’s never even crossed the street.” Christ on a crutch I think we are in danger of creating the least self reliant children in history.
My 37 year old brother in law has had his first child and he is fn crazy. I couldn’t take her outside without a misquito net! Which was a pain in the ass, but actually funny cuz I looked like a moron and I kept laughing. Oh she is so screwed.
Ok I am aware that this comment is so off topic, and I am blathering, but…grrrrrr…..
It might have happened already: I read an article in USA Today about two months ago in which a corporate HR person reported that she’d offered a job to a fresh-from-college applicant and later received a phone call from his father to negotiate the salary! Sweet baby Jesus on a unicorn.
My grown son likes to tell the story of how I used to make him ride his bike to the Y, when all the other kids were being driven by their parents. The staff didn’t want to let him go home the first couple of times. They couldn’t believe a mom would make her child bike 1.2 miles rather than drive him!
It’s all so freaken sad . . . I can remember as kid (I’m talking late 70s here) biking all the way cross town to the stable my horse was at, riding all day, then biking home around dusk. No way a kid could be that free today.
Kalen…true, nor that safe. Cell phones are the best child safety tool today!
Chrissy & Jennifer…Amen.
My parents never censored anything I read, ever; they still refuse to keep antibacterial soap around the house unless there’s a good reason (someone has an incision or something); I was walking my five-year-old brother home from kindergarten at age 9; a year later I saw my first R-rated movie.
I am not psychologically damaged; I never had more than a cold or so a year; neither of us was hit by a car, abducted, convinced to do drugs, or anything else; “Roger and Me” affected my political values but not anything else.
That was, um, the late 80s/early 90s.
Moderation in all things, said the immoderate Greeks.
Personally, I’m sick to death of hearing about Gen Y, and I’m hypothetically a member of it. I don’t want to be a ‘generation’, especially one with overtones of, “All you do is text and surf the internet and you don’t care about anyone other than yourself.” Screw that. At least being a Boomer is something you can at least maybe be proud of.
I DO think we have to acknowledge that we live in a more dangerous time. I had more freedom, but I was also on that line when things changed. And while I think many of us like to believe that there aren’t more predators these days, only greater awareness… I can only go by personal experience.
I was born in 65. During my child years we had a large loss of innocence in my tiny New England community. There were two stalkers, a few kids killed by creeps, and two teachers fired for sexual abuse. So I think the freedom lost wasn’t an incorrect choice.
What bugs me is the whining and over-analyzing. The need to attach Great Metaphor for Important Thingies to every aspect of our world.
Life happens and we wade through the shit til we hit the shore. Bite the bullet and shut the hell up. It’s not a gorgeous piece of irony. It’s a messy pile of primordial, evolving crap and it always will be. Flies on the left, flies on the right… same shit.
“As one who was not quite in the baby boomer generation and not quite a Gen Xer, I have to say I get frustrated with the influence that Boomers have over culture. I’m caught in the middle. I’m not a Baby Boomer and my parents weren’t Boomers. I’ve got a huge population I’m supporting with my Social Security in front of me and their kids that I’m supporting with taxes behind me.
*sigh*
Can’t I just read a book without the usual “Let’s analyze the social significance of this work�
Maybe Jack was just stoned out of his mind.”
Jennifer McKenzie, you speak for me! You too, Chrissy.
Wry Hag, I for one *always* appreciate quality smut. Thanks.
And for all us Bitches who are – ahem – over 30, don’t be too critical of the younger gen. Remember, they’re the ones who will change our diapers in the assisted living home. That is, until they build robots to do it.
Ah the Boomers gosh! Bless em! Thanks for taking ALL the drugs, having ALL the sex and leaving us with AIDS, abstinence and “Just Say No!” (that one cracked me the fuck up back in the day! Especially when I found out how much freaky deeky circus time boo-diddly my parents were up to prior to the birth of their little GenXers!
Just had to get that off my chest.
On to the books… generations are going to remember books, cinema, theater and art, the way they were exposed to them. If they read Kerouac as a young adventure starved kid 50 years ago then I’ll bet they remember the book that way.
PS- Everytime I see Dennis Hopper in that commercial about finacial investing I laugh….hard.
Hmmmm…
I was born the same year On the Road came out. I read the book a couple of years ago and my interpretation was different. I didn’t see anything joyous in it. Maybe the sadness. I thought it depicted the reaction of a group of young people to the effects of WWII, the Korean War, the growing military industrial complex, the cold war, and the explosion of suburbs. But what do I know?
But JK died an alcoholic so he couldn’t have been too joyful, can’t remember if he tried bennies and heroin but a few of his friends did. He and his buddy, Allen Ginsberg studied buddhism.
(Not even sure I’m making sense here..)
Resent the Boomers? -Point A to Point B.
And I laugh when I see Dennis Hopper doing that commercial too.