I chatted with a lawyer pal the other day, a fellow maniac. He mentioned that when he was young he went hitchhiking for months down in Central America. He once got robbed by rebels then threatened by CIA thugs when he reported the robbery. Interesting stuff. He also mentioned that he read that summer the following books which had been rather recently published: Zen-Motorcycle, Castenada, Fear’n’Loathing and Monkey-Wrench.
Can you imagine the impact that such a quadruple-header might have on a person?
I think it did on him. Poor guy. : )
I read all those same books at about the same time. What a big thing to discover. I bet MILLIONS of kids did. You could easily add Cowgirls-Blues and Kookoo’s Nest or Sometimes a Great Notion or Stranger in Strange Land. (Apologies for title mangles.) These aren’t the hugest or best “classics”—most are close to pulp—but they were all books that had “something to say.” And they had BIG effects on society.
(I liked the Dylan documentary where it reminded us that 60’s people often asked each other about new artists as the key way to judge them: “Does he have anything to say?”)
So where are we today?
I suspect that lots of kids with exploring souls still have a period where they read these same books.
But haven’t times changed?
Are there new books they read that have as important of an impact?
I can see that being exposed to the zine scene along with a wide variety of indy media might all have quite a mind-opening effect on growing minds. They can google all day long. But are the new resources good enough? Do they honestly replace the indepth development of a big novel? Maybe they do. Maybe they even do a better job. But I think that resources today work in a SCATTERED fashion. What’s out there that TIES it all together for people? Don’t people have to be INTEGRATED? Don’t we all need ONE value system for what we do or else we become split, that is schizo? The big novels of the 70’s tried to bring things together. Not that they always worked. And can they still work today? Also, those books threw a lot of kids off the deep end and inspired huge amounts of wasted time and hangovers. Not all good things. Free love gave us 50% divorce rates. Opening the doors of the mind gave us millions of insane people and convicts. The 70’s cultural explosion didn’t emphasize enough the discipline, structure and restraint needed to create true freedom and to survive the awakening of consciousness. So there’s that. For instance. Does anyone yet help the public understand this well enough? Anyone who’s heard? Is there something needed?
***
UPDATE
Jack Saunders replied:
“Can you imagine Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, The Teachings of Don Juan, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and The Monkey Wrench Gang all being published around the same time today?
Can you imagine any of them being published today?
Who would publish them?
You have all four, and others like them, or none, it seems to me.
And if you don’t get it in books I don’t know where you’re going to get it.”
***
Further Thought
To me Jack’s idea is a big challenge to literati today. He and we of the ULA previously suggested that books like Walden and Moby Dick wouldn’t be published today. They’re not ironic; they have intended relevance—so they’d only make those who worship mood and description uncomfortable. But now Jack is saying that not only don’t we have accessible, relevant new books like we had in the 70’s but that in today’s climate such books WOULD NOT be published at all.
We of the ULA have gotten into trouble for questioning the talent of today’s leading anti-populist literary lights. We’re called whiners because we’re not allowed in. Jack goes farther and says the greats even of the recent past wouldn’t be allowed in either. He puts them into our camp. He takes them away from today’s scene. So that they can’t say we’re whiners because we’re not published like them and all these other fine writers. No, he’s saying that all those other fine writers would be unpublished, too, today! This puts today’s writers not in a continuum with the past but it strands them on their own. They’ve isolated themselves. Do they say they’re working or extending any previous veins? Not that I’ve heard. It’s quite a glove being thrown.
But I want to elaborate. Could we have a Hunter Thompson today? No, the legal department of the publisher wouldn’t approve. Thompson stole things, he committed fraud and vandalism. He wrote about taking drugs and committing crimes. Do not pass Go. No virtue came from Thompson’s crimes other than the clear exposure of things like the Super Bowl, the current president and a sheriff’s convention. Likely today? Furthermore, a Jann Wenner is needed to have an HST. One person in charge who can go with his hunch to launch a writer onto the national scene. Do we have any more Wenners with national access? Without legal departments vetting them?
Likewise, the Monkey Wrench Gang: a novel glorifying crime and probably drugs, too. Castenada: more drugs. Zen: hundreds of pages of introversion and maybe drugs, too. Heinlein? Offensive. Kesey? More crime and drugs and insanity and union agitation. Any chance today for any of them? Other than in the oblivion of Alibris or other ghettos—no reviews or PR budgets of course.
Lastly, an additional relevant thought showing that publishing isn’t alone in being hugely changed today: Would the Legal/Marketing depts of the Univ of Calif. allow Castenada, who was a professor, to remain employed if he self-published books and websites advocating drugs and lunacy?
