James Campbell (3) (1951–)

James Campbell interweaves the cultural and societal happenings in post-WWII Paris. Writers, musicians, communists, opportunists; some combination of them all – they gathered on the Left Bank. Jazz, “rude and erotic,” “the black man’s mastercrime of cultural defiance” thrived.

In literature, Merlin magazine’s writers collaborated with Olympia Press’ Maurice Girodias to mass-produce pornography, while the Paris Review did its own thing.

Black American writers and musicians show more came to escape racism in the U.S., and some with communist leanings were escaping that stigma.

The main thing they all sought in the Left Bank was freedom, Campbell believes. And for the most part, there they found it. show less

After the first hundred pages where the author seems obsessed with the sexual orientation of the Beats, this book became quite interesting. Includes synopsis of the writings, and insights. At one part of the book, the author cleverly uses the cut-up technique on his own notes of quotations, creating a conversation between the writers. A good read and well indexed.

James Campbell's This is the Beat Generation is a good, if perhaps excessively East Coast-centric, overview of the beats. The New York bias means that Gary Snyder, far and away the most impressive of the bunch, gets slighted, though one applauds Campbell's recognition of William Burroughs as the most original of the East Coasters, and perhaps of the whole gang. Campbell's style, too, is attractive. He opts to write interestingly rather than pedantically and never quite falls into the trap of show more parodying in his own prose the artists about whom he's writing. show less

This book contains some stories around Howl that I haven't read in other places. See Carl Solomon's reaction, pp. 191-193. Indexed.