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Seymour Krim (1922–1989)
Author of The Beats
About the Author
Works by Seymour Krim
Associated Works
Gent, April 1959 (Vol. 3, No. 4) — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1922-05-11
- Date of death
- 1989-08-30
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Place of death
- Greenwich Village, New York, USA
- Places of residence
- New York, New York, USA
- Education
- University of North Carolina
- Occupations
- journalist
editor
literary critic
essayist - Awards and honors
- Longview Award for Literature (1960)
Guggenheim Fellowship (1976)
Members
Reviews
Lists
Beat (2)
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 9
- Also by
- 7
- Members
- 186
- Popularity
- #116,758
- Rating
- 3.6
- Reviews
- 2
- ISBNs
- 6
Oh dear, oh dear. Despite editor Seymour Krim's spirited defense of the Beat movement in his introduction to this wide-ranging sampler (stories, poems, essays, and excerpts of novels and dramatic works), what The Beats actually demonstrates is that most of these folks just couldn't write very well. Granted, this stuff must have felt cathartic and even revolutionary at the time, and there's validity to any kind of art--no matter how flawed--that shakes people out of their apathy, but as readable literature it just doesn't hold up. There are two pretty good stories (Hubert Selby's "Double Feature," about a couple of essentially harmless young guys who create trouble for themselves when they get drunk in the balcony of a movie theater, and Anatole Broyard's stark, euthanasia-themed "The Choice"); the rest of the fiction is a mess. It's a testament to Krim's perceptiveness that he included a piece called "The Know-Nothing Bohemians" by neoconservative essayist Norman Podhoretz. While Podhoretz strikes an almost ludicrously antagonistic tone (think Joe Friday lecturing a bunch of hapless hippie kids on Dragnet), he does have a point about Jack Kerouac's disdain for clear expression, and Krim realized that.… (more)