Handelingenkamer Tweede Kamer Der Staten-Generaal Den Haag, the Hague, Netherlands
Six weeks ago Washington Post critic Ron Charles caused a stir with an article titled “On Campus, Vampires Are Beating the Beats.” Looking back to the days when college students read Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul On Ice or Abbie Hoffman’s Steal This Book, Charles laments that today, “the best-selling titles on college campuses are mostly about hunky vampires or Barack Obama.” He continues:
Here we have a generation of young adults away from home for the first time, free to enjoy the most experimental period of their lives, yet they’re choosing books like 13-year-old girls — or their parents. The only specter haunting the groves of American academe seems to be suburban contentment.
Where are the Germaine Greers, the Jerry Rubins, the Hunter Thompsons, the Richard Brautigans — those challenging, annoying, offensive, sometimes silly, always polemic authors whom young people used to adore to their parents’ dismay? [...] Could any author of fiction that has not inspired a set of Happy Meal toys elicit such collegiate mourning today? Could a radical book that speaks to young people ever rise up again if — to rip-off LSD aficionado Timothy Leary — they’ve turned on the computer, tuned in the iPod and dropped out of serious literature?
Charles cites a recent survey that suggests two-thirds of American college students identify themselves as “middle-of-the-road” or “conservative.” Among the responses to Charles’s cry of anguish are online posts by Jenna Krajeski, at the New Yorker, and Scott McLemee, at Inside Higher Ed, who interviewed Charles about his essay:
“I was surprised and disappointed,” he told me, “by the number of respondents who felt I wanted college students to start reading the works of Abbie Hoffman and other ’60s and ’70s writers. Or that I was complaining that they weren’t reading more Serious Literature. That wasn’t really my point: I was actually disappointed that they weren’t reading more age-appropriate material: not stuff for middle schoolers and not stuff for adults, but all the kinds of crazy, wild, naïve, in-your-face, big-think literature that young people should be reading during that magical moment between high school and the first soul-crushing job.”
In preparing the Live Archive on the museum’s fifth floor, participating artists in “Younger Than Jesus” answered a survey question about books that had influenced them. Among the authors listed in their responses were Thomas Pynchon, J.G. Ballard, Naomi Klein, W.G. Sebald, Adrienne Rich, Toni Morrison, Sello K. Duiker, Victor Pelevin, Audre Lorde, Roland Barthes, Parastou Forouhar, and Hamid Mossadegh. Now we’re curious about our audience: What “in-your-face, big-think literature” has shaped you?
My age: 21. My bookshelf: A few thompsons, brautigan’s trout fishing, keseys, edward abbeys, confederacy of dunces, various history books, the communist manifesto (shhh…). Currently reading 1776–certainly a book my grandpa would read. However, please tell me where to find the “in-your-face, big think” literature of today! I’d love to read it.
I’m also interested.. Surely not Tao Lin or Miranda July, eh?
We have been silenced my friend. I remember at school questioning everything and the worst part was that people barely even reacted. They just wanted to finish class and go drink or smoke pot. Our generation is lame and apathetic to the point of comatose. Who the hell is going to run the country in the next 20 years?
hello? is there anybody out there? this can not be for real… im 24- a high school drop out(i did eventually get my ged and went to good ol community college:), and i must admit, i definitely went through a serious addiction to beat writers- ginsberg, keruac, patti smith, COME ON- are u seriously telling me that kids that actually made it into college DO NOT get into this shit?! … or even some david foster wallace maybe, shel silverstien hahahaha!!?? damn- i think there is much more knowledge outside the confines of the “school systems” - we need SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT!!! what ever happened to those??
I read the article. I am an author, and nearly against my will, a publisher. But, if you’re looking for a good read, avant garde, down to earth, iconoclastic and very entertaining, then check out backpocket e-pistles (Its on Amazon and at select bookstores.) It is the collected e-mail correspondence between a young man and his three best friends during their final year in college.
I am 37 years old, went to college, then spent the next ten years traveling, writing and reading: Kerouac, Henry Miller, Brautigan, John Fante, Knut Hamsun (Hunger, pub. 1898- one of the best unknown books…) Thoreau, and others were all influences on me. Funny thing, people love my book (thankfully) but I’ve got to change the title because the mainstream says no one gets the e-pistle (e-mail). Feel free to check it out and leave me a note on my website. I’ll be putting up stuff on a blog soon. I never published. Lived for writing and exploring and growing. Now i’m about to come out. I e-mailed Ron Charles but he must be too busy.
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