The Holy Barbarians

This seemed a bit tedious, the personality of the writer is a bit forward. The book 'Venice West' was a better read.

great exploration and report of a special time in Venice.

Great documentary about the Venice beatniks, well done.

thank you

This book gave me interesting views on the life of the beatniks. I enjoyed the read and how the book was broken into sections. At a few points the reading got very dry, but for the most part a delightful book.

A fascinating participant-observer study of the Beat Generation by a slightly older participant. An excellent illustration of qualitative research written well, Lipton lives and works among these radical dropouts and collects their stories to group them into a mosaic of the alternative lifestyle. Rejection of the capitalist myth, the importance of jazz to alternative consciousness, marijuana as communal bonding agent, and alternative sexuality - Lipton tells it all with detail but with an intelligent eye to the bigger picture, situating the movement in the constant surges of youth rebellion in the early twentieth century. I don't know if I would have wanted to be a beatnik, but after reading Lipton's work, I bet they sure would have been interesting to hang out with.

Hard to believe that after all these years, with all the resurgence of interest in beat literature, that this book still remains out of print. Derided by some, praised by others, certainly the only book (other than Venice West by Maynard) ever to cover the seminal beat culture of Venice, Ca., who some say predated the S.F. scene. Is there a problem with Mr. Lipton's heirs? At the very least a small press should get this back out in public view. Venice bohemia of the 60's forward wouldn't have come about without it. I hope someone reads these two lone pleas here and acts on it. The recent gentrification of Venice is slowly killing off its history, and mostly only tourist photo books remain. A sorry fate for a community with such a rich literary background.

Lawrence Lipton was a writer, American journalist, and a beat poet. In this book Lipton tries to show the beatniks as they truly were. He shows how misunderstood the beatniks were and gives an unbiased opinion about them. Lipton lived from 1889 until 1975 and came to Chicago, Illinois in 1903. He worked as a journalist for the Jewish Daily Forward and was a publicity director for a movie theater. He wrote for numerous newspapers/magazines. He co-authored many books but also wrote independently. Brother, the Laugh is Bitter, In Secret Battle, and Rainbow at Midnight are other books that Lipton published. In the beginning of the book, it is hard to see where exactly the story is going. Lipton spends the first two hundred pages with short simple biographies of his beatnik friends that are the main characters of this book, and he shares pieces of poetry written by Lipton and his friends. Although at times it seems as if there is no narrative, I would say that Lawrence Lipton accomplished his goal to show what the beatniks were like. The Holy Barbarians are often depicted as a drugged out group of people who do nothing but smoke pot, drink, and have sex. But Lipton shows the other side, how many of these individuals are very intellectual and simply chose to live the simple life of the poor. The book makes the life of the beats known for what they were. It goes in depth, below the group's cosmetic aspects, but to their souls and what they stood for. Even though there are times that this book gets slow, it is still a fantastic piece of literature that deserves to be read, so push through the slow parts and the reader will be rewarded.

Step back into the past at the turn of a page. Still resonates as much as it did when first I read it in 1960 when Lipton did for Beat fact what Kerouac did for its fiction. Memory-stirring stuff. Re-print deserves a wider re-read.