Memoirs of a Beatnik

This book is not only a wonderful window into the feminine side of the Beat movement - but also a wonderful way to experience (however vicariously) what Di Prima felt, all of the emotions involved in learning who you are as a woman. Of course there is sex, she gives a depiction of what truly mattered to her as a young woman: the poetry, the culture, the poverty, the sex. This book is not pornography, it's an experience unlike any you'll find in the literary world of today.

a recent article on diane diprima in the chicago tribune (4/19/2000) called di prima's "memoirs of a beatnik" - "a sort of insider's Beat exploitation book Di Prima wrote in 1968 for Maurice Girodias' Olympia Press in Paris because she needed money badly--and quickly." It goes on to state that "It is mostly accurate, [di prima] said, except for the sex parts."with that said, i doubt the book aspires to make any type of high-brow feminist or literary statement. the fact that is does make any such statement can be attributed to the time in which it was written. it is basically an account of a young woman venturing out on her own in times when young women did not do such things. young women lived at home, maybe went away to college, met a nice suitable young man, and got married. maybe had a job as a typist in the meantime. sex was not something young women from nice families experimented with. this is not to say the book does not have its merits. it is artfully written, intelligent, and poetic. it's a great look at the obstacles women faced when they decided to do their own thing, especially when that differed from society's norms. it's a peek inside the counterculture that was growing larger and larger thanks to a certain jack kerouac. all of this raises the book above being just plain old erotica. as a fan of beat writing and culture, i enjoyed the book very much. of course, the drawback to this book is that someone reading this book without knowledge of the context in which it was published will come away from it with a view of the beats that is as cartoonish and two-dimensional as the rest of society's view was of them at the time. "oh wow, look, the beats were always having sex." - "oh yeah, man, that's what they were about. coffee, sex, and alcohol. (and bongos and poetry and black berets)" maybe that's why the title of this book is "memoirs of a beatnik," and not "memoirs of a beat." major difference.

Compelled to write after reading the other reviews-- I read this book when it was first published and found the sex (and feminism) secondary. This book read like a biography of most white women who chose to leave home and live on the Lower East Side in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and even 1990s. What blew me away was the quality of the prose and the parallels with the lives of women (usually White, Italian, or Jewish) I knew who moved there in the 1970s or 80s to recreate themselves. Side by side are Diane di Prima, Madonna di Ciccione (yes The Madonna), and countless women who have had 15 minutes or less of fame in the contemporary media. This book SINGS with the struggles and pain that many women put themselves through to break the yoke of suburbia. Read it and judge for yourself. Unfortunately, it is a tribute to how history repeats itself.

Not for the faint of heart, Memoirs of a Beatnik was a written-for-hire erotica piece. Di Prima delivers on raunch, providing a wild tale of sexual exploration that begins with the main character (arguably Di Prima, who drew heavily from personal experience) losing her virginity and ends with the character's first pregnancy. Though sex is certainly the book's most prominent feature, Di Prima, a respected poet and one of the few female Beat writers to make a name for herself, also discusses her own artistic development and describes the life of a starving artist in New York in the fifties. Di Prima's no-holds-barred honesty (the sex is real, with all of the funky smells and personal quirks) and her joyful appreciation for the finer details in life (e.g., a good cup of coffee, well-sugared) separates this book from the murky sea of erotica