Check out the trailer for the forthcoming documentary on writer Nelson Algren, “recipient of the first National Book Award for Man With a Golden Arm, Simone de Beauvoir’s ‘Chicago Bohemian’ lover, a Beat writer before the Beats, a forerunner of the Gonzo movement, drinking buddy of Roger Ebert.”
http://youtu.be/OKwQuyQnqzQ
5 responses
Who is the quote from?
No one was a “Beat Writer before the Beats.” His process (process being the most notorious element of Beat writing) was definitely not Beat. Neither was his style.
And what did he have to do with Gonzo?
Hi Bucky,
The quote comes from the trailer page.
I know next to nothing about Nelson Algren right now, so I can’t really agree or disagree about the other stuff.
Okay, that makes sense. Written by a marketing person, no doubt. I’m sure that description is SEO friendly. But by someone who likely hasn’t read any of his books, maybe not even seen the documentary.
He’s a fantastic writer. The prose is very dense. It’s not something I could read with background noise. The writing shows a mastery of the language and a high attention to craft. I like the Beat stuff as well, but it’s completely different.
As far as Gonzo goes, I wouldn’t consider him a part of “New Journalism” unless there’s an aspect of his writing I’m not aware of.
The Man With the Golden Arm is, in my opinion, what started the Great American Drug Novel. That’s a genre I just made up but I think you know what I mean.
It predates Naked Lunch, Requiem for a Dream, and The Basketball Diaries, which are the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and The Who of drug novels. And then there’s all kinds of great ones that never got attention like Donald Goines’ Dopefiend.
Now, almost all drug novels are memoirs, evolving from the species of The Basketball Diaries. But there was a time when they were fiction. My favorite of these is Permanent Midnight, which is the one most stolen from in terms of beats, tropes, and plot points.
The meth novel is what’s in right now, even though it’s considered a redneck drug in addiction circles. Trust me, in twenty years, you’ll see novels about pot, 4 Loko, and Oxy. The Drugstep Writing era is yet to come.
Thanks so much for posting the new trailer for our film Algren. We appreciate the support! Algren’s definitely an important American voice that has been ignored for too long. With this film, we are hoping to shed some light on his amazing work as well as his long lasting influence on other writers, musicians and filmmakers. We aren’t literary scholars, just lifelong fans who have read just about everything he’s published. But we’ve interviewed scholars, as well as writers such as Russell Banks and Jan Herman who knew Nelson personally. They all have told us his influence was far-reaching and long lasting in American literature. We’re in the midst of editing now, but next month we’ll be posting some shorts on our revamped website that talk about who he influenced and how. As for reading Algren, once you start it’s kinda hard to stop.
Why would you consider Algren an ignored voice? His work had mainstream success. He won the National Book Award.
In reference to my original post, why would you call him a Beat writer? What did he have in common with that group? Algren’s style is drastically different from the Beats. I could even make the case for it being the opposite style. Algren’s work was meticulously written and edited; the Beats were proponents of stream of consciousness and random editing, if any.
By “the Gonzo movement” I assume you mean New Journalism. If you’re talking just “gonzo” you’re making a movement out of one man’s work. Either way, I don’t see how Algren’s work was a forerunner to it in any way other than chronologically.
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