"The only people for me are the mad ones."Jack Kerouak followed the "mad"
ones all across America.The ones who are "Mad to live,mad to talk,mad to be saved,
desirous of everything at the same time."

The Beat movement was the first modern American subculture.It was the first fully American literary movement.Spontaneous nonconformists living a Bohemian lifestyle,
advocated chaos with a purpose.

They just lived.They did not intentionally set out to form a movement .
Their down and gritty life experiences were sometimes shocking and erratic.
They lived on the dangerous edge of society.At one point Jack Kerouak was arrested
as an accomplice in a murder.It was not a pretty life.

To read "On the Road " by Kerouak now is anticlimactic but there was a time
when that book was the beat "Bible" .It represents an important part of American
post war society and has influenced us all.Consider for instance the name
"the Beatles" which comes directly from the beat generation.

The Beat Movement is an intrisic piece of the great American puzzle.
To understand it is to better understand the culture in which we live today.

Learn more about this author, Johnette Loefgren.
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