Source Evaluation:

The Beats: A Graphic History by Harvey Pekar, Paul Buhle, and Ed Piskor.

I chose this source not only because it would explain what was going on during the Beat Generation, but it would also show me. The fact that is it is a “graphic history” made me have to buy it. Since recently I have had a weird obsession with graphic novels. I’ve read about 8 since the beginning of the semester. So because of the knowledge of my recent infatuation I knew I would enjoy reading this book. And I really did, because it led me into the lives of the writers in a way most books would not be able to. It explained and showed to me all the troubles and phases these Beat writers went through. It also showed me why they loved San Francisco so much. It taught me that poetry was in a high in SF before the Beat Generation. And what people call ‘The San Francisco Renaissance” had to with a lot more than just the Beat Poets. This book illuminates all of this and even more about San Francisco’s life around the Beat Poets. It has multiple different parts called “Perspectives” that help give multiple pictures into what was going on during the Beat Generation. The book proved my superstition that a few of the Beat Poets would enjoy the hippies. Well it seems (from what I’ve read) that Ginsberg enjoyed them the most. And I do believe that it is a great secondary source, because it has many perspectives and does not stick to one point of view. It also filled of many quotes I am sure to pull out and use in my paper. Like this one that proves my point about Ginsberg and the hippies: “The Hippie Revolution was just then beginning. In 1967 Allen went to a roundtable discussion in San Francisco with Leary, Gary Snyder, and Alan Watts. The Hippies were into free drugs and sex with a passion, and Allen had a great deal in common with them and the Hippies community growing from the Beat Generation” (67). That one piece can be ripped apart into many other quotes, and it’s the same for a lot of the wonderful passages in this book. It also shows how the Beat Generation affected other bohemian generations. So it could lead into how the Beats affected the literary world even after their generation had grown old.