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The Book of Martyrdom and Artifice: First Journals and Poems: 1937-1952
Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) kept journals his entire life, beginning at the age of eleven. These first journals detail the inner thoughts of the awkward boy from Paterson, New Jersey, who would become the major poet and spokesperson of the literary phenomenon called the Beat Generation. The Book of Martyrdom and Artifice covers the most important and formative years of Gins...more
Hardcover, 544 pages
Published
October 10th 2006
by Da Capo Press
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The earliest writings in Allen Ginsberg’s journals are the kind of things one might expect to find in a journal written by a pre-teen boy—comments on relations with his family, notes about teachers at school, mentions of a trip to a relative’s house or of an evening at the movies. One gets a sense in these passages of Ginsberg as a rather studious but otherwise typical youth. In later pages, as Ginsberg begins thinking of himself as a serious writer, his journal writings become both more detai...more
This book was just reissued in a paperback edition by Da Capo Press. Knowing I'm a Beat fan, my editor there gave me a copy. And this book is definitely for hardcore Beat fans. It starts with an adolescent and scarily precocious Ginsberg and stops before Ginsberg broke huge with Howl. So you really need a deep interest in Ginsberg and the origins of the Beat scene to get into this as heavily as it deserves. I think the best new insights in the book come when A.G. talks about the period when Herb...more
I should note I have this book, but haven't done much reading in it. It's fun for a casual pick up now and then as most books of this kind are. Early on though its quite humorous. Young Allen (at least amidst ages 12-17) loved to passively insult senators in newspaper letters to the editor all the while forecasting his own genius. Rather oddly, his father would jokingly ammend passages in his journal and even write some as "Allen". Quite strange. When it comes to Allen's college years,...more
Excellent collection of journals. It is great reading from a young Ginsberg, age 11 into his 20's. It's not often we get to learn the early thoughts of a great writer. There is a lot of information given about the other Beats - Kerouac, Burroughs, Cassady, etc. The poems at the end of the book weren't very revealing, but they do show the early stages of poems to come.
I love the thoughts of the young Ginsberg, and seeing the ego set in at a very early age. Confidence can never be overrated.
Nice to read. Allen Ginsberg had some great gifts.
Entry from May 1941: "As I said, I am writing to satisfy my egotism. If some future historian or biographer wants to know what the genius thought and did in his tender years, here it is. I'll be a genius of some kind or other, probably in literature. I really believe it. (Not naively, as whoever reads this is thinking). I have a fair degree of confidence in myself. Either I'm a genius, I'm egocentric, or I'm slightly schizophrenic. Probably the first two."
GINSBERG YES.
GINSBERG YES.
Ann M
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To read the 1947 section, after I finish the original On the Road, scroll version -- Kerouac is writing about Allen's journal-keeping of his grand experiment with Neal Cassady. I'd like to see those notes.
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Irwin Allen Ginsberg was the son of Louis and Naomi Ginsberg, two Jewish members of the New York literary counter-culture of the 1920s. Ginsberg was raised among several progressive political perspectives. A supporter of the Communist party, Ginsberg's mother was a nudist whose mental health was a concern throughout the poet's childhood. According to biographer Barry Miles, "Naomi's illness g...more
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