Di Prima #002

I finished reading "Memoirs of a Beatnik" last night. The book really was a disappointment. The New York Times offered the following line: "A rare opportunity to view the Beat Generation... through a woman's eyes." Kerouac and Allen Ginsburg make a brief appearance, which is written in such questionable way it is hard to believe it really happened. The scene? A sex scene, of course! Allen Ginsberg has sex with two other men while Di Prima and Jack do it on the floor. This book never lets up... it's one sex scene after another. My disappointment stems from the basic fact that the book could have been about much more. The author's obssession with depicting her sexual encounters--as if it was really that cool to do so--borders on the manic. She mentions her writing but never develops it further than a couple of sentences so the reader never really understands what her writing is about or what her creative process is like. I don't fancy myself a book reviewer or a critic but this is one book I wouldn't recommend to take to a deserted island.