“The Hollow Men” at 100
16 comments
·August 9, 2025hyperhello
danans
Though their genres and styles were completely different, the timing of his work, its reflections on the trauma of WW1, and then his conversion to conservative Catholicism reminds me more of Tolkien.
keiferski
I recommend the same thing for the actual beatniks themselves like Kerouac. You have to read it like spoken poetry, not merely written. This song uses lines from one of his stories and when set to music it fits perfectly.
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/sites/default/files/inline-pdf...
lemonberry
I find conjuring my inner Maynard G. Krebs helps a lot.
xhkkffbf
Yes, a funny character and a spot-on parody of the genre, but I found it really insightful to watch some interviews with Jack Kerouac to get a feel for his personality. It's a bit different from our rosy-eyed view of that era. He was harder and harsher than we want to imagine.
lemonberry
Absolutely. I still enjoy his books.
bryanrasmussen
The beatniks were most active in the 50s, maybe as early as the mid 40s, but definitely not 1925.
multjoy
He was also a virulent anti-semite
alkyon
Like Wagner and lots of other artists around that time. Agatha Christie's most famous novel? - Ten Little Niggers. Jean Genet was a convicted criminal. I try to separate the work from the artist, even if it's difficult.
multjoy
OP doesn’t even acknowledge it.
Eliot chose, in 1948, when the Holocaust was common knowledge, to reprint a poem that contains the line:
>On the Rialto once./The rats are underneath the piles. The jew is underneath the lot.
That isn’t a poet following a common zeitgeist, that is a deliberate, provocative act.
danans
Which was sadly not uncommon in those days. The Nazi party had a significant following in both the US and the UK at that time.
multjoy
That doesn’t make it any better. They also had significant opposition.
Slava_Propanei
[dead]
zabzonk
For those interested in Eliot, the BBC has a lot of stuff (criticism, recordings, etc.) in various places. Just search for "bbc ts eliot".
strken
Here's my favourite reading: https://youtube.com/watch?v=nwcP3NOCeiE.
The Hollow Men is from 1925. Try to read it like a beatnik poet, world-weary and confident, with finger snaps and bongo drums or a jazz orchestra in the background. Eliot was a fascinating fellow traveler person. My favorite site for his poems is here: https://mypoeticside.com/poets/t-s-eliot-poems