Chapter 11 focuses on “The Beats,” a group of writers in New York City after World War II. Rice narrows it down to two of the writers, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs because they each introduced new approaches to the construction of discourse. The focus begins with Kerouac and the introduction of spontaneous writing, where the sentences run into one another & ideas quickly change without much transition (107). This style is evident in his work, The Subterraneans. The idea was that Kerouac wrote whatever popped into his mind as quickly as he could. Spontaneous writing is a misnomer; the construction is deliberate with careful editing. The image portrayed through the writing becomes more important than reality, which serves as a recurring theme that Rice uses. The narration in The Subterraneans is constantly shifting, resembling that of the thought process. Kerouac’s usage of digression and asides assists the audience in the movement of subjects and is informative and revealing to the reader (107). The movements are dependent upon the audience’s cultural awareness. The assumption is made that the audience has some knowledge of the subject matter so that the seemingly unrelated matter is chained together to create a powerful image.
The next major point that Rice points out about Kerouac is his rhetoric of race. He is using his personal beliefs to write about the issue of racism. The rhetoric is composed of the word and cultural ideas he uses to stir readers’ emotions (110). The other tool that Kerouac uses is nostalgia, as a means of organizing his narrative, where he replaces the present with an idealized past (110). Rice describes it best when he states “the memory process itself creates a nostalgic experience; we tend to recognize past experiences differently than the way they occurred in order to satisfy internal desires of longing” (111). In this style of writing, the normally ordinary objects become the focus of the story, creating a longing in the audience for the past.
Rice then moves on to William S. Burroughs and the idea of the cut-up, which involves taking a piece of writing and cutting it up into at least four sections and rearranging them into a new way (112). This approach creates new ideas unseen in the text’s original state. The experiment with language can produce alternative positions through association (113). The audience is reminded that language is not a natural occurrence; we cannot simply look at a work as normal or natural, as large amounts of work go into wording and order. This is especially true in the many advertisements seen on TV and in print, where many images are cut up, pasted together, and appear normal to the audience.
Juxtaposition is the next main idea introduced by Rice, which is where ideas have been placed together, including items that normally have little to do with one another (115). This challenges expectations and enables us to create new concepts. Burroughs felt that juxtaposition defamiliarizes images, language, relationships and roles that we take for granted (116). The movie is the example used; the finished product is edited and spliced for the desired effect. The tape recorder experiment of the Subliminal Kid captures the process of juxtaposition through his behavior (117). He set up tape recorders at bars and cafes and remixes the recordings. He then plays the final product, which is somewhat disorienting, but thought provoking, much like overhearing a conversation.
Chapter 12 focuses on the skratching, how it shapes it’s own literate practice. We first look at literacy and its formation. Literacy is often thought of as the ability to read and write, but it is much deeper, it is also the ability to construct words and meaning. Technology has greatly influenced literacy throughout history. The printing press made books more readily available, thus enabling more people to read and write. The computer is a great example of how technology even today enhances our communication. With the computer the internet and e-mail have becomes widely accepted forms of communication. Skratching is used when taking something old, like the literature and making something new with it. The previous paragraphs include many examples of skratching. From the cut up to juxtaposition, each of these can be considered a part of skratching. Skratching’s overall importance to writing is that it creates its own literate practice through innovation in computer technology (131). It is a new language, much like our everyday language, it is forming a new way of communication.
