Bohemia: Where Art, Angst, Love and Strong Coffee Meet [Paperback]

Herbert Gold (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 7, 2007

Bruce Cook of the Washington Post Book World has written that: Bohemia has become an acceptable, even desirable lifestyle all around America, and indeed the world over. But to understand how this happened, how an alternative lifestyle became so mainstream, and also to visit what many consider to be Bohemia's golden age, there is no better source than Gold.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Gold, who won the 1989 Sherwood Anderson prize for fiction, explores the concept of bohemia as he wanders through bohemian quarters from North Beach to Greenwich Village, from Paris to Budapest to Tel Aviv. He reports conversations with James Baldwin and Allen Ginsberg and describes the antics of a host of lesser-known noncomformists--all marching to the beat of a different drum. There are some amusing anecdotes here, such as Gold's accounts of meeting with Anais Nin and William Burroughs. On the whole, however, Gold somehow manages to make bohemianism dull. His ruminations, better suited for a notebook or travel journal, fail to make an interesting and coherent book.
- William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

Novelist/essayist and professional bohemian Gold (Travels in San Francisco, 1989, etc.) surveys the past three or four decades of his wandering years. It's hard to know whom Gold has in mind as readers for this trip through the echoes of the Beat generation in San Francisco, the Lower East Side and Greenwich Village, the Left Bank and Montmartre, Haiti, Israel, Morocco, and like places where the penniless robe themselves in the dignity of their art. His water- spider prose skims over faces and cafes so swiftly that few register for longer than the glimpse allowed. Gold writes well, paragraph by paragraph, but repeats himself chapter by chapter until once lively statements, quotations, or metaphors get weather- beaten and the mind frazzles with the suspicion that he has nothing to say but is saying it brilliantly. Like a be-bopper working scales, Gold pads and jazzes every page with flurries of notes without feeling and with so little melody or anecdote that the storytelling seems only ten percent, the excelsior ninety. The appeal here is to homecoming--once more having our knee felt up by Jean Genet as he asks, ``Do you masturbate?''; having Gregory Corso reach for a cafe check he has no intention of paying; having William Burroughs prepare a salad while pulling together the first pages of Naked Lunch; having Katherine Ross borrow the car and return it months later with a glove compartment full of unpaid parking tickets; and, in former Clevelander Gold's chosen home of San Francisco, visiting once again the City Lights Bookstore, Vesuvio's, North Beach, the Mission District, the Haight, and the alley named after Jack Kerouac. But it all reads as if recycled from magazine and Sunday newspaper space-fillers that Gold enjoyed writing for his expenses and now can't bear to render up to darkness unwrapped in hard covers. Two cheers for chat, one for content. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 250 pages
• Publisher: Axios Press (August 7, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0975366246
• ISBN-13: 978-0975366240
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #793,044 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An enthralling ride thru cosmic bohemia, June 13, 2000

By 

George Schaefer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bohemia: Where Art, Angst, Love, and Strong Coffee Meet (Hardcover)

Herbert Gold has provided us with a history of Bohemia. He deals with Greenwich Village, San Francisco, Berkeley and any other place where the Bohemia mentality reigns supreme. This is a grand exploration of great artists, poets, thinkers, anarchists and dreamers. He presents the argument that Bohemia is ultimately a state of mind. You may be in Paris or Chapel Hill or Prague but you can descend into your own private Bohemia. There is discussion of the Beats and hippies, of course, but also of Paris in the twenties. He discusses Israeli bohemain Haim Hefer and French chanteur Serge Gainsbourg. ( I obtained a longtime fondness for Gainsbourg music from curiosity after reading this book. There are many unheralded madmen and women that get their fifteen minutes of fame in this book. It is a thrilling ride through a state of mind that ought to be more prevalent than it is. I felt excited to be alive after reading this book. The exaltation with life intensifies everytime I browse through this book. It goes well with ginseng tea, espresso, whiskey or beer. It is a great companion on bus rides and train ventures and it reads well on the beach. Herbert Gold finally gives due credit to the fine art of lazing around and dreaming away.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bohemia: all over the world!, August 16, 2009

By 

M. Ashlyn Moore (Raleigh, North Carolina) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bohemia: Where Art, Angst, Love and Strong Coffee Meet (Paperback)

I'll admit, I was a little lost at first because Gold had the tendency to provide long lists of names of writers, musicians, artists, actors, etc. that all contributed to the Bohemian culture; sometimes I didn't know whether they were famous or not. Fortunately, with my computer by my side, this book became a huge learning tool. "Bohemia" doesn't go into extensive detail about one particular place, rather, Gold writes about many places, such as: Paris, North Beach, La Jolla, Greenwich Village/Chelsea, Chapel Hill, Charleston, Cincinnati, Miami.. even Israel, to show that Bohemia is not an ethnicity or class, rather a personal aura or lifestyle that can be carried anywhere in the world. Gold wrote "Bohemia" like a journal providing many of his personal opinions of these people or places in a descriptive language. Much of the text is focused toward California and New York starting from the 1950s; he revisits some of the places in the 90's where he describes how things have changed: people actually had a traditional career change, or died, a new generation of devotees took over the town or a jem of a cafe or bookstore closed down. Overall, Gold has a nice balance in storytelling, dialogue, narrative and facts about Bohemia. If you're really curious, I think it could be used as a guide for future travel or exploration in literature revolving around the Bohemian theme.