n  "I don't want to be rude to you fellows from the City, but there's been things going on out here that you would never guess in your wildest million years, old buddy..."n

Oh, to having lived in the Sixties. All the things people whisper and get reminiscent about today comes alive in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. It certainly was a ride, in the most literal sense of the word.



I mean, this book is nuts. Crazy. Insane. Tom Wolfe presents his experience of Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters, who traveled across the United States in a colourfully painted school bus named Further. In the 60s they became famous for their use of LSD and other psychedelic drugs and unknowingly lay the foundation stone for the rising hippie movement.

n  "Everybody is going to be what they are, and whatever they are, there's not going to be anything to apologise about. What we are, we're going to wail with on this whole trip."n

The book today is also seen as an important representative of the New Journalism literary style. The as-if-first hand account of Kesey and his followers makes you feel like you're part of the gang and it's surely a crazy drug-filled life they led. On their journey they meet up with people like Allen Ginsberg and Neil Cassidy, encounter the Hells Angels and the Grateful Dead, are chased down by the police and flee to Mexico, only to find out that it's just not the same thing there.

I also didn't actually know about the Acid Tests before reading this. The title was given to a series of parties that were held in the mid-1960s, where LSD (often put into the drink Kool-Aid, hence the title of the book) was taken to abandon the real world and reach a state of intersubjectivity.



Books written in seemingly effortless, stream-of-conscioussness style, often have the ability to convey a rawness and intensity that overly polished narratives sometimes lose in their process of editing. This one didn't evoke the comfort of Dharma Bums in me, or the wanderlust of On the Road, but it had its own craziness, documenting the transition from the Beat-Generation to the Hippie-Movement.

"I believe there's a whole new generation of kids. They walk different... I can hear it in the music... It used to go life-death, life-death, but now it's death-life, death-life..."

Having that said, it's an achievement how Tom Wolfe, who was never truly "on the bus" (he claims to never having taken LSD and only smoked marijuana once) made you feel like you're part of the experience throughout the entire book. If that's a thought that tickles your fancy, this one is for you.

წიგნში აღწერილია ქვეყანა, სადაც, მაგალითად, ეკლესია მართავს კონფერენცია-ფესტივალს სახელად "Shaking the Foundations", სადაც იწვევენ კენ კიზის და სხვა კონტრ-კულტურის წარმომადგენლებს. ამავე ქვეყანაში, არ დაგიჭერენ, რამდენი გრამი LSDც გინდა გქონდეს. ეს არ არის უტოპიური რეალობა და წიგნიც 100% დოკუმენტურია. ეს ქვეყანა კი 60 იანი წლების ამერიკაა.

წიგნში აღწერილია კენ კიზის რანჩოზე მიზიდული ახალგაზრდების ჯგუფის, Merry Pranksters ის ცხოვრება და თავგადასავლები, მათ მიერ ავტობუსით ამერიკის გარშემო მოგზაურობა, მათი შეხვედრა 60 იანი წლების ამერიკური ალტერნატიული კულტურის წარმომადგენლებთან (ტიმოთი ლირი, ალან გინზბერგი, კერუაკი და სხვები).

წიგნი მეტწილად კენ კიზის გარშემო ვითარდება, აღწერს მის უნიკალურ თვისებებს, საოცარ უნარებს და მის კონკრეტულ მეთოდებს, მაგალითად, როგორ გაენიავებინა ატხადნიაკის shit-filled souls.

Kesey was the magnet and the strength, the man in both worlds. კიზი თანაბრად მაღალფუნქციური იყო როგორც მის გარშემო შემოკრებილ წრეში, ასევე რეალურ ცხოვრებაში, ბარიგებთან, მოტოციკლისტებთან, მეცნიერებთან, გამომცემლებთან ურთიერთობაში. იმ სცენებში, სადაც კიზიც ჩანს, მკითხველი მშვიდადაა, ესე იგი ყველაფერი კარგად იქნება.

წიგნის დასაწყისში გვხვდება კიზის მიერ შემოტანილი ტერმინი - Graduate the Acid, რაც უხეშად რომ ვთქვათ, LSDს გამოცდილების ცხოვრებაში დანერგვას გულისხმობს, ხოლო წიგნის შუაში, იგივე იდეა, ოღონდ უფრო დახვეწილი, გაფორმებული და პრაქტიკაში დანერგილი, Acid Test ის სახელწოდებით შემონარნარდება.

ძალიან სამწუხაროა, რომ ავტო���ი მხოლოს მოყოლით იცნობს ფსიქოდელიურ გამოცდილებებს და ხშირად ძალიან ბრტყლად აღწერს Acid Testებს, მიმდინარე მოვლენებს თუ პერსონაჟების ტრიპებს. მაგალითად, ყველას, ვისაც ერთხელ მაინც გაუსინჯავს LSD, იცნობს გამოსვლის შემდეგ დამდგარ სიცარიელის შეგრძნებას, რომლის პოეტური აღწერას მრავალნაირად შეიძლება, მაგრამ ავტორი, ჯიურად 3 სიტყვით აღწერს მუდმივად - Loose in Head. ამ მხრივ, უამრავი რამ შეიძლებოდა უკეთ დაწერილიყო, ამიტომაც დავაკელი ერთი ქულა.

წიგნი ერთგვარი "იმედგაცრუებაცაა", რადგან ხვდები, რომ ყველაფერი რაც გიგრძვნია, გიფიქრია და გამოგიცდია, უკვე დიდი ხნის წინ ნაგრძობი და ნაფიქრი და გამოცდილია. :)

საბოლოო ჯამში, აუცილებლად წასაკითხი წიგნია ყველასთვის, ვისაც 60იანი წლები და ფსიქოდელიური კულტურა აინტერესებს, ის ხალხი, ვინც were living for some incredible breakthrough.
და ისევ კიზი, ეს საოცარი ადამიანი.

P.S. They were on the purest, don't try it from your local dealer :)

At the time I read this I was enchanted with Wolfe as a journalist. In retrospect, his response to the subject matter seems not quite right. He's a debunker who yearns to believe, I think, not the aloof observer he thinks he is.

I have Tom Wolfe's aesthetic taste figured out: He likes exuberance. He doesn't like ascetics. Asceticism is unamerican.

In The Right Stuff, he prefers Yeager and the test pilots to the astronauts who don't get to really fly their capsules.

In From Bauhaus to Our House, he loathes the European modernists (Mies et al.) and he likes FLW and Saarinen.

In The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, he sides with Kesey and the Pranksters with their undoctrinaire deployment of LSD and technology against other psychedelic advocates like Leary who are from the East coast, who like Eastern religion, and who would frown at an enormous sound system.

WILD that creative non fiction is still a thing when this book Completed it.

Wowee folks! What an enthralling read! Wolfe writes and riffs with so much colour and smashes together all the formats and notes and interviews and footage into such a seamless and just MEGA vibey monster. Such an innovative and vivid way of telling a real life story.

It's like you're actually there. We the reader are On The Bus vibing with these characters, gettin high with them, running from the law with them. The scene builds and explodes and then dies down and we all go our separate ways and we feel it all with them like a whole era jammed into 350odd pages.

Sometimes hard to keep up with Wolfe's flow, and a handful of ~AAAAAA~ bad trip moments. But in all it's a fascinating exploration of counter-culture, human connection and LSD, good enough to just scrape into the 5star bracket.

I didn't finish it. The history behind it enthralled me. I actually got to be on the bus at the St. Louis Missouri History museum when it was on tour. That was awesome....so I picked up the book. I just couldn't deal with it. Other things by Wolfe are so much better written,and much more engaging than this. I love Ken Kesey and his writings, and the connection to Kerouac etc . was appealing. This book....not so much......

Once upon a time, there was a band of tricksters called the Merry Pranksters. Ken Kesey was their Chief. He bought a bus and he and his band loaded it with recording equipment and movie cameras and went for a wild ride through the United States of America. They were cartoon character heroes, but they were also a tribal community. Neal Cassady was with them. He was the man whom Jack Kerouac called “the greater driver,” because of the time he and Jack spent on the road, which Jack later wrote about in a big book about hitchhiking, but now Cassady was driving the bus, which was named “Furthur.” And the Pranksters drove to New York City to see Jack. But Jack and Kesey didn’t have much they wanted to talk about. And they drove to Millbrook to see Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert. But it was too staid. And they hung out with the Hell’s Angels. And sometimes it got tense. And they went to San Francisco to see the Beatles. But it was a bad trip. And the Grateful Dead played rock music. And Allen Ginsberg rang bells and played finger cymbals. And there were strobe lights and neon signs.

Tom Wolfe wrote about the Pranksters and their Chief. He wrote about the chemical they took, which was called LSD. He wrote about what it did to their minds, and sometimes he used a stream of consciousness style that made you feel like you were there. He wrote about the kinds of books the Pranksters liked. Books by writers like Aldous Huxley, Herman Hesse, Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. He wrote about the Pranksters’ ideas, like that they saw themselves as characters in a movie, and about their parties, which they called “Acid Tests.” Sometimes you felt that he did not agree with them, but that was okay, because you could see that he had made a genuine effort to understand them.

Acquired perhaps in Fall 1978
H.H.S. Hartland, New Brunswick

Very different experience reading this at age 44 as opposed to 14, but still a very interesting and enjoyable read.

You know those books that blew your mind in high school? Like Siddhartha or anything by Bukowski or Nietzche and you read it in a cafe trying to look cool to the older hippies who ran the place and one of them sleazed up to you and said, "you have beautiful skin" and gave you a copy of Tom Wolfe's book on the Merry Pranksters and tried to get you to go out back and smoke a suspiciously tangy looking joint which you delcline but take the book, and read it and are briefly tempted to run off to a commune you've heard about in Arcata where women do their own pap smears with hand mirrors (that's what the brochure said) and then twenty years later you find a copy of Woolfe's book in a weird used bookstore and re-read it and think, Christ, hippies were fucking annoying?

From my perspective, three dynamics were occurring simultaneously in this book, and each had an impact on my reading experience. The first is a kind of flashback to the mid-1960s hippie period of American culture, or counterculture, which I had exposure to as a very young child, but no practical first-hand experience with. As a result, this aspect of the book gave it an almost nostalgic tone, which for me made it the most benign of the three dynamics. It’s not an era I’ve longed to know more about, or regret that I missed, so I think I processed this more as curiosity than anything, and which I could probably have gotten just as effectively from an issue of Life magazine from that time. The second dynamic was its chronicling of a character, author Ken Kesey, and his cult-like Merry Pranksters, and the movement they begat and the other hangers-on they attracted. To me, Kesey is a supremely unlikeable character; a self-impressed, self-indulgent, self-centered egomaniac who was recklessly and heedlessly irresponsible with his followers in the way all cult leaders are, from Jim Jones to Donald Trump. Aside from his one-hit literary fame, it is hard to understand the appeal he evidently had, and used, to accelerate the LSD trend the way he did. At any rate, I couldn’t stand him, and found myself wishing he had suffered greater consequences, if for no other reason than for being such an ass. Finally, the third dynamic is Tom Wolfe’s writing, which I know was groundbreaking in its time, and an earnest attempt to capture the mood and spirit of the subject. It is immersive, evocative, stream-of-conscious stuff, self-indulgent in its own right, and while I’d previously read The Right Stuff and The Bonfire of the Vanities, and had mixed feelings about both, I personally found his approach here especially tiresome and annoying, all the more so after some 400-ish pages. My oldest brother lived through this era, and counts this among his all-time favorite books, so it may be that it simply has a different generational appeal. Or it may be that it just didn’t work for me. But it most definitely didn’t.

I found this to be an exhausting read, quite honestly. I've never read any Tom Wolfe, but I'd heard of this one, and thought it could be interesting, but it was disappointing. Now I know why Hunter S. Thompson gave Tom Wolfe so much grief. Wolfe is doing his best Kerouac imitation, when he should have chosen another tactic, as it came off as forced and hollow. The characters that appear in "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test", are familiar: Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsberg, Sonny Barger, Mountain Girl, Neal Cassady, etc., but for such complex, interesting people, he doesn't explore their depth. In Wolfe's account, they are two dimensional mythologized heroes, and he never asks any questions of them, or of the hippie movement. Also, I found it annoying that every reference to African Americans by this hip daddy of the New Journalism is the patently racist term "spade". It's hard to imagine these people considered themselves so enlightened and yet, they still primarily held their parents views on sex and race. It's not a book that has aged well, in my opinion, and now that we can look back at all the wreckage left behind from the 60's, the cynicism of Charles Bukowski seems more appropriate.

The subject matter of this book appealed to me for its humour and novelty factor. Although the writing is descriptive, funny and re-enacts the crazy times of "The Merry Pranksters", the story quickly becomes repetitive and frustrating and Ken Kesey (whom I admire in his amazing writing of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) comes across as an egotistical narcissist who revels in being the head of the crazy bunch. His self absorbed nature comes across in the book and it starts to grate on the nerves after a while. Despite this, if you're interested in the LSD trips of the 60's and want to hear some funny anecdotes, then read on!