Final Assignment: Hollow City and Tripmaster Monkey

There are various similarities between the works of Rebecca Solnit and Maxine Kingston Hong in respect to their depictions of San Francisco. To start of with, Rebecca Solnit concerns herself with the everyday living situations of and people residing in San Francisco with regard to Gentrification. Specifically, she is critical of the Silicon Valley tech savvy types that have love for the San Francisco space, but who, unfortunately, increase the cost of living and force lesser privileged persons to move out of the city. This inability is due in large part to increasing cost of living in San Francisco due to the Gentrification. These increase costs cover the increasing real estate and rent prices primarily. Solnit also covers the increasing inability of artists of varying crafts to reside within San Francisco. Essentially, Solnit depicts the cleansing of artists of the beat type, the slow technical modernization of San Francisco, and the descending spirit of the former beat anti-establishment spirit that was once prevalent in San Francisco.
Similarly, Maxine Kingston Hong, in Trip Master Monkey, depicts a struggling artist who exudes the kind of antiestablishment beat spirit discussed in Solnit’s books. Working in a 9-to-5 job in which he advises customers to avoid purchasing the products he is responsible for selling, Wittman represents the age of beat, free spirit, drug experimenting type of lifestyle that Solnit depicts as being pushed out of San Francisco.
While differing in style, Both authors focus on place and spaces within regard to the subjects they choose to focus on, who share a similar calling within the city. Both authors depict the post beat lifestyle of San Franciscan artists. A life style that is difficult and often times at a standing conflict with the imperial capitalist society that seems to be enveloping their once beatified city.