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Jack Kerouac

JimMorrison

JimMorrison

New Member
Greetings!

i am currently intrigued by jack kerouac and his fantastic prose.

i have read "on the road" and "big sur" and am currently reading "maggie cassidy."

What does everyone else here think of this beat generation genius?

Any recommendations on books?
 
When I was a younger man, Kerouac came as a revelation to me. On the Road was my first exposure to him and it took my breath away.
The three books which I recommend to those curious about Kerouac are On the Road, Desolation Angels, and Big Sur, in that order. I think that, in addition to be some of his more readable works, they nicely chart the arc of his life.
I've also read Tristessa, Dharma Bums, Maggie Cassidy, The Subterraneans, and Book of Dreams. I liked The Subterraneans best of those, and Book of Dreams is interesting from the standpoint that you get to see Kerouac recording his dreams first-hand. It has a nice immediacy to it, and artlessness.
The biography called Jack's Book was quite good, but the Collected Letters, as far as I have read them, were kind of boring.
 
Geez, I think of On the Road as a period piece. It changed my life. But I'm not sure it's as true or relevant as it was.

If I can draw an analogy to be-bop, it shaped everything, but the early forms are hard to read in the way that they were read then.

The funny thing about the 1950s in America (and I was not alive, so quit sweating that, cats) is how explosive and changing the ideas about how to write about life, how to make music, how to run a country were in the US. It was my parents' time. I'm just amazed sometimes at the scene that happened and how it's sort of been absorbed by the media/commodity machine into looking like other things.
 
" After a while my meditations and studies began to bear fruit. It really started late in January, one frosty night in the woods in the dead silence it seemed I almost heard the words said: 'Everything is all right forever and forever and forever.'. I let out a big Hoo, one o' clock in the morning, the dogs leaped up and exulted. I felt like yelling it to the stars. I clasped my hands and prayed, 'O, Wise and serene spirit of Awakenhood, everything's all right forever and forever and forever and thank you and thank you and thank you amen.' What'd I care about the tower of ghouls, and sperm and bones and dust, I felt free and therefore I was free." - Chapter 20
From The Darma Bums, by Jack Kerouac.

You can't help but like a guy who wrote with that kind of energy! It`s certainly not a "well crafted" writing style, but I guess his writing was necessarily fast. He wrote that his remembrances were written on the run, and not afterwords, in a sickbed. I think that if Kerouac were a painter, he`d have been an impressionist. If a musician, a free-form bop jazz-cat! :)
 
thank you guys for your replies :)

how come there isnt much discussion of kerouac on these boards? i consider him a brilliant writer...


I definitely want to read more of his works, the ones Funes has mentioned.

Novella- "But I'm not sure it's as true or relevant as it was. " Just curious why you say that?
 
I'm just amazed sometimes at the scene that happened and how it's sort of been absorbed by the media/commodity machine into looking like other things.
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Quite. That was even happening during Jack's day. During the mid- to late 60s, a lot of the Hippies were trying to set Jack up as a Hippie before his time, and he wanted no part of it (as you can see in Big Sur).

And, if I may, one of the reasons that On the Road might be considered less relevant today is that we are a far more mobile, far more condensed society these days. 40 odd years ago, driving across the country was a major undertaking. Hitch-hiking for part of it would have been thought of as disreputable; and not having a steady job darn near blasphemous (or having a job but not wanting to "get ahead").

On the Road was very much a counter-point to the era's "Leave It to Beaver" straightness and booster-ism.

But, by all means, Novella, don't let me put words in your mouth.
 
froggerz40 said:
"
It`s certainly not a "well crafted" writing style, but I guess his writing was necessarily fast. He wrote that his remembrances were written on the run, and not afterwords, in a sickbed. I think that if Kerouac were a painter, he`d have been an impressionist. If a musician, a free-form bop jazz-cat! :)
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That's actually a myth that he promoted about himself. In recent years there have been several books about Kerouac that say he obsessively revised first drafts many many times, with heavy editing, to achieve the effect he was looking for. That's one of the reasons people who strive to imitate him on that model usually fail miserably.


JimMorrison said:
Novella- "But I'm not sure it's as true or relevant as it was. " Just curious why you say that?
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While I agree with what funes says, I would draw an analogy to Edmund Hilary climing Mt. Everest. Sure, all those native Tibetan climbers were up there for generations before and kept it pristine and developed a natural ability to deal with that environment. Then along comes Mr. Whitey who hires a bunch of seasoned Tibetan climbers. They scale the mountain, plant the English flag, and the Western world thinks it's a big deal, like England has conquered the Himalayas. Decades later, there are troops of amateurs getting pulled up there with ropes, the trail is littered, literally, with shit, discarded oxygen tanks, dead bodies, and other garbage, which the climbers just pass by and tolerate. It's disgusting.

I think of going cross-country on a mission to find the real throbbing heart of America, the jazz and soul and real people of the country, in the 1950s as a real adventure, especially given that it was the first time that experience was really possible in a car and there was this huge weight of conservative politics stifling the main media. You read Kerouac as a historical document because of that.

Anyone who tries to do that now will have a cell phone, a credit card, a laptop, the internet with all its information on every tiny place on the globe, GPS, and a world waiting out there that will have certain experience and expectations and worldliness that didn't exist in the 50s. To say nothing of all the shit and dead bodies, metaphorically speaking, along the trail.

Kerouac is definitely worth a read, but I think he's misunderstood as a craftsman and also occupies a realm that is no longer available, no matter how far you travel.
 
Novella, good points! I didn't know that his works were heavily self edited. I should've guessed- when I studied cartooning in my younger years, I learned that it was very difficult for some cartoonists to get those scribbly casual effects that they were after. A lot of times the hard work was hidden.

I agree that Kerouac was a writer of his times. I think his popularity will endure though, especially with the younger set. Younger people like an author who reflects their search for something inside themselves. (Especially if it's written in a dynamic way.) Hermann Hesse's "Siddhartha", is another similar type of thing, in a VERY different style... :)
 
I think of going cross-country on a mission to find the real throbbing heart of America, the jazz and soul and real people of the country, in the 1950s as a real adventure, especially given that it was the first time that experience was really possible in a car and there was this huge weight of conservative politics stifling the main media. You read Kerouac as a historical document because of that.

Anyone who tries to do that now will have a cell phone, a credit card, a laptop, the internet with all its information on every tiny place on the globe, GPS, and a world waiting out there that will have certain experience and expectations and worldliness that didn't exist in the 50s. To say nothing of all the shit and dead bodies, metaphorically speaking, along the trail.
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Wonderfully stated, Novella.
You are, I think, quite right about that aspect of On the Road. But then, there is more to the novel than "driving" (even if it is the central metaphor of the book). I think that there are also plenty of human situations in the book which anyone can relate to, not just those of us who remember the days before cell phones, fuel-injection, and credit cards.
 
funes said:
Wonderfully stated, Novella.
You are, I think, quite right about that aspect of On the Road. But then, there is more to the novel than "driving" (even if it is the central metaphor of the book). I think that there are also plenty of human situations in the book which anyone can relate to, not just those of us who remember the days before cell phones, fuel-injection, and credit cards.
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Yeah, I think "irrelevant" is probably too strong a term; it's a bit inaccurate. Like I said earlier, Kerouac, especially On the Road, is IMO well worth a read, because it is fun and exciting and poetic and shows something new, even now.

But I think it's also one of those 'breakthrough' books that shows its age now, not in terms of technology, but in terms of the limited space the average person existed in then. People taking crossing lots of boundaries--of race, gender, class, nations, cultures--for granted now. Going to Tokyo just to see what Shibuya kids are wearing is legitimate journalism. The cannibals are all gone.
 
no, they're just feasting somewhere.

ferox41xk.jpg


novella said:
The cannibals are all gone.
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Is Kerouac considered one of the greatest writers/great writer?

The reason i seem to love him right now is i love his flow and how he plays with words. His use of metaphors and analogies is incredible. I have yet to come across a writer like him.
 
Is Kerouac considered one of the greatest writers/great writer?
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Of course, the answer to that question depends on who you ask. Having said that, though, even as an unabashed fan, I don't think that I would put him in the highest echelons of writers. I doubt the majority of people would, either.
In my opinion, he wrote some great books, and some transcendent passages. He was very successful in pushing out a new branch of literature where others had failed. But, he has also written some lifeless and unsuccessful books. I guess that makes him a great writer, but not one of the Great Writers.
 
Greatness is in consistency, and Kerouac definitely wrote some boring crap, plus his output was not that prolific.

But such judgments about greatness are fatuous. What matters is your own opinion.
 
My favorite entry from Jack Kerouac's diary:

June 17, 1948:

Madly, painfully lonesome for a woman these evenings, and on I work. I see them walking outside and I go crazy. Why is it that a man trying to do big work, alone and poor, cannot find one woman who will give him her love and time? By God, this experience is going to make me bitter!
 
I have to say, I was really keen to read On The Road, but I found it extremely boring - definately not my kind of book.

Phil
 
Me, I love Kerouac, he really opened up for me what the world of writing could DO, how it could make you FEEL, and there is someone out there living in such a different time and world yet could put into words what it means to be a human being... could put it into the words I would use if had the talent to be a writer!
I discovered him at the age of 15 and I think he was one of the main ones who set me on the road to a life of literature and for that I would eternally thank him!
(my favourite is Desolation Angels but very fond of them all)
 
(my favourite is Desolation Angels but very fond of them all)
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How nice to hear someone else mention one of my favorite Kerouac books. I always really liked the story he put in there about visiting William Carlos Williams. Also, I think that his disillusionment with, and bitterness about, the world around him had reached just the right pitch during this period. You know, contempt for the silliness and venality of the world around him, but not yet angry or hateful.
 
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