who here likes jack kerouac?

[lush_puppy]

he was part of the beat generation in america (1940's, 50's). i think his most famous book was On The Road. but he also wrote Desolation Angels etc. just thought i'd ask and try to find some others who share my love of his work. no one back here at home (in the real world) knows or likes him, help me please.
cheers from down under
lushpup

[oron]

A dyed-in-the-wool Canuck from Lawrence, MA, USA might be considered a strange choice for discussion on a site devoted to Scotland, but never mind. Jack deserves all the publicity we can get for him.

Kerouac's one of my 2 or 3 favorite contemporary American writers, along with Ken Kesey and Thomas Wolfe (the original Look Homeward, Angel, You Can't Go Home Again Thomas Wolfe, not Tom Wolfe of Bonfire of the Vanities fame). He's an icon of sorts in the States, especially lately--20-somethings have taken him to their bosoms and even high school kids (mostly guys) read him nowadays, though he was largely forgotten for a long long time.

I particularly like Dharma Bums, Dr. Sax, and Mexico City Blues. On the Road is, of course, his best-known work, but I personally don't think it's his best, just his most accessible. I think Jack's pseudo-biographical style (the literary source for Capote's and Mailer's experiments with "non-fiction novels") still fools a lot of people into thinking he was just a talented amateur memoirist pretending to write novels.

He was a lot more than that. He was a social critic with almost painfully accurate insights who foretold where we were going 50 years before it happened; a prose poet whose telling imagery haunts a reader for months or even years after it's read (from a random opening of a copy of Dr. Sax: "It was a baneful black night anyway, full of shrouds."); an incisive satirist; and a philosopher and psychologist who understood more about the depths of longing, loss and desire in the human heart than any American writer since Faulkner.

As an American, I sometimes tell my foreign friends that they'll never even begin to understand this country until they've read Kerouac and understood him. That an Aussie has apparently done so is heartening. I salute you. His energy and allusions are so peculiarly American that it can't have been easy going.

Again, from a random page of Dr. Sax:

(Of Harpo Marx dropping silverware from his sleeve in Animal Crackers)--
"...God how Joe and I in the dark balcony sat transfixed by this picture of our joint dreams snoring in the dark attics of our boyhood together...brothers of the frantic snazzle in the Wood, at 8, when, with Beauty the immense Shepherd dog of the Fortiers, and little Philip Fortier nicknamed Snorro, we took off on a 20-mile hike to Pelham New Hampshire to slide up and down the hayloft of some dairy farmer--there were dead owls skewered on the pine, gravel pits, apples, distances of green Normandy fields into a mist of New England Inscrutable Space mystery--in the imprint of the trees on the sky in the horizon, I judged I was being torn from my mother's womb with each step from Home Lowell into the Unknown...a serious lostness that has never repaired itself in my shattered flesh dumb-hanging for the light--" (all elipses and punctuation--or lack of it--by Kerouac)

There's a crafting in that passage that belies the image of a madman typing at high speed the random debris of his brainpan and then walking away. As his notebooks, manuscripts, and galleys show, he was a careful editor and tireless re-worker when he wanted to be, playing with some passages for weeks until he had them the way he wanted them. The first draft may have been done at a white heat, but the final work was the best that he could make it, and somehow he succeeded in crafting fine sections without losing the energy and inspiration of the peculiar and particular moment of their creation. A pretty neat trick and one even Joyce might have envied.

Besides all that, Kerouac is a kick to read.

Here's to Jack: May the music of one of the greatest of the unsung artists be sung at last.

[lush_puppy]

Thank you oron, you have truly made my day. I appreciate the length of your post too! I was beginning to think no one would reply.

I've read contrary to what you were saying about his crafting of his texts. I was wondering if what I read about him writing On the Road in the span of only a few days is true? This would mean it was just him spinning off his thoughts as they flowed. It's tempting to believe this and view Jack as this crazy genius, but I'm willing to consider your point. I admit I haven't researched Kerouac much and you seem to know a lot.
I'm trying to order Dr. Sax at the moment. The books are very hard to get hold of here.
What you were saying about high school guys getting into his work is heartening. I'm in highschool at the moment and last year I gave some Jack to a friend of mine to read and I think I converted him. Although I think he thought it strange that a girl had introduced him to jack. I guess I'm the exception to the rule. hehe.

anyway, thanks again Oron.
cheers,
lushpup.

[oron]

Hi, lushpup.

You're welcome, but maybe [/b]I'm[/b] the one who should be saying "Thanks". You gave me a chance to share what I think about a too-often overlooked writer of amazing talent and occasionally searing perception.

I've read contrary to what you were saying about his crafting of his texts. I was wondering if what I read about him writing On the Road in the span of only a few days is true?

Not entirely, but there's some truth to it--enough to fuel the legend, and enough to start his real search.

The bulk of the first draft of On The Road was written over about 3 weeks in March of 1951 after an extended stay in the hospital gave Jack time to slow down enough to plan it. Writing it fast was a conscious decision he'd made after reading William Burroughs' Junkie and listening to him talk about immediacy and the false "architecture" of modern novels. With the guts of a born gambler, Jack took Burroughs' idea and, as George Carlin might have put it, "ran off the end of the goddam earth with it." He moved into a loft on 71st Street in NY, put a roll of shelf-paper into his typewriter, and started to write what he had planned while in the hospital.

The result of those three weeks makes up about 2/3 of what was eventually published, but in revised (sometimes drastically revised) form.

When the initial spate of writing had exhausted itself, Jack went home to Lawrence to stay with his mother (what he always did when he ran out of steam). For a few weeks he did nothing much in the way of work, but he thought about what he wanted to do. He'd told Bob Giroux, his publisher, that he had done most of the book, but that he didn't have an ending for it yet. Part of the time he was in Lawrence he puttered around re-writing some chunks he wasn't happy with and playing with various endings, none of which he used.

In June, Jack's Mom decided to spend the summer with her sister in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, and Jack decided to go with her. During that quiet summer, he cut, re-wrote, and added completely new material to the manuscript. And he wasn't entirely done yet (the rest of the genesis is too long to go into here).

So--like a lot of other things about Jack's life and work--the truth is only partly true, and the rest is legend.

This would mean it was just him spinning off his thoughts as they flowed. It's tempting to believe this and view Jack as this crazy genius...

Tempting indeed, and partly true, as I said. Genius is as much about the process as the result, and Jack's process managed to salvage more immediacy and capture more of a given moment than Burroughs or Henry Miller or even Joyce. He's not as deep, perhaps, or as penetrating, but he saw things none of them did and managed to make what he saw come alive, and that's a hell of a feat. But it is tempting to think of the mad genius clattering away on his ancient typewriter in a stream-of-consciousness narrative that arrives fully formed and all grown up as if it had sprung full-blown from the thigh of Zeus. And Jack came closer than anybody had before or has since. But the simple truth is that art NEVER happens that way--the endgame is as important as the opening, and it often matters more what you DO with the inspiration than the inspiration itself matters.

I think Jack's best decisions--and most courageous ones, in a way--were around what he decided NOT to change. He deliberately left alone some of the raw, awkward, clutching passages that any other writer would have "fixed". It's often those very passages that breathe life and the beauty of the Now into his work in a way that no one else can claim.

I'm sorry he's so hard to get down there. If you can't find Dr Sax, I'd be happy to send you a copy--email me privately.

If you liked On the Road, then you should definitely try to find a copy of Visions of Cody. Kerouac himself called it "what On The Road should have been." It's a remarkable book. For research, if you're really interested, I recommend--if you can find it, of course--Ann Charter's quintessential biography, Kerouac. (Apt title.)

So you're a girl. That is unusual for a Kerouac fan. I'm even more impressed. You go, girl.

[lush_puppy]

Originally posted by oron
I think Jack's best decisions--and most courageous ones, in a way--were around what he decided NOT to change. He deliberately left alone some of the raw, awkward, clutching passages that any other writer would have "fixed". It's often those very passages that breathe life and the beauty of the Now into his work in a way that no one else can claim.

I definately agree. it was a bold move- and the right one as you said. His work still amazes me- even after a hundred readings! In fact, it gets better. I think you can really appreciate the effect of his writing's 'raw beauty', because of the fact that it can still stir you after many readings. -sigh- hehe

I'm sorry he's so hard to get down there. If you can't find Dr Sax, I'd be happy to send you a copy--email me privately.

If you liked On the Road, then you should definitely try to find a copy of Visions of Cody.

Today I was feeling so enthusiastic about your last post that i trotted down town and searched everywhere for Dr. Sax. I ended up ordering a copy at one of the larger book stores, who also have access to more of his publications. So tomorrow I will probably feel compelled to go back and order Visions of Cody. thanks for offering to send a copy, but it looks like the book shops here have redeamed themselves since last year.

again, I really appreciate your reply. i've suddenly been filled with a great desire to find out as much as I can about Jack, thanks to you. As i've said, no one here appreciates him. Thanks

cheers,
lushpup

[oron]

Jack was also a poet, you know, and maybe a better poet than prose writer, though I personally wouldn't say that. Thought I'd mention it, and take this opportunity to lay a taste of it on you. Just a taste:

The taste of worms
Is soft and salty
Like the sea,
or tears

(From San Francisco Blues)

...it looks like the book shops here have redeamed themselves since last year.

Good for them. Though like I said, I can understand why there wouldn't be much demand for him in Australia. I can't imagine he translates well to that culture. What is it about him that attracted you? What does he say to you that your native writers don't say?

On the poetry front, have you tried any of the other Beats? Greg Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, or--of course--Allen Ginsburg?

Don't want to push you too hard but although Jack's making a comeback here, the audience still isn't huge and it's nice to find someone I can share this love with.

I'll hold myself to one recommendation:

Allen Ginsburg. Howl is a mighty work, no question, startling and original, full of sound and fury signifying something. But if you could only read one, I'd recommend Kaddish, a book-length poem he wrote for his mother after she died. It's so honest, so moving, and so full of powerful language and imagery, that the first time I read it I could only read a few stanzas a week because it would take that long to digest everything that was in them. There are few poems that length that repay a prolonged interest with life-altering insights, but Kaddish was that for me.

Ginsberg was a good friend of Jack's, btw; they slept together once. Ginsberg said later that Jack, who was not homosexual or even bi-sexual really, "was just being kind."

[lush_puppy]

Originally posted by oron
Jack was also a poet, you know,

I don't have much time today, but i'd thought i'd share a few of my favourite lines of Jack Kerouac Poetry...

The days go-
they cant stay-
I dont realize

Hitch hiked a thousand
miles and brought
You wine

My eyes in my hand,
welded to wheel to welded to whang.

from Desolation Angels

...What is it about him that attracted you? What does he say to you that your native writers don't say?

Where to start... um, i guess i just click in with the rhythm. the whole 'dig everything' philosophy and the 'balls on that' attitude. I love it. His whole mindframe is tuned to this vibe that I can tune into when I read his work. He can portray the sadness amid the excitement... Um, The way he describes the life and energy of the 50's cities and his emerging generation... Not just that but the excitement created with these descriptions and sheer pace of his words. an example off the top of my head would be the part towards the end of On the Road when they make the journey to Mexico City. I'm sure this isn't the best extract to explain myself, but this is where i opened the book today...


The end of our journey impended. Great fields stretched on both sides of us; a noble wind blew across the occasional immense tree groves and over old missions turning salmon pink in the late sun. The clouds were close and huge and rose. ‘Mexico City by dusk!’ We’d made it, a total of nineteen hundred miles from the afternoon yards of Denver to these vast and Biblical areas of the world, and now we were about to reach the end of the road.
‘Shall we change our insect T-shirts?’
‘Naw, let’s wear them into town, hell’s bells.’ And we drove into Mexico City…
The city roared in and suddenly we were passing crowded cafes and theatres and many lights… Mad barefoot Indian drivers cut across us and surrounded us and tooted and made frantic traffic. The noise was incredible. No mufflers are used in Mexican cars. Horns are batted with glee continual. ‘Whee!’ yelled Dean. ‘Look out!’ He staggered the car through the traffic and played with everybody. He drove like an Indian… ‘This is traffic I’ve always dreamed of! Everybody goes!’… Mambo blared from everywhere… Beggars slept wrapped in advertising posters torn off fences. Whole families of them sat on the sidewalk, playing little flutes and chuckling in the night. Their bare feet stuck out, their dim candles burned, all Mexico was one vast Bohemian camp...

I'll give Allen Ginsberg a try, but i'll need to find some of his work first. He sounds interesting.
By the way you're describing it I think i would enjoy his work.
That point you made about Ginsberg and Jack was very... interesting. lol. I can't say it actually took me by surprise. it sounds very plausible... "just being kind"... ha ha, I like that one!

lushpup