{"id":10306,"date":"2011-10-03T11:20:17","date_gmt":"2011-10-03T11:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2011\/10\/03\/joyce-johnson-remembers-kerouac\/"},"modified":"2011-10-03T11:20:17","modified_gmt":"2011-10-03T11:20:17","slug":"joyce-johnson-remembers-kerouac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2011\/10\/03\/joyce-johnson-remembers-kerouac\/","title":{"rendered":"Joyce Johnson Remembers Kerouac"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jack Kerouac's On the Road<\/em> was published 54 years ago in September, 1957. Joyce Johnson remembers<\/a>. Excerpts:<\/span><\/p>\n

     Who could have predicted that an essentially plotless novel about<\/span>
     the relationship between two rootless young men who seemed<\/span>
     constitutionally unable to settle down was about to kick off a<\/span>
     culture war that is still being fought to this day? [. . .]<\/span><\/p>\n

     In Death of a Salesman<\/em>, Willy Loman sacrificed his life to a<\/span>
     fruitless pursuit of the American dream; Kerouac's two protagonists<\/span>
     acted as if that dream was of no importance. On the Road<\/em> followed<\/span>
     Sal and Dean through three years of frenetic transcontinental<\/span>
     movement in the late 1940s. Their main goal in life was to "know<\/span>
     time," which they could achieve by packing as much intensity as<\/span>
     possible into each moment. [. . .]<\/span><\/p>\n

     The two ideas, beat and beatnik — one substantive and<\/span>
     life-expanding, the other superficial and hedonistic – helped shape<\/span>
     the counterculture of the '60s and to this day are confused with<\/span>
     each other, not only by Kerouac's detractors but even by some of<\/span>
     his most ardent fans. [. . .]<\/span><\/p>\n

     Beatniks were passe from the start, but On the Road<\/em> has never gone<\/span>
     without readers, though it took decades to lose its outlaw status.<\/span>
     Only recently was it admitted — cautiously — to the literary canon.<\/span>
     (The Modern Library has named it one of the 100 best<\/span>
     English-language novels of the 20th century.) Fifty years after On<\/em><\/span>
     the Road<\/em> was first published, Kerouac's voice still calls out: Look<\/span>
     around you, stay open, question the roles society has thrust upon<\/span>
     you, don't give up the search for connection and meaning. In this<\/span>
     bleak new doom-haunted century, those imperatives again sound<\/span>
     urgent and subversive — and necessary.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anthony Daniel's (Theodore Dalrymple's) assessment in Another Side of Paradise<\/a> is rather less<\/span>
positive:<\/span><\/p>\n

     He led a tormented life, and I cannot help but feel sadness for a<\/span>
     would-be rebel who spent most of his life, as did Kerouac, living<\/span>
     at home with his mother. He also drank himself to a horrible death.<\/span>
     But while it is true that most great writers were tormented souls,<\/span>
     it does not follow that most tormented souls were great writers. To<\/span>
     call Kerouac's writing mediocre is to do it too much honor: its<\/span>
     significance is sociological rather than literary. The fact that<\/span>
     his work is now being subjected to near-biblical levels of<\/span>
     reverential scholarship is a sign of very debased literary and<\/span>
     academic standards.<\/span><\/p>\n

     I have seen some of the most mediocre minds of my generation<\/span>
     destroyed by too great an interest in the Beats.<\/span><\/p>\n

The last line of this quotation parodies the first line of Allen Ginsberg's Howl<\/em>:<\/span><\/p>\n

     I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,<\/span>
     starving hysterical naked . . . .<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Jkerouacmom\"<\/a> And as for Kerouac's "living at home with his mother," which Dalrymple intends as a slight, the truth is rather that Kerouac's mother lived with him, and with him and Stella Sampas after the two were married on 18 November 1966. (See Gerald Nicosia, Memory Babe<\/em>, p. 670 ff.)  Kerouac was ever the dutiful son, a conservative trait that Dalrymple  misses.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jack Kerouac's On the Road was published 54 years ago in September, 1957. Joyce Johnson remembers. Excerpts:      Who could have predicted that an essentially plotless novel about     the relationship between two rootless young men who seemed     constitutionally unable to settle down was about to kick off a     culture war that is still being fought to this day? … Continue reading “Joyce Johnson Remembers Kerouac”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[202,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kerouac-and-friends","category-literary-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}