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Jack Kerouac: Road Novels 1957-1960: On the Road / The Dharma Bums / The Subterraneans / Tristessa / Lonesome Traveler / Journal Selections (Library of America) ReviewSeptember 5, 2007 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Jack Kerouac's (1922 -- 1969) most famous novel, "On the Road". The Library of America has aptly commemorated the event with its newly-released volume of Kerouac's "Road Novels." The works in this collection were published between 1957 -- 1960, although most of them were written considerably earlier. This volume includes four Kerouac novels, a collection of essays called "Lonesome Traveler", and selections from Kerouac's journals. This volume offers the opportunity for readers to revisit and reassess Kerouac and for new readers to get to know his work. Kerouac amply deserves to be included in the Library of America series which is devoted to honoring the best of American literary achievement.Kerouac, for all his personal failings and his difficulties with alcoholism and substance abuse, had a better understanding of what his work was about than did some of his critics. In his introduction to "Lonesome Traveler", Kerouac wrote: "Always considered writing my duty on earth. Also the preachment of universal kindness, which hysterical critics have failed to notice beneath frenetic activity of my true-story novels about the 'beat' generation. -- Am actually not 'beat' but strange solitary crazy Catholic mystic."
Kerouac's novels are autobiographical in character. His works lack artistic distance, but they more than compensate for this lack with their immediacy and sense of honesty. They describe a complex and torn individual whose life had been riddled with failure but who was driven to succeed as a writer. Part of Kerouac rejected mainstream American conformity and materialism in favor of a bohemian life of spontanaiety, sex, and wild experience. Yet Kerouac's deepest ambition was to be a successful writer and to enjoy a stable quiet life. Kerouac's work sometimes seems to show a spirit of hedonism and sensuality; but he was greatly influenced by Buddhism and wrote extensively about it; and all his work shows a religious and introspective sensibility. I think Kerouac properly described himself as a writer as a "solitary Catholic mystic".
Kerouac developed a style of writing that he described as "spontaneous prose", and it is amply on display in this volume. It features long, stringy sentences and paragraphs with the feel of jazz and of improvisation. Kerouac's "spontaneous prose" is an erratic technique, which works brilliantly at its best but which can sometimes deteriorate into mere wordsmithing. ("That's not writing -- its typing!" as Truman Capote scornfully, and unfairly, said of "The Subterraneans".) Kerouac was a descriptive writer who could spend pages on detailed portrayals of places and people -- as in the scenes of mountain climbing in "The Dharma Bums" and in the description of Tristessa's living quarters in the novel of that name. His writings, particularly "On the Road" and "Lonesome Traveler" show a deep love of the places, landscapes, and character of the United States. Kerouac was the child of immigrants, and maintained a high and self-conscious spirit of patriotism throughout his life.
In rereading the Kerouac in this volume, I found that "On the Road" remains his most impressive work and a book that should keep Kerouac's place in American literature. The book tells the story of Kerouac's friendship with Neal Cassady (Dean Moriarty in the book), a young man who had spent much of his life in poolhalls, reform school, and prison. The book has a restless energy, and a spirit of passion as Kerouac (Sal Paradise in the book) and Moriarty ride back and forth across the United States and Mexico. "On the Road" leaves tantalizingly ambiguous the nature of the characters' wanderings. Are they looking simply for "kicks" and for sex, or does their search have a spiritual dimension as well? Similarly, Kerouac leaves ambiguous his attitude towards Moriarty and his rootless, wild way of life. For all the attraction Moriarty/Cassady held for Kerouac, "On the Road" can be read as a critique of his wildness and as a search for a life that is full and rich, but also settled.
The remaining works in this collection each have their admirers, and they are all worth reading. My favorite is the short novel "Tristessa" which, in difficult, jagged prose tells the story of Kerouac's relationship with a Mexican prostitute and drug addict during two trips to Mexico City. It includes long passages of detailed descriptions of rooms and streets, reflections on Buddhism, religion, and sex, and a sad but ultimately hopeful story. "The Subterraneans" also tells of a failed romance between Kerouac and a young black woman, Mardou. The book is set in San Francisco (the relationship on which it is based took place in New York City) and it features descriptions of bohemian life in San Francisco, and an astonishing passage related by Mardou in which she finds herself wandering naked over the streets of San Francisco.
"The Dharma Bums" differs from the other books in this collection in that Kerouac wrote it on commission from his publisher after the success of "On the Road." It is written in a much more accessible, popular style than either "Tristessa" or "The Subterraneans" and might be the best book after "On the Road" for the reader new to Kerouac. This book tells of the friendship between Kerouac and the poet Gary Snyder, as they climb mountains, discuss Buddhism, wander cross-country, and have wild parties. Some readers who like Kerouac's other books find "The Dharma Bums" rather tame. I find the book highly thoughtful, in its portrayal of Snyder and Kerouac, in its picture of American Buddhism in the 1950s, and in its depiction of California.
"Lonesome Traveler" is the one work in this collection that was new to me. It is a series of eight travel essays, including an essay on "The Vanishing American Hobo", some of which had been published separately. Kerouac writes that "its scope and purpose is simply poetry, or natural description". Many of these essays cover places and events that Kerouac describes in his novels, but they have a force and continuity of their own in their portrayal of romming houses in San Francisco, pierfront dives, and work on the railroad. The best part of this book is "New York Scenes", an unforgettable portait of "beat" places in New York City.
Kerouac's work remains to be discovered, savored and pondered by a new generation of readers. The Library of America deserves high praise for making his works accessible in this wonderful volume.
Robin FriedmanJack Kerouac: Road Novels 1957-1960: On the Road / The Dharma Bums / The Subterraneans / Tristessa / Lonesome Traveler / Journal Selections (Library of America) OverviewThe raucous, exuberant, often wildly funny account of a journey through America and Mexico, Jack Kerouac's On the Road instantly defined a generation upon its publication in 1957: it was, in the words of a New York Times reviewer, "the clearest and most important utterance yet made by the generation Kerouac himself named years ago as 'beat.'" Written in the mode of ecstatic improvisation that Allen Ginsberg described as "spontaneous bop prosody," Kerouac's novel remains electrifying in its thirst for experience and its defiant rebuke of American conformity. In his portrayal of the fervent relationship between the writer Sal Paradise and his outrageous, exasperating, and inimitable friend Dean Moriarty, Kerouac created one of the great friendships in American literature; and his rendering of the cities and highways and wildernesses that his characters restlessly explore are a hallucinatory travelogue of a nation he both mourns and celebrates. Now, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Kerouac's landmark novel, The Library of America collects On the Road together with four other autobiographical "road books" published in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Dharma Bums (1958), at once an exploration of Buddhist spirituality and an account of the Bay Area poetry scene, is notable for its thinly veiled portraits of Kerouac's acquaintances, including Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and Kenneth Rexroth. The Subterraneans (1958) recounts a love affair set amid the bars and bohemian haunts of San Francisco. Tristessa (1960) is a melancholy novella describing a relationship with a prostitute in Mexico City. Lonesome Traveler (1960) collects travel essays that evoke journeys in Mexico and Europe, and concludes with an elegiac lament for the lost world of the American hobo. Also included in Road Novels are selections from Kerouac's journal, which provide a fascinating perspective on his early impressions of material eventually incorporated into On the Road.
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