Author Topic: I'm in love with another Jack! Jack Kerouac's "On the Road"  (Read 8332 times)

Offline Front-Ranger

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I'm in love with another Jack! Jack Kerouac's "On the Road"
« on: March 28, 2007, 10:07:02 pm »
Who was Jack Kerouac? He was actually born Jean-Louis Kerouac in Lowell, Massachusetts, on March 12, 1922. His most famous book, On the Road, was written in April, 1951, in Denver, Colorado. Here is an early quote from the book that reminded me of my dear Brokie friends:

“…the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everyone goes 'Awww!' "

Today I finally got to see the famous scroll of On the Road in person. It's a 120-ft roll of paper containing the 175,000 words of the manuscript. Because he was a fast typist, further fueled by coffee, Kerouac used Chinese calligraphy paper rolled into his typewriter so he wouldn't have to break his chain of thought while writing. Think what he could do if he'd had the Internet then!!
« Last Edit: March 29, 2007, 04:29:54 pm by Front-Ranger »
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Re: Jack Kerouac's "On the Road"
« Reply #1 on: March 28, 2007, 10:59:05 pm »
The novel begins with nonstop descriptions of Jack's new friend, Dean Moriarty, who is a thinly veiled version of Neal Cassady. Dean has arrived in New York with his new wife Marylou and goes to work in a parking lot. But he soon dumps Marylou for...Jack! He shows up at Jack's doorstop one evening, wanting to be taught how to write. Some quotes:

“His dirty workclothes clung to him so gracefully, as though you couldn’t buy a better fit from a custom tailor but only earn it from the Natural Tailor of Natural Joy.”

“All my other current friends were intellectuals….But Dean’s intelligence was every bit as formal and shining and complete, without the tedious intellectualness. And his ‘criminality’ was not something that sulked and sneered; it was  a wild yea-saying overburst of American joy; it was Western, the west wind, an ode from the Plains, something new, long prophesied, long a-coming (he only stole cars for joy-rides).”


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Re: Jack Kerouac's "On the Road"
« Reply #2 on: March 29, 2007, 11:20:57 am »
Jack really knows how to begin a story with a bang! He introduces the magnetic character of Dean and then withdraws him just as suddenly. Just as we're getting to know Dean and becoming intrigued with him, he disappears off to Denver, along with characters resembling William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, and Jack is now hitchhiking west to meet up with them again.

Here's a photo of Jack and Neal Cassady:

« Last Edit: March 29, 2007, 05:47:04 pm by Front-Ranger »
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Re: Jack Kerouac's "On the Road"
« Reply #3 on: March 29, 2007, 12:52:13 pm »
Here is a photo of the scroll:



It is 120-something ft long with about 175,000 words. It was written over a 20-day period in 1951 in Denver, Colorado. As you can see, Kerouac did not put in any paragraph breaks. These were added later. I read that he had to retype the whole thing in manuscript form in order to get it published. The book was not published until 1957.

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Re: I'm in love with another Jack! Jack Kerouac's "On the Road"
« Reply #4 on: March 29, 2007, 10:32:28 pm »
There were many detours on the way to Colorado. One of them happened when Jack (renamed Sal in the story) and his travelling companion decided to pursure two girls near the Colorado border. They spent an evening with them, and spent all their money. Sal took the girl to a bus staton where she planned to leave the state and go  to New York. 'There ain't no flowers there,' I said. 'I want to go to New York, I'm sick and tired of this. Ain't no place to go but Cheyenne and ain't nothing in Cheyenne.' 'Ain't nothing in New York.' 'Hell there ain't,' she said with a curl of her lips."

"I fell asleep for two delicioius hours, the only discomfort being an occasional Colorado ant. And here I am in Colorado! I kept thinking gleefully. Damn! Damn! damn! I'm making it! And after a refreshing sleep filled with cobwebby dreams of my past life in the East I ... got me a rich thick milkshake at the roadhouse to put some freeze in my hot, tormented stomach."
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Re: I'm in love with another Jack! Jack Kerouac's "On the Road"
« Reply #5 on: March 31, 2007, 02:13:15 pm »
After many adventures and meeting several colorful people, Jack finally arrives in Colorado. But it is still quite some time before he reunites with his new friend Dean. He tracks Dean down through their mutual friend Carlo Marx, who is actually the poet Allen Ginsberg. Here is the description of the reunion of Jack and Dean:

"Carlo knocked; then he darted to the back to hide; he didn't want Camille [Dean's new lover] to see him. I stood in the door. Dean opened it stark naked. I saw a brunette on the bed, one beautiful creamy thigh covered with black lace, look up with mild wonder. 'Why, Sa-a-al!' said Dean. 'Well now--ah--ahem--yes, of course you've arrived--you old sonumbitch you finally got on that old road. Well now, look here--we must--yes, yes, at once--we must, we really must! Now Camille--' and he swirled on her. 'Sal is here, this is my old buddy from New Yor-r-k, this is his first night in Denver and it's absolutely necessary for me to take him out and fix him up with a girl.' "
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Offline fernly

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on the mountain flying in the euphoric, bitter air

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Re: I'm in love with another Jack! Jack Kerouac's "On the Road"
« Reply #7 on: March 31, 2007, 11:08:12 pm »
Thanks, fernly. That's an interesting article about the drive to conserve some of the Beat poets old haunts, this one's in San Francisco near the City Lights bookstore.

I was looking around downtown Denver tonite for the Jack Kerouac lofts on Huron Street but I couldn't get too close to them due to street construction. Just pre-empting his name means little though, in the long run. It's amazing the range of ideas baby boomers have about Kerouac. He stands for whatever was wild and free in their youth, and that differs greatly from person to person.

Reading On the Road tonite, I was struck by how Jack is taken in by Dean, but yet he knows that he is a con-man, yet he in a way embraces the idea of being conned.
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Re: I'm in love with another Jack! Jack Kerouac's "On the Road"
« Reply #8 on: April 01, 2007, 11:38:13 am »
My April Fool's name is Two Jacks and if you're reading this, I'll bet you can guess who those two Jacks might be!!

Here are some thoughts about On the Road from Jim Irsay, owner of the scroll (he also owns the Indianapolis Colts!)

"It's one of those great books. It's a must-read. There are just some books and novels that are kind of timeless. For me, it's just about this wonderful notion of youth and freedom in a certain period of time. I went on the road with my friends, and I think most people do. We're all looking for the magic."
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Re: I'm in love with another Jack! Jack Kerouac's "On the Road"
« Reply #9 on: April 01, 2007, 11:49:29 am »
More from On the Road:

"At lilac evening I walked with every muscle aching among the lights of 27th and Welton ... in Denver ... feeling that the best ... (my) world had offered (me) was not enough ecstasy ... not enough life, kicks, darkness, music, not enough night."

Kerouac was the one who named his group of artists "The Beats." There is mystery surrounding this term. Many people suppose it refers to a drum or heartbeat, and referred to the rhythm of the poetry, which is very similar to the hip-hop artists of today. But Kerouac actually called his friends the Beats as a short form of beatific, which was the kind of ecstacy that he and his friends strove to achieve and what they were really looking for as they wandered on the road of life.

From page 54, Jack is on a trip to the mountains for five days without Dean and Carlo, and he's missing them immensely, "They were like the man with the dungeon stone and the gloom, rising from the underground, the sordid hipsters of America, a new beat generation that I was slowly joining." This may be the first use of the words beat generation.

« Last Edit: April 01, 2007, 12:09:21 pm by Front-Ranger »
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