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3.59 AVERAGE
3.59 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
informative
reflective
fast-paced
“Everything is perfect on the street again, the world is permeated with roses of happiness all the time, but none of us know it. The happiness consists in realizing that it is all a great strange dream.”
Like most of Kerouac’s writing, these are stories about his wanderings, his random jobs, his relationships, often – as in the case of “Alone on a Mountaintop” – covering events that he goes into greater detail about in his other books. Since some of these passages were written during the time he was working on those other books it gives a glimpse of what his life was like at a time before he became an icon, the sainted bum. A good deal of it reads like long journal entries, which is the case with most of “Alone on a Mountaintop.” It’s less a recounting of events than it is a recounting of what Kerouac though during the event. His spontaneous prose is amazing in “The Railroad Earth” in particular, which recounts his time as a brakeman with the Southern Pacific Railroad – not just time on the trains, but time wandering the city, his room, his habits and routine (which he always had even in the midst of what could sound like frenetic, constant motion) but all in that peculiarly Kerouac way that makes it sound like the price of his breakfast at the restaurant frequented by bums was something of sacred importance. That’s what you read him for, his making of the profane into the sacred. A walk down the road isn’t a walk, it isn’t a monologue on the crumbling dream or the dream that’s still there or how imperfect/perfect everything and everyone is – it’s all of that and then something else, too. He’s something I come back to often and often it’s when something unpleasant has happened and there’s a need for reassurance. That you’re not the only one who screws up being human, that you’re not the only one bad things happen to that you don’t know how to deal with, you’re not the only one who doesn’t always want to know where you’re going, who doesn’t really understand the world even if at other times you think you do, who sometimes can’t deal with it, can’t deal with people, very well. There are moments when he achieves the kind of peace he always says he’s looking for: “Finally the autumn rains, all-night gales of soaking rain as I lay warm as toast in my sleeping bag and the mornings open cold wild fall days with high wind, racing fogs, racing clouds, sudden bright sun, pristine light on hill patches and my fire crackling as I exult and sing at the top of my voice.” There are also moments when he is that lonesome traveler, which is always an undercurrent in his work, always a thing you can’t escape just as he can’t escape it himself. The whole book echoes this in its disjointed yet connected telling of events and people and places and the thoughts and revelations he’s had, all presented in a sort of episodic form here. “The Vanishing American Hobo” ends the journey and closes with words that – more than any others in this book – speak to the weary lonesome traveler: “I don’t want to show my hand but in sleep I’m helpless to straighten it, yet take this opportunity to see my plea, I’m alone, I’m sick, I’m dying – see my hand uptipped, learn the secret of my human heart, give me the thing, give me your hand, take me to the emerald mountain beyond the city, take me to the safe place, be kind, be nice, smile – I’m too tired now, tired of everything else, I’ve had enough, I give up, I quit, I want to go home, take me home… The woods are full of wardens.”
Like most of Kerouac’s writing, these are stories about his wanderings, his random jobs, his relationships, often – as in the case of “Alone on a Mountaintop” – covering events that he goes into greater detail about in his other books. Since some of these passages were written during the time he was working on those other books it gives a glimpse of what his life was like at a time before he became an icon, the sainted bum. A good deal of it reads like long journal entries, which is the case with most of “Alone on a Mountaintop.” It’s less a recounting of events than it is a recounting of what Kerouac though during the event. His spontaneous prose is amazing in “The Railroad Earth” in particular, which recounts his time as a brakeman with the Southern Pacific Railroad – not just time on the trains, but time wandering the city, his room, his habits and routine (which he always had even in the midst of what could sound like frenetic, constant motion) but all in that peculiarly Kerouac way that makes it sound like the price of his breakfast at the restaurant frequented by bums was something of sacred importance. That’s what you read him for, his making of the profane into the sacred. A walk down the road isn’t a walk, it isn’t a monologue on the crumbling dream or the dream that’s still there or how imperfect/perfect everything and everyone is – it’s all of that and then something else, too. He’s something I come back to often and often it’s when something unpleasant has happened and there’s a need for reassurance. That you’re not the only one who screws up being human, that you’re not the only one bad things happen to that you don’t know how to deal with, you’re not the only one who doesn’t always want to know where you’re going, who doesn’t really understand the world even if at other times you think you do, who sometimes can’t deal with it, can’t deal with people, very well. There are moments when he achieves the kind of peace he always says he’s looking for: “Finally the autumn rains, all-night gales of soaking rain as I lay warm as toast in my sleeping bag and the mornings open cold wild fall days with high wind, racing fogs, racing clouds, sudden bright sun, pristine light on hill patches and my fire crackling as I exult and sing at the top of my voice.” There are also moments when he is that lonesome traveler, which is always an undercurrent in his work, always a thing you can’t escape just as he can’t escape it himself. The whole book echoes this in its disjointed yet connected telling of events and people and places and the thoughts and revelations he’s had, all presented in a sort of episodic form here. “The Vanishing American Hobo” ends the journey and closes with words that – more than any others in this book – speak to the weary lonesome traveler: “I don’t want to show my hand but in sleep I’m helpless to straighten it, yet take this opportunity to see my plea, I’m alone, I’m sick, I’m dying – see my hand uptipped, learn the secret of my human heart, give me the thing, give me your hand, take me to the emerald mountain beyond the city, take me to the safe place, be kind, be nice, smile – I’m too tired now, tired of everything else, I’ve had enough, I give up, I quit, I want to go home, take me home… The woods are full of wardens.”
This made me realize how much more I prefer his work as audiobooks (where someone else can decipher the stream of consciousness writing), but it had some good ones. The railroad one was longer than I'd have liked and held me back from reading it I think
Some of this book was hella uninteresting, like Kerouac’s style is cool but when he’s talking about railroads I was like 📖😴 but the three chapters about New York, the mountain and Europe were absolute perfection, genuinely beautiful and it’s here where the style shines, chronicling imperceptible details of cities and life that would go over the head of another writer
I actually really enjoyed this. Maybe it was because I’d just recently rewatched kill you darlings, but I was endeared to Jack Kerouac after sort of growing out of him thanks to the movie, and this non-fiction novel helped cement that renewed good will.
This book is as rambly as ever, but it has a special charm as it documents his journey as a lost soul and a writer, living for his craft. His adventures are wild to think about today, as well as unnecessary really, but they make for a good book. Better than Dharma Bums for sure honestly, felt more real. Don’t know why he ever chose to hide behind fiction. Or maybe I just like the name dropping.
This book is as rambly as ever, but it has a special charm as it documents his journey as a lost soul and a writer, living for his craft. His adventures are wild to think about today, as well as unnecessary really, but they make for a good book. Better than Dharma Bums for sure honestly, felt more real. Don’t know why he ever chose to hide behind fiction. Or maybe I just like the name dropping.
adventurous
reflective
medium-paced
25th book of 2020.
Continuing my lovely wonderful Kerouac binge. I wrote my Big Sur review in a Kerouac style, or tried, but I won't do that again; I have some thoughts on this one, and want to partly relate it to some of his other works that I've read.
At first, this one didn't interest me much. Kerouac gives us eight parts in different places, so it's a little like short stories, rather than one period of his life like his other novels. The first four parts (Named: Piers of the Homeless Night, Mexico Fellaheen, The Railroad Earth, Slobs of the Kitchen Sea) are definitely in the spirit and voice of a younger, On the Road, like Kerouac - rambling, swearing, a bit over-the-top maybe. I compare it to the bull-fighting bravado version of Hemingway compared to the mythic beauty of Old Man and the Sea Hemingway; I don't mean to compare them as men, but simply as the contrast of their voices throughout their lives. From what I've read of Kerouac so far, his On the Road voice is young, ambitious, but also a little too far, then it matures slightly in The Dharma Bums but remains young, hopeful, full of life and joy for the world... before the Big Sur period; Kerouac becomes sensitive, self-aware, still in awe of the beauty of the world but reflective of it, the beauty, compared to the pain he feels. And then in the end Satori in Paris, his ruin, I suppose, the drink victorious.
I digress. The second half of this book, Lonesome Traveller, (reminding myself what I'm meant to be talking about) is far better. New York Scenes, Alone on a Mountaintop, Big Trip to Europe, The Vanishing American Hobo. His scenes of New York is mostly a painting the beatniks, what they did, where they ate and drank, it's not bad, not great. Being alone on the mountaintop is returning to his time as a fire warden again, which he talks of in other books, namely, that's where The Dharma Bums ends; it is not repetitive though, though I could read about Kerouac on top of a mountain with his thoughts for the rest of my life; I underlined mostly in this part. No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength. - Learning for instance, to eat when he's hungry and sleep when he's sleepy. Or this wonderful, cryptic quote, the best kind from Kerouac, that fill you up with beauty for the world: Thinking of the stars night after night I begin to realise 'The stars are words' and all the innumerable worlds in the Milky Way are words, and so is this world too. And I realise that no matter where I am, whether in a little room full of thought, or in this endless universe of stars and mountains, it's all in my mind. There's no need for solitude. So love life for what it is, and form no preconceptions whatever in your mind.
His trip to Europe has a little bit with him and writer William S. Burroughs, which I always find interesting when writers talk about other writers, a perfect example being Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. He then travels France and London. He describes Paris well. I read Satori in Paris in Paris at the end of last year and was disappointed; Kerouac rarely delved into Paris, the roads and the sights, so I could see them as he did; he was mostly drunk in bars, this being at the end of his career. However, here, he walks down the Boulevard St-Germain as I did several months ago, he wanders the Louvre... For Paris, it's a better and more detailed read. At the end of the chapter he is mistaken for a bum and almost misses his train, getting tangled up with some authorities, and desperately tries to prove himself as an American writer. They ring the publishing office but no one answers as it's a Saturday. Finally, in his bag, he finds something about him and Miller and they realise who he is. In London he borrows a fiver off his agent there.
And finally, for I've nearly finished talking, his last chapter is an oddly insightful look into the 'hobo' and the disintegration of it in the modern world. This partly comes up in later work, in the beginning of Big Sur he notes how hitchhiking is hardly possible anymore, cars are full with families and no one wants some bum off the road, unlike how it was in the 50s, during his On the Road days with Neal Cassady. It's very applicable now, even. There's something strange going on, you cant even be alone any more in the primitive wilderness ('primitive areas' so-called), there's always a helicopter comes and snoops around, you need camouflage; it makes me feel glad Kerouac wasn't born in this generation, poor free spirit, there's no freedom now, Jackie. Some police stop him as he's wandering on a beach and ask him what he's doing. I'll finish with their exchange - further presenting the beauty of old Mr Kerouac, sorely missed, though I never met him.
'Where you goin'?'
'Sleep.'
'Sleep where?'
'On the sand.'
'Why?'
'Got my sleeping bag.'
'Why?'
'Studyin' the great outdoors.'
'Who are you? Let's see your identification.'
'I just spent a summer with the Forest Service.'
'Did you get paid?'
'Yeah.'
'Then why don't you go to a hotel?'
'I like it better outdoors and it's free.'
'Why?'
'Because I'm studying hobo.'
Continuing my lovely wonderful Kerouac binge. I wrote my Big Sur review in a Kerouac style, or tried, but I won't do that again; I have some thoughts on this one, and want to partly relate it to some of his other works that I've read.
At first, this one didn't interest me much. Kerouac gives us eight parts in different places, so it's a little like short stories, rather than one period of his life like his other novels. The first four parts (Named: Piers of the Homeless Night, Mexico Fellaheen, The Railroad Earth, Slobs of the Kitchen Sea) are definitely in the spirit and voice of a younger, On the Road, like Kerouac - rambling, swearing, a bit over-the-top maybe. I compare it to the bull-fighting bravado version of Hemingway compared to the mythic beauty of Old Man and the Sea Hemingway; I don't mean to compare them as men, but simply as the contrast of their voices throughout their lives. From what I've read of Kerouac so far, his On the Road voice is young, ambitious, but also a little too far, then it matures slightly in The Dharma Bums but remains young, hopeful, full of life and joy for the world... before the Big Sur period; Kerouac becomes sensitive, self-aware, still in awe of the beauty of the world but reflective of it, the beauty, compared to the pain he feels. And then in the end Satori in Paris, his ruin, I suppose, the drink victorious.
I digress. The second half of this book, Lonesome Traveller, (reminding myself what I'm meant to be talking about) is far better. New York Scenes, Alone on a Mountaintop, Big Trip to Europe, The Vanishing American Hobo. His scenes of New York is mostly a painting the beatniks, what they did, where they ate and drank, it's not bad, not great. Being alone on the mountaintop is returning to his time as a fire warden again, which he talks of in other books, namely, that's where The Dharma Bums ends; it is not repetitive though, though I could read about Kerouac on top of a mountain with his thoughts for the rest of my life; I underlined mostly in this part. No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength. - Learning for instance, to eat when he's hungry and sleep when he's sleepy. Or this wonderful, cryptic quote, the best kind from Kerouac, that fill you up with beauty for the world: Thinking of the stars night after night I begin to realise 'The stars are words' and all the innumerable worlds in the Milky Way are words, and so is this world too. And I realise that no matter where I am, whether in a little room full of thought, or in this endless universe of stars and mountains, it's all in my mind. There's no need for solitude. So love life for what it is, and form no preconceptions whatever in your mind.
His trip to Europe has a little bit with him and writer William S. Burroughs, which I always find interesting when writers talk about other writers, a perfect example being Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. He then travels France and London. He describes Paris well. I read Satori in Paris in Paris at the end of last year and was disappointed; Kerouac rarely delved into Paris, the roads and the sights, so I could see them as he did; he was mostly drunk in bars, this being at the end of his career. However, here, he walks down the Boulevard St-Germain as I did several months ago, he wanders the Louvre... For Paris, it's a better and more detailed read. At the end of the chapter he is mistaken for a bum and almost misses his train, getting tangled up with some authorities, and desperately tries to prove himself as an American writer. They ring the publishing office but no one answers as it's a Saturday. Finally, in his bag, he finds something about him and Miller and they realise who he is. In London he borrows a fiver off his agent there.
And finally, for I've nearly finished talking, his last chapter is an oddly insightful look into the 'hobo' and the disintegration of it in the modern world. This partly comes up in later work, in the beginning of Big Sur he notes how hitchhiking is hardly possible anymore, cars are full with families and no one wants some bum off the road, unlike how it was in the 50s, during his On the Road days with Neal Cassady. It's very applicable now, even. There's something strange going on, you cant even be alone any more in the primitive wilderness ('primitive areas' so-called), there's always a helicopter comes and snoops around, you need camouflage; it makes me feel glad Kerouac wasn't born in this generation, poor free spirit, there's no freedom now, Jackie. Some police stop him as he's wandering on a beach and ask him what he's doing. I'll finish with their exchange - further presenting the beauty of old Mr Kerouac, sorely missed, though I never met him.
'Where you goin'?'
'Sleep.'
'Sleep where?'
'On the sand.'
'Why?'
'Got my sleeping bag.'
'Why?'
'Studyin' the great outdoors.'
'Who are you? Let's see your identification.'
'I just spent a summer with the Forest Service.'
'Did you get paid?'
'Yeah.'
'Then why don't you go to a hotel?'
'I like it better outdoors and it's free.'
'Why?'
'Because I'm studying hobo.'
Easy & hard to get through, at the same time. I enjoyed his thoughts on the road and his reminisces of nature and the outdoors was comforting.
"Al pensar cada noche y todas las noches en las estrellas, empecé a entender algo: 'Las estrellas son palabras' y los innumerable mundos de la Vía Láctea son palabras, y así sucede también en este mundo. Y comprendí asimismo que importa poco en qué lugar esté yo, si en un cuartito colmado de ideas o en este universos infinito de estrellas y montaña: todo está en mi pensamiento. La soledad no es necesaria. Entonces: hay que amar la vida por lo que es y no permitir que nos dominen preconceptos."