Zack Vanderbilt- American Author: Jack Kerouac

American Author Thesis Proposal

2008-04-15T18:03:00.000-07:00

For my American Author, I read 3 books by Jack Kerouac; On the Road, The Dharma Bums, and Desolation Angels. Each book was written at different points in the height of his career and life. Some say, namely his official biographer, that he spent a large portion of his career trying to publish on the road, and then spent the rest of his life trying to live it down. Kerouac was quite possibly a introvert. He spent a great deal of his life avoiding people, even his friends and lovers. He could not handle the depression he was victim to. His official biographer attributes this to his alcoholism and to being homeless. The points just mentioned will be the focus of my thesis. As of now I have a good body of work to base my points off of, but reading a biography about him will very necessary in putting all the facts together.
Methods for coping with depression vary from person to person. Some just bottle it up, some take medicine, some take illicit substances, and others just withdraw themselves from everything and everyone. The final method mentioned was a strategy employed by Jack Kerouac. Kerouac was the leader in the beat generation. An age in which depression and hard times were in, and easy going life styles were out. This was time that Kerouac depicted, using his own life experiences, in his books. Kerouac used a unique way to discuss his own life experiences in his writing. All the characters, most of which he new personally at one point or another in his life, all given different names in the books than they had in real life. Although this may not seem like an important fact about his writing style, consider he changed the names of the character to bring a sense of fiction to his reality. He did this because he could not fully accept his reality therefore he had to fictionalize it make it tolerable.

Thesis

2008-04-08T22:41:00.000-07:00

I wont lie, I have been extremely lazy since my last post. The gears are winding down as the end of the year approaches. However, I have started my third book, a sixteenth of which is devoted to an elaborate introduction. Thus far I have only read the intro and a the first few pages. It actually begins with a recollection of him, who now is named , Jack Moorely, on Desolation Peak. What immediately struck me about this is that he doesn’t sound all happy this time, but very depressed. He talks about being up there contemplating suicide by throwing himself off the cliff, but he cant make the “great leap.” For once, being an isolationists means being unbearably bored, and it appears that this boredom is what almost drives him off the edge.

Thesis possibility:

Methods for coping with depression vary from person to person. Some just bottle it up, some take medicine, some take illicit substances, and others just withdraw themselves from everything and everyone. The final method mentioned was a strategy employed by Jack Kerouac. Kerouac was the leader in the beat generation. An age in which depression and hard times were in, and easy going life styles were out. This was time that Kerouac depicted, using his own life experiences, in his books.

Trends:

Continuous mention of ghosts in every book.
Same storyline with the same characters just with different names.
Repetition of events.
Can’t find a home.

Withdrawl From Society

2008-04-08T22:28:00.001-07:00

Since my last post, I finished The Dharma Bums, which was from page 62 to 244. The ending was really bizarre. I left off at were Ray and his friends decided to climb the Madderhorn. After they get back from the climb, they reside in Berkeley for a while and party and what not. Then Ray moves back east to live with his mom and family for a few months. He gets really depressed at how disapproving they are of his beliefs and what not so he leaves. He moves in with Japhy in their friends back yard in Corte Madera. They have a shack there and Japhy sleeps there while Ray sleeps outside. Japhy announced his decision to move to Japan for a while to study under Buddhist masters in temples. They had a week or so of going away parties filled with alcohol and girls and fun stuff. Ray was getting set to go to Desolation Peak in Washington to be a fire look out for the summer. After Japhy left, Ray followed in his own direction. It takes three days and two other men to get Ray up to the peak with his supplies for his 60 day stay. Once settled into his little shack atop the 6000 foot peak, the two men leave Ray with his thoughts, and the monstrous Mount Homozeen, looming in the distance. He seems to really enjoy being by himself, happy even. Once his term ends, he realizes he must reenter society. He uses the term reality, as though the isolation spent on Desolation Peak was a fantasy.

I think the end of this book really sets the stage for a an excellent essay topic; Kerouac’s withdrawal from society. To take that a step further, it may be interesting to explore why he deliberately withdrawals himself from all people. As of now I can only assume it has to do with his alcohol abuse and his depression from being homeless for so long. There are numerous examples of the characters who play Kerouac, explicitly describe how he abuses alcohol and how wherry homeless and wandering can be. I think if i choose to stray away from this topic, I would maybe argue that Kerouac never uses the actual names of people because the reality of it was too much to bear, so he renames the people, making everything a fantasy, thereby dulling down the pain.

Different book, same people

2008-03-13T16:53:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I have started my second book, The Dharma Bums, and reached page 62. What has happened so far is the main character, Ray Smith, travels from San Luis Obispo to San Francisco to meet up with his “Zen Lunatic” friends, Jasphy and Morley. After some Yabyum, a fancy word for Tibetan orgy, they decide to climb the Madderhorn.

As soon as I started reading, I noticed the striking similarities to On The Road. It felt like it was a continuation of On The Road with eh same characters just with different names. Kerouac even mentions the route Sal and Dean took across America. I think a possible essay could spring from this. Something like Kerouac has multiple names for the same characters because of the persons’ change in personality makes them a different person. Or something like that. If that does not fan out, then I could also try to discuss depression within the books in terms of times in Kerouac’s life.

Symbolism

2008-03-13T16:52:00.000-07:00

During the time from my last post, I read from page 90 to the end which was something like 307 I believe. In short, Sal left the Mexican girl, went back to New York, lived there for a while. Went back to San Francisco with Dean. Then went to Mexico for new experiences. There he lived for a while and Dean left after a few days to keep moving. It ended up being a very moving piece about peoples’ relationships and how Kerouac viewed America while he traveled. Symbolism does not appear very obviously in his writing, after I finished the book and thought to myself, I realized that he kind of made each state or town a symbol for a feeling. For example, San Francisco was excitement, Denver was depression. The only other symbol I noticed was whenever he said “time” in a certain context, Kerouac had the word in all caps for what seemed to be no apparent reason. I think he was trying to somehow connect time to music, but I think to really make a good argument about that I need to reread a little.

Another interesting style Kerouac uses is repetition. He continually mentions the same events, the same relationships, the same sights, occurring in different locations across America. One of the more noticeable times where this happened is during his descriptions of how depressing bus stations were, and of course, how they were the same everywhere you go.

Winter Reading

2008-02-27T21:17:00.000-08:00

During winter break, I read from page 39 to page 90. I was very sick so I did not get far. The story did progress a great deal though. Sal met up with his friends in Denver, several new characters are introduced that seem to play little importance in the story. He hangs around and talks a great deal with a man named Dean Morarity, and another named Carlo Marx. Sal becomes fed up with Denver and takes a gray hound bus to San Francisco. After several months of work and partying, he becomes tired of San Francisco as well and decides to move back home. His problem is he has no money though so he must hitch hike most of the way (I forgot to mention before, most of his travels are done by way of hitchhiking). He stops in Manteca, where he met a beautiful Mexican girl named Terry. He falls fast for her and they begin sleeping with each other in several hotels as they wander east. They stopped at her home town of Sabinal for her to visit her parents; Sal could not be seen by them. They refused to let her leave again. Sal and her made a date to meet up in New York in the future.

I am having one heck of a time picking up on a theme. I was not taking to many notes from pages 1 to 30, but now I am taking at least one note every other page so I can go back and reread at some point to observe themes. But yeah, as of now I cannot see much of a reoccurring theme, EXCEPT for Kerouac's extremely negative writing style and the way he imposes the sad depressive outlooks on the reader by way of character interactions. I guess another thing I noticed is the possibility of the people that Sal meets being more than just people. They may be symbols of Kerouac's own personality. I think this is a valid point because so many people represent so many different personalities. Dean would be the extrovert, Carlo the introvert, Terry would represent lust or love, Ponzo [Terry's brother] would represent a carefree mentality, and Sal would represent the observer, maybe Kerouac's subconscious.

Pessimistic and sad story telling

2008-02-14T17:20:00.000-08:00

I read from page 1 to page 39 during the span from my first post to this one. The book is still in its introductory phases, although one may still feel deeply involved in the life of Salvatore[the narrator]. Sal began his journey on the road by leaving his home town of New York, to meet up with his friends in Denver.

From On the Road, page 38 to 39:

His specialty was stealing cars, gunning for girls coming out of high school in the afternoon, driving them out to the mountains, making them, and coming back to sleep in any available hotel bathtub in town. His father, once a respectable and hard working tinsmith, had become a wine alcoholic, which is worse than a whiskey alcoholic, and was reduced to riding freights to Texas in the winter and back to Denver in the summer.

Jack Kerouac has this amazing ability to pick people and their lives apart with just a few sentences. His style generally seems to be pessimistic, writing in a way that makes the reader actually feel bad for the victim of his criticism. I expect this to be a reoccurring style that appears in most scenes within the book. It may even be something I can write an essay about. The plot and characters are taken from Jack Kerouac's own experiences in life. The people he met, the places he went, the stories he heard in real life when we traveled from the east coast to Denver, are all represented in the book. The people may have different names, but they are based on real people. So with that as a base it might be interesting to argue why he wrote this way or that in one book and not the other based on the events happening in Kerouac's life.

American Author Proposal

2008-02-14T17:19:00.000-08:00

For my American Author paper, I will be looking at the works of Jack Kerouac. In the beginning of the year, I was well aware of the American Author project looming in the near future. Over summer I had read Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf, which was by far my favorite book that I have ever read. I discussed the topic of existentialism with you Mr. Wells and you recommended Jack Kerouac to me for an American equivalent to Hesse.

Kerouac’s most famous work, On The Road, inspired the beat generation and literature since its was published in 1957. It is an autobiographical novel with characters based on his own friends and acquaintances. With On The Road, I plan on reading The Dharma Bums, also an autobiographical novel, based in the time he spent learning about Buddhism while he lived in California. Originally the third book I was going to read was Orpheus Emerged, because I just had it in my house, but upon review of the book, I found that most people found it extremely dull and stiff compared to his other works. So I will either read it and get another or I may just overlook it and pick up another book, probably Desolation Angel, which I was sold on by reading a review on amazon.com.

As far a literary argument, I am no where close to thinking up a thesis. So far I have read the first two chapters of On The Road and I find that Kerouac can somehow take something that would normally be boring to read (traveling to Denver from the east coast with fifty dollars in your pocket) and makes it hard to stop reading. The only possible theme I have noticed thus far is ability to talk directly to the reader using an “alter ego.” I thought it may be interesting to look to see if he does the same in other books. If that does not pan out well, then a easy topic to write about would be how most of his works are autobiographical to some sense. In nearly all his famous pieces, the characters are based on people he met along life. In each book, the story has a slightly different style, On The Road, is adventurous, The Dharma Bums, possess “joyous affirmation,” and Desolation Angel, is a “sheer descriptive character study and sad observation, of a man trying to grapple with what he sees as the emptiness of all things, and the reality of his own personal struggles with life, love, and death” (Amazon). So from that description of Desolation Angel, I think as I read all of the books, I am going to look for expressions of emotion in his writing and try to place them with the time period in Kerouac’s own life and see if anything extraordinary happens.