Tom's Thoughts and Ideas

Hello friends (imaginary or otherwise). First, I must apologize for being neglectful in my duty of constant self expression. These last weeks have been hectic and tedious, and I have been unable to even read a signifigant amount of personal literature which is a tragedy of incredible proportions. I have begun to read the James Bond books (which will be a post on their own at a later date I think) and that is the extent of my literary experience outside of class. So, I think that I shall return to the well of memory and vaguely recount my thoughts on a book I read some time ago. The titular, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, among other things. Also one can partly blame a good friend of mine for this sudden desire to write, it is hard to tell someone you respect and value the opinion of that your writing is not worth a damn and still remain a credible interlocutor.

But, now we shall descend into the beatniks. Something that has always amused me is that when people talk to me and I mention my immense love for beatnik and 60s counterculture literature is that I receive looks of utter confusion. I am well aware that I look like someone who reads Hemmingway or Twain while smoking. In fact, I neither read those authors nor smoke, so the image is doubly implausible. Yet, it is an image that I am unable to escape from, which is not amazingly objectionable since it is part of who I am for better or worse.

I find beatnik books interesting for a number of reasons. I think that the main reason is parallel to the reason why I find jazz to be a pleasant genre of music. Like jazz, the beats were unpredictable and thrived on improv and vibes more than tradition. When reading a book of the genre, what happens and how it happens is unknown. Events move at a pace that is constantly changing and often feels naturalistic and free. I think that books that are too bound by reality and normalcy suffer. Surrealism and freedom of style are the purest forms of art for exploring the depths of why we are how we are. Removing oneself from reality is key to understanding reality itself. Alice only saw Earth once she returned from Wonderland after all.

Now, to the book at hand. I think that, while Kerouac is clearly the American Proust (that much is clear), On the Road specifically is special within his legend that he spent his life writing. It is a travel book where the protagonist does not really ever travel. He goes across the whole of America a number of times to be sure, but he constantly thinks and wishes for home even when he is happy and in love, nor does he stay in one place for very long. I do not think that the character representing Kerouac ever truly left his house. The narrative is always transient, he goes from one group of people to another never staying too long. While this may be the essence of travel, to me it does not really read like that.

The book reads as a type of manifesto on America viewed through the lens of a beat at the exact time he wrote the book. The time when he is with the character representing William Burroughs is a perfect view of the heroin and humidity induced madness of that place and time. Yet Kerouac does not stay to breath it in, he leaves towards Denver if I recall correctly. A true travel book would feature Kerouac staying for an extended period of time in each place and soaking in the culture and experience of the land. On the Road is a masterpiece, but it is a hitchhiker book rather than a travel one. This may seem like a superficial distinction, but I think that is false. The book is a series of vignettes that build to a strong thesis regarding the cultural transition taking place across the nation at that time, which is not a travel book. I think that the only true way to travel and gain a substantive experience of the world is to live in a different place and culture for years, or at least a long time.

I have gone to Paris many times, yet I think that I can not truly claim to have been to France. I have hitchhiked through France to be sure. The way to experience a place is at your lowest moments, being bored and sad stumbling into a fine cafe for steak frites is a more honest cultural experience than taking a few photos of the Eiffel Tower and leaving a few days later. Now clearly I do not have the ability to truly travel to France as I have a life where I live and also my French has become deeply subpar in recent years. Just now when I attempted to recall some French my mind went to Russian! This is the lens in which I view On the Road. It is a book of stories and small experiences. This is not a critique, it is just a delineation. I love the book and want to read more Kerouac in the near future. Even if my delineation is creating a false distinction I think that it is worth saying. If nothing else I think that putting my thoughts out into the infinite void can do some good, it gives me a small reprieve from my work and the constant entropy of the world around me (another soon to be written post).

I think that Kerouac is a master of small stories. It takes a special skill to be concise and emotionally resonant. The example that best comes to mind is my second favorite poem that he wrote.

The bottoms of my shoes 

     are clean 

From walking in the rain

That is a stunning image I think. I could go into a whole diatribe about why it is poetically intense, but I suspect that I lack the clairvoyance at the moment to truly expose my appreciation for it in a manner that is universally applicable. What I will say is that this poem is a master of inversion. When one thinks of rain, clean is rarely the adjective that comes to mind. Our clothes get dirty and wet when in the rain. Yet, our bodies are clean when we shower. This inversion of the rain cleaning shoes is an interesting one, since presumably the person in question is walking outside which is an inherently dirty environment. Taking an idea and inverting it is poetry 101, but to do it in ten words is a feat of skill and brevity. The cleaning nature of the rain has made me question my aversion to being wet in my own life. Whenever it rains I find myself being somewhat appreciative since the dirt and dust that is inevitably on my shoes is being cleaned off.

This poem is a small story that displays Kerouac’s skill in the medium. On the Road is similar, while less concise as the poem, it features a lot of individually powerful stories that resonate more when placed together. I think that many more verbose authors **cough cough** George RR Martin **cough cough** could learn from this type of shorter and more powerful storytelling techniques.

I feel that while my love of short form writing is signifigant, it is not the only form of writing. Long books that have massive narratives are still good, I will not be caught dead saying that there can not be a good long book. But since my background is in poetry and short fiction it feels dishonest for me to say that I have no biases. I look at a book over 300 pages and wonder if the same story could have been told in 200, often it could not, yet I persist in my own delusions of literary brevity.

It seems likely that I will have to take a Gothic/Tudor/Bronte etc class for my major requirements and while I love the professor I somewhat dread the content. It will be stuffy English people breathing asbestos discussing the intricacies of the many struggles of wealthy society for 600 pages. Send me to Tolstoy hell before this. I hope that it will prove to be unexpectedly interesting. Perhaps wearing tweed jackets will improve morale, we shall see?!

Either way, I find that On the Road is a wonderful example of Kerouac’s mastery of short form emotional writing and encourage those of you who claim to be real people to read it. Those of you who know me personally will see that there are some humorous parallels to my own life in certain parts of the book (not the heroin parts luckily). I hope that I find the time to write more here, since it scratches an itch that I feel is not scratched nearly enough in the perpetually busy lives that we all manage to lead. I hope that I stay true to my word here, and that reading my random thoughts (hence the title of this blog) bring some measure of joy to you. I get joy from knowing that other people can gain something from my ramblings. Even a smile is worthwhile I think.