Featured Artist: Jack Kerouac

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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Posted this in another forum but thought it would be cool here enjoy:

Ever get that notion that you’re small and insignificant, a speck on the planet that is in itself a speck on the universe? Well you are, but that is okay because you see we are all part of the flow of energy, and currently we are in a state of universal potential energy for something else. When we die our corpses will feed the worms, or perhaps the grass. This is the basic fact of our existence that we must embrace and love for its sluggish drunken nature, because life is: “A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” This is realization and point of exploration for a man named Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), a writer.

Trying to explain Jack Kerouac and his writing is precisely like trying to explain Jazz or Blues so I won’t try. You can read his bio here I suppose, but that won’t help you. Kerouac, an avid fan of Jazz music, saw life very much in that naïve way: shut off your mind and feel. He wrote in spontaneous prose with little or no grammatical corrections, creating a stream of conscious style primitive yet beautiful and honest. I wouldn’t consider Kerouac a writer as much as I would consider him a musician of the soul, a spiritual leader, and I think that if you’re a musician you can learn more from him than every theory book combined.

James Baldwin (1924-1987): “All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it. And even then, on the rare occasions when something opens within, and the music enters, what we mainly hear, or hear corroborated, are personal, private, vanishing evocations. But the man who creates the music is hearing something else, is dealing with the roar rising from the void and imposing order on it as it hits the air.” A quote from another great writer, but what do you think the void is? Well you may have your opinions, but I have a notion that the void is in fact the vastness of unseen energy that reverberates in our very souls, or spiritual potential energy of you will, raw and powerful. This is the same void that Kerouac …….

I was going to type more ^^ but I just can’t because it’s like explaining life and that just cannot be done, it must be felt. Some think babies know the universal secrets, well perhaps they do, as they have no perceptions of death or life, which define our lives. I’ll just paste some Kerouac highlights I’ve come across that exhibit the nature of his prose:

“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 everybody goes "Awww!”

“I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life.”

“All human beings are also dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together.”

“…colleges being nothing but grooming schools for the middleclass non-identity which usually finds its perfect expression on the outskirts of the campus in rows of well-to-do houses with lawns and television sets is each living room with everybody looking at the same thing and thinking the same thing at the same time while the Japhies of the world go prowling in the wilderness…”

“He took his time coming over. ‘You boys going to get somewhere, or just going?’ We didn’t understand his question, and it was a damned good question.”

“Isn’t it true that you start your life a sweet child believing in everything under your father’s roof? Then comes the day of the Laodiceans, when you know you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, and with the visage of a gruesome grieving ghost you go shuddering through nightmare life.”

“That wasn’t it. Something, someone, some spirit was pursuing all of us across the desert of life and was bound to catch us before we reached heaven. Naturally, now that I look back on it, this is only death: death will overtake before heaven. The one thing that we yearn for in our living days, that is the remembrance of some lost bliss that was probably experienced in the womb and can only be reproduced in death.”

“We were all delighted, we all realized we were leaving confusion and nonsense behind and performing our one and noble function of the time, move.”

“Stranger flowers yet—for as the Negro (jazz player) alto mused over everyone’s head with dignity, the young, tall, slender, blond kid from Curtis Street, Denver, jeans and studded belt, sucked on his mouthpiece while waiting for the others to finish; and when they did he started, and you had to look around to see where the solo was coming from, for it came form the angelical smiling lips upon the mouthpiece and it was a soft, sweet, fairy-tale solo on an alto. Lonely as America, a throat-pierced sound in the night.”

“The bottom of the world is gold and the world is upside down.”

If you’re going to give him a try I would recommend On The Road

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i’ve read On The Road.

i have to say i agree with Truman Capote’s assessment:

“that’s not writing, that’s typing.”

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meh, thats like calling jazz “playing” not “making music.” I dissagree, but I dont read kerouac for his writing structure, though it is interesting, I read for the vision.

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Truman was brilliant… but he was also a pretentious boob. i would say his remark reads more like a compliment from someone like himself.

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Yes, and he did seem bothered enough to even comment on what was to him irrelevant writing.