Jack Kerouac

Kerouac, Jack (Jean Louis) (Kerouac, Jack) - American writer (1922-1969), the protagonist of the colorful and hitherto little-studied generation beat (Beat), author of novels, poetry collections and essays. The man who has defined many years to come aesthetics intellectual counter-culture.

He was called a classic of contemporary American prose, then the successful graphomania, considered a strong innovator, just a talented compiler. Literary legacy left by him, struck his level and at the same time - a clear eclectic. Written in a different manner, his works can be heard in one key, rather than forming a cycle, and a single narrative. Almost all books of this mysterious harbinger of beat and psychedelic boom of the 60 x 20 in. autobiographical, but only insofar as they are variations on the author's way of life, continuous improvisation with a fair amount of fiction.

Born March 12, 1922 in the town of Lowell, Massachusetts. The first samples of the pen back to the late 30's (short stories - "Brothers" 1939 and "Une Veille de Noel", 1940), when Kerouac was still at school. After a short training at Columbia University writes in the merchant navy, soon turns into a naval, but quickly cools to the harsh discipline and army orders. Doctors recognize him mentally unhealthy, and the boy is once again on dry land.

Prose sketches and the first, unfinished novel "The sea is my brother," which he wrote in those years, testified to the undeniable gift of a future leader of the Beats, but were quite pupils'. But the next, "City and Town", published in 1950, he opened the road to great literature. This work was made all that took the author's lifetime, to which he constantly returned. Then the letter of the young author has gravitated to the relatively consistent naturalism, and the traditional realist tendencies dominated. However, the "City and town" - the beginning of the legend of Duluoze, multi-volume epic about the past and the present author, of confusing the vital and creative conflicts, and the relentless search for the miraculous way as to remain oneself in a consumer society.

The action of the book takes place in the hometown of Kerouac, the characters - his family and friends, however, are direct parallels are not always acceptable. For example, the very author 'I' is sprayed on the individual features of a number of characters - the sons of George Martin. On the one hand, . in the characters of the novel and in the narrative of Western culture is personified with its inescapable moral and religious issues, . the other - civitas terrena (deg Earth), . specific point on the map, . ancestral home of the young rebel,
. This circumstance unites one of the first experiments of Kerouac in great shape with the historical tradition 'familistic' (and 'local' - from the Latin. locus - place) literature. However, in cities and towns, not by nervousness hopelessness that reigns in the pages of William Faulkner - Take the "mansion" - which views itself the successor to Jack. His perspective is alien to the social determination of consciousness, which was almost as crucial for the previous generations of American writers, as well as for the writer's contemporaries, for example, D. Steinbeck ( "The Winter of our discontent," "The Grapes of Wrath").

In "cities and towns" under false names appear on the new friends Kerouac, Ginsberg and William A. Burrows, with whom he had brought a close acquaintance in the mid 40's. In the same period, there is the very concept of beat - Kerouac learned that word from a random conversation with a friend, hipsters, and made the symbol of a generation, his metaphor. Confusion, internal protest against the quiet Eisenhower America - that unite these people: writers and musicians, bohemian artists and poor students. They tried to smelt ore from the verbal language of the past, . adapted for the revelations of post-industrial era, . seeking to liberate minds through different means - from the literary experiment, . art-happening to drug use,
. Being born in a creative, . albeit not an elitist medium, . this movement, . how he believed the founders, . not assumed a mass character, . (here meant a bit like the phenomenon of art, . but as the image and philosophy of life, he received unusually widespread),
. Moreover: the beatniks had no program, no manifesto, however, an analog thereof, some researchers consider A. Ginsberg poem "Howl" (1955).

Fully correlate aesthetics 'New Revolutionaries' to facilities existed at the time of flows is not possible, although these underground heroes of the postwar years, and called one of the founders of postmodernism. The most distinct of these inconsistencies show through a series of 'spontaneous' linguistic canvases Kerouac, on the development of style which can be traced all the troubles and controversies in the chaotic history of the bit generation.

'Is broken' was a reaction to the launch of protective mechanisms of society. After the Second World War, people wanted peace and confidence. Beats yet even their behavior in everyday life violated all conventional norms. They listened to music bop (cm. jazz), their idols were Lester Young and Charlie Parker, and leisure time they preferred to carry out - with marijuana, religious and philosophical dispute, and insane, but artistically charming antics. Not that he so impressed the mind 'from the bottom' of society, where they were from the perspective of ordinary people who wanted to see in just a pathetic caricature of the Beats. Edakii surly bearded losers who dress in every old, tongue-tied, but ambitious, anxious drinking and sex. To hide, smoke without fire: many beatniks were peculiar to all earthly evils. However, their services are much higher that 'harm', which they allegedly caused virtuous fellow-citizens. Poetic renaissance in San Francisco, echoes of which reaches us from the pages of one of Kerouac's novels, only a fraction of what brought beatniks in the American and world culture. Cinema indebted to them 'nonlinear, imazhinistskim assembly' (Ted Friend, "Beats, which we deserved," Lane. M. Nemtsov), mass-cult - a number of recent findings (for instance, have become fashionable frayed sweaters and khaki, scruffy beard), and then transformed into stereotypes

. Kerouac was never able to completely reject soaked with mothers' milk patriotic and family values, could not completely withdraw from the text, which, despite the interest and the freedom of exposition, he has always maintained an artistic unity
. Techniques such as cutting and then an arbitrary, mechanical joining fragments of a once-text, which is practiced Burroughs, there was little understanding of Kerouac. Once printed, the text was not for him raw material for the experiment, he valued his works.

The most famous essay Kerouac - "On the Road" (1951, first published in 1957), was written in three weeks at a furious pace. The impetus for change was the communication style of the writer with Neil Kessedi. The embodiment of ideal bitnichestva, writer and mystic, 'a sinner, libertine, an atheist', he, without knowing it, prompted Kerouac to the idea of creating an adequate counter-cultural worldview spontaneous language. No stops printing on roll paper teletype and not making changes, Kerouac created something new that had no precedent in world literature. His method he called 'spontaneous letter'. Some think that it is only changed fundamentally is forgotten trance letter Yeats (Kerouac himself said later that he wrote with an eye on him, seeking a similar effect) - or automatically, invented by the French surrealists. No doubt, Kerouac was somehow familiar, and so, and with another, but the rationale of this approach to literature, lie in a field. Hence the reluctance to return to work with the text after writing, and ragged, syncopated rhythm - solid dash. And the word beat, speaking in the function of the verb, also means 'to beat the rhythm'. Style is likened to breathing, the Association recorded in the original form.

The name "On the Road" - an allegory of life in general and bit of culture in particular, to limit succinct credo of the author.

Despite the fact that Kerouac 'outputs' of their friends almost every novel, under various pseudonyms, often talking about events that took place in reality, it is not in the least becoming memoirist. His prose is closer to the modernist myths. As in earlier works, he puts into the mouths of his characters remarks, which he often can not take on faith and wants to start the 'test of strength'. For example, Dean Moriarty (On the road), the prototype of which was mentioned earlier Neil Kessedi, obsessed with travel and wanders from one company to another, from one city to another through the deserted roads of America and Mexico. For the sake of new experiences, he is even prepared to leave a sick friend. Sal Paradise - it most of the 'a', 'historical' Kerouac - in many ways similar to his prodigal brother of wandering, but not sure if that alone were traveling, burning an eternal life finds its true. Thus, the existential perspective is being developed not only through story and fable canvas, but also through the characters that are organically creative Kerouac. The author blends with his text, co-existent to him.

For several decades, many disputes caused keruakovskoe understanding of Buddhism. Zen, who came to the post-war America from Japan, called as European existentialism, this epidemic among young intellectuals. She did not want to depend on the values of hypocritical on their standards of middle class, assimilated Eastern religion as a panacea for all ills. Zen came into resonance with the sentiments prevalent among the 'beat generation'. He intended for each of your own way to achieve enlightenment and not forced to abandon worldly temptations, did not ask imperatives as prophetic Christianity. On the contrary - meant the natural existence without deviation in the extremes - the movement of the stream, when the illumination (satori) can overtake at any time and may be caused by the most unusual reasons.

Kerouac is remarkable is the fact that, while remaining western man to the bone, goes to his intuitive, as if according to Zen. It develops genres, forms, and, most importantly, the art treasures of the Christian world, taking as an ideological basis of an alien to the religion and philosophy. This is his genius and tragedy.

"Visions of Cody" (1960) - a continuation of the novel "On the Road". Cody - the literary counterpart of the same Nile Kessedi, but at the same time and some idealized image of himself Kerouac, animated view of his doubts and spiritual discoveries, at the Time of Troubles. The book was published entirely only four years after the author's death: too bold, and seemed unusual style, which refers to a verse Surrealist experiments in early 20. Resembling at times in his alogical nature of Buddhist koan. Stream of consciousness has become even more dramatic and emotional, but here he does not turn into a complete visions ( "Book of Dreams", 1960). As in European modernism, idiostyle (individual style), took the plot, the linear arrangement. In the pictorial style dominated impressionistic tendencies, the text is saturated with the specific slang, colloquialisms turnovers.

In "Rogue of the Dharma" (1958) time-space of the road gives way chronotops mountains: heroes do not seek harmony through movement, meditation and statics. Ray Smith (Kerouac) and Jeff Ryder (Gary Snyder) ascend into the mountains to feel the futility of all things, 'see' the emptiness. Kerouac appears here as an adherent of the classical Zen. Take the world as what-it-is, as if you were in it, let me look at him, avoiding the redundancy of psycho-emotional mechanisms, philosophising to anything. "Hab restless artist / In a world of random guises" - wrote Gumilev. The restless artist - Kerouac, and the surroundings - 'world of random guises'. The author's view is directed inward, to the primordial essence of the characters. Their social contacts are minimal, the plot is extremely blurred. Some researchers use the term 'keruakovsky solipsism', implying that the limit subjectivism Kerouac, who painted the entire fabric of the narrative

. Kerouac weary of cultural predetermination of his discourse, . but could do nothing: his enthusiasm for wildlife, although fresh and oriental embracing, . and sentimental in the best sense of the word - now completely in the American,
. Indifference, which wants to achieve its hero, it seems a chimera, when you read the touching landscape descriptions, very rich emotional and color: 'Sunsets is mad orange fools:'. Descriptive naturalism in prose like impressionism in painting - the desire to capture the external circumstances of their fleeting proportions clearly as possible, . subtly and in detail: the sunlight decomposes the whole spectrum, . and strokes, . opposite, . formed a single picture,
. And in this - the whole Kerouac.

He can not reach the indifference, even to the extent that, as his characters, for himself - too self-critical, prone to psychoanalysis and the denial of progress, that the carrier Zen - too much.

The essence of the hero's conflict with the beliefs of the modern 'society of prosperity' lies in the following lines: '... I am interested in the first of the four noble truths of Shakyamuni:' Life is suffering '. And also to some extent the third: 'Overcoming the suffering is attainable' '. ( "Dharma Bums").

After Kerouac literature knows no precedents of such a thin, desperate attempt to bring Zen to the Western reader (except, perhaps, prose RM Persiga).

The novel "Underground" (1958) is a confused confession, made in the usual manner for Kerouac - memories of old hopes, people, incidents. Unlike "Rogue of the Dharma" (1958), this book is no hint of a program of action, but there is an atmosphere of latent anxiety and despair. Life and doomed, 'underground' revolt Beat imprinted fragmentary, unevenly. Most commentators are not saying a word, focus on the psychotherapeutic aspect of the narrative, at the junction of Freudian and existentialist motifs - a significant statement about the role of the latter is hardly would prefer the author. He had already experienced the burden of fame at the time of the construction of underground, because he wrote an even more relaxed and boldly.

Best, from the standpoint of the writer's works (for example, "Doctor Sax" and "Mexico City Blues" - 1959) were either overlooked by critics, or misunderstood, perhaps not get the bird. Although, . that Kerouac did not write a single article, . which was to bring his aesthetic position under serious theoretical base (eg, . "Fundamentals of spontaneous prose, . Faith and technology in contemporary prose "), . thick journals are often assessed as the revelation of the King of the Beats' scrappy, . pretentious nonsense '(New York Times),
.

As a poet Kerouac less popular than the novelist, but as a recent study by American researchers primarily. Most of his novels is unknown audience

. Doctor Sax "(1959), . with vague biblical allusions-Blake, . allowing for the incredible inconsistency of perception and reads, . written under the influence of drugs, . that is uncharacteristic for Kerouac, . and communication with William Burroughs, . whose features, . along with keruakovskimi, . guessed in the guise of Dr. Sachs, . mysterious double or satellite hero,
.

In the "Book of Dreams" (1960) collected the night vision Kerouac for several years. Here terrible absurd attitude aimed at destroying the ideals of the average American's successful. Sur Book of Dreams "is not algebraically sketchy and austere, like, for example, J. Harms and E. Ionesco, as well - the burning, denouncing - coupled with the policies and culture of the Cold War and the shaky, but in a real world

. Even Kerouac typed (typed - as before, . directly on the machine): Satori in Paris "(1966), . "Maggie Kessedi" (1959), . "Tristessu" (1960), . "Mexico City Blues" (1955), . "Big Sur" (1962) - Big Sur, . He is Big Sur, . or the Big Ge - another game, . based on the transformation of names in the metaphor, . "Visions of Gerard" (1963) and a number of works,
.

It is difficult to thoroughly determine the date of writing of a novel, poetry collection, short stories - many were started long before the final form, and certainly before the first publication, when it was - sometimes we can not say for sure

. The restless artist, . toured the country in search of enlightenment, . shock the audience and his style, . and avant-garde antics in collaboration with the founders of fragmented counter-cultural resistance, . died October 31, 1969 in St. Petersburg, . Florida from extensive gastric hemorrhage,
. Even the great troublemaker Burrows miraculously managed to recover from drug and Kerouac died from the more ancient scourge of mankind - alcohol. Beats harmony not found 'for themselves', and for their followers and readers. They themselves burned under the yoke of excessive neural overload and LSD, and not being able to implement those decisions, which found in their broken, exalted passages beyond reality.

Many tend to see in the Kerouac one of the first post-modernists. At the same time, . although often the world around, . seen by the eyes of the author, . chaotic and unnecessarily cruel, . writer, . despite the trend of the times, . desired movement constructive, . in his work can be traced antientropiynye trends, . even timid, . arising spontaneously,
. As for 'rucksack revolution', which he predicted in "Rogue of the Dharma", it did not occur exactly as hoped by. Most of the representatives of the wave of post-bitnichestva (for the most part - 'flower children') were interested in only the outside of the culture and mythology created by predecessors. Been borrowed minor rituals, jargon, finally, the very posture of protest, but it was the flip side, the underside of the same 'social welfare'. Risk Beat for the last was that they really found the strength to try to be different, without signing the 'social contract'. Their sad and joyful work for a couple of decades has created a rich soil in order to develop literature reached its peak following

. Calling Kerouac direct heir and successor of the tradition of Dostoevsky, . Whitman, . Yates, . Faulkner, . Joyce can be a big stretch, . although he often claimed similar (underground, he compares with "Notes from Underground Dostoevsky I, . "Dr. Sachs called the third part of" Faust "JW Goethe),
. Rather, Kerouac took the baton of progressive, ecstatically strong and talented, that appeared a few centuries in the Western literature.

So he was a Bodhisattva with a face actor, a child of the East and West, Jack Kerouac.