Information AboutJack Kerouac |
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Jack Kerouac ( March 12 , 1922 , Lowell, Massachusetts – October 21 , 1969 , St. Petersburg, Florida ) was an American Novelist , Writer , Poet , Artist , and part of the Beat Generation . While enjoying popular but little critical success during his own lifetime, Kerouac is now considered one of America's most important authors. The spontaneous, confessional prose style inspired other writers, including Tom Robbins , Richard Brautigan , Hunter S. Thompson , Ken Kesey , Tom Waits and Bob Dylan . Kerouac's best known works are '' On The Road '' and '' The Dharma Bums ''. Most of his life was spent in the vast landscapes of America or living with his mother, with whom he spent most of his life. Faced with a changing country, Kerouac sought to find his place, eventually bringing him to reject the values of the Fifties . His writing often reflects a desire to break free from society's mold and to find meaning in life. This search may have led him to experiment with drugs (he used Psilocybin , Marijuana , and Benzedrine , among others), to study spiritual teachings such as Buddhism , and to embark on trips around the world. Ironically, his books are often credited as the Catalyst for the 1960s Counterculture , even though Kerouac considered himself a political conservative who supported the Vietnam War and disapproved of the Hippie movement. He spent his last years in Northport, New York getting back to his Catholic roots, living alone with his mother and his wife Stella. Kerouac died at the age of forty-seven from a Stomach Hemorrhage thought to have been caused by Alcoholism . LIFE Kerouac was born Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac, in Lowell, Massachusetts , to a family of French-Americans . His parents, Leo-Alcide Kerouac and Gabrielle-Ange Lévesque, were natives of The Province Of Quebec in Canada . Like many other Quebecers of their generation, the Lévesques and Kerouacs were part of the Quebec Emigration to New England to find employment. Jack didn't start to learn English until the age of six. At home, he and his family spoke Quebec French . At an early age, he was profoundly marked by the death of his elder brother Gérard, later prompting him to write the book '' Visions Of Gerard ''. Later, his athletic prowess led him to become a star on his local football team, and this achievement earned him scholarships to , which included people such as Allen Ginsberg , Neal Cassady and William S. Burroughs . Kerouac broke his leg playing football, and he argued constantly with his coach; his football scholarship did not pan out. He joined the Merchant Marine in 1942 . In 1943 , he joined the United States Navy , but was discharged during World War II on psychiatric grounds---he was of "indifferent disposition." During Kerouac's time at Columbia University , Burroughs and Kerouac got into trouble with the law for failing to report a Murder ; this incident formed the basis of a mystery novel the two collaborated on in 1945 entitled '' And The Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks '' (the novel was never published, although an excerpt from the manuscript would be included in the Burroughs compilation '' Word Virus ''). In between his sea voyages, Kerouac stayed in New York with friends from Fordham University in The Bronx . He started writing his first novel, called '' The Town And The City .'' It was published in 1950 under the name "John Kerouac" and earned him some respect as a writer. Unlike Kerouac's later work which establish his Beat style, "The Town and the City" is heavily influenced by Kerouac's reading of Thomas Wolfe . Kerouac wrote constantly but did not publish his next novel for six years. Building upon previous drafts tentatively titled "The Beat Generation" and "Gone On The Road", Kerouac wrote what is now known as ''. Publishers rejected the book due to its experimental writing style and its sympathetic tone towards minorities and marginalized social groups of the United States In The 1950s . In 1957, Viking Press purchased the novel, demanding major revisions. Jack Kerouac." ''American Decades''. Gale Research, 1998. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2006. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC The book was semi-autobiographical, narrated from the point of view of the character Sal Paradise ,describing Kerouac's roadtrip adventures across the United States and Mexico with Neal Cassady , the model for the character of Dean Moriarty . In a way, the story is a retelling of Mark Twain 's classic '' The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn '', though in ''On the Road'' the narrator (Sal Paradise) is twice Huck's age and Kerouac's story is set in an America a hundred years after Twain's story. Kerouac's novel is often described as the defining work of the post-World War II Beat Generation and Kerouac came to be called "the king of the beat generation." Kerouac's friendship with Allen Ginsberg , William Burroughs and Gregory Corso , among others, defined a generation. Kerouac also wrote and narrated a "Beat" movie entitled '' Pull My Daisy '' in 1958 . In 1954 , Kerouac discovered Dwight Goddard 's '' A Buddhist Bible '' at the San Jose Library, which arked the beginning of Kerouac's immersion into Buddhism . He chronicled parts of this, as well as some of his adventures with Gary Snyder and other San Francisco -area poets, in the book '' The Dharma Bums '', set in California and published in 1958 . ''The Dharma Bums'', which some have called the sequel to ''On the Road'', was written in Orlando, Florida during late 1957 through early 1958 . Kerouac developed something of a friendship with the scholar Alan Watts (cryptically named Arthur Wayne in Kerouac's novel '' Big Sur '', and Alex Aums in '' Desolation Angels ''). He also met and had discussions with the famous Japanese Zen Buddhist authority D.T. Suzuki . .]] In July 1957, Kerouac moved to a small house on Clouser Ave. in the College Park section of Orlando, Florida to await the release of ''On the Road''. A few weeks later, the review appears in the '' New York Times '' proclaiming Kerouac the voice of a new generation. Kerouac was hailed as a major American writer, and reluctantly as the voice of the Beat Generation. His fame would come as an unmanageable surge that would ultimately be his undoing. John Antonelli's 1985 documentary ''Kerouac, the Movie'' begins and ends with footage of Kerouac reading from ''On the Road'' and 'Visions of Cody' from '' The Tonight Show '' with Steve Allen in 1957. Kerouac appears intelligent but shy. "Are you nervous?" asks Steve Allen. "Naw," says Kerouac. At some point, Kerouac wrote a biography of Siddhartha Gautama entitled, ''Wake Up'' that remains unpublished. Shortly before his death Kerouac told interviewer Joseph Lelyveld of the ''New York Times'', "I'm not a beatnik. I'm a Catholic." After pointing to a painting of Pope Paul VI , Kerouac noted, "You know who painted that? Me." {Link without Title} He died on October 21 , 1969 at St. Anthony's Hospital in St. Petersburg , Florida , one day after being rushed, in severe abdominal pain, from his St. Petersburg home by ambulance. His death, at the age of 47, resulted from an internal hemorrhage caused by Cirrhosis of the liver, the unfortunate result of a life of heavy drinking. He was living at the time with his third wife Stella, and his mother Gabrielle. He is buried in his home town of Lowell. CAREER Kerouac realized his desire to be a writer when he was in his teens, probably influenced by his father, a linotypist with a formidable command of words. His unique style of writing wouldn't emerge until after his college years, after he wrote his first novel, "The Town and the City". He would often write while under the influence of some substance, usually Benzedrine strips he would purge from over-the-counter inhalers, marijuana, and alcohol. He claimed that they---particularly "Bennies"---enhanced his writing by giving him the tremendous energy that this kind of writing required. Kerouac is considered by some as the "King of the Beatniks " as well as the "Father of the Hippies ". Kerouac publicly disavowed the Beatniks, who didn't identify with his blue-collar roots, and disliked the Hippies, largely because his politics shifted to the right in the 1960s and he supported the Vietnam War . He also accused former associate Allen Ginsberg of "raping" his mind. Kerouac's method was heavily influenced by the prolific explosion of Jazz, especially the Bebop genre established by Charlie Parker , Dizzy Gillespie , Thelonious Monk , and others. Later, Kerouac would include ideas he developed in his Buddhist studies. He called this style Spontaneous Prose , a literary technique akin to Stream Of Consciousness . Kerouac's motto was "first-thought=best thought", and many of his books exemplified this approach including ''On the Road'', ''Visions of Cody'', ''Visions of Gerard'', ''Big Sur'', and ''The Subterraneans''. The central features of this writing method was the idea of breath (borrowed from Jazz and from Buddhist meditation breathing), improvising words over the inherent structures of mind and language, and not editing a single word. Connected with his idea of breath was the elimination of the Period , preferring to use a long, connecting dash instead. As such, the phrases occurring between dashes might resemble Improvisational Jazz licks. When spoken, the words might take on a certain kind of rhythm, though none of it pre-meditated. He would go on for hours to friends and strangers about his method, often drunk, which wasn't well received by Ginsberg, who had an acute awareness of the need to sell literature (to publishers) as much as write it; though he'd later be one of its great proponents. It was at about the time that Kerouac wrote ''The Subterraneans'' that he was approached by Ginsberg and others to formally explicate exactly how he wrote it, how he did Spontaneous Prose. Among the writings he set down specifically about his Spontaneous Prose method, the most concise would be Belief And Technique For Modern Prose , a list of thirty "essentials."
Some believed that at times Kerouac's writing technique did not produce lively or energetic prose. Truman Capote famously said about Kerouac's work, "That's not writing, it's typing." A '', William F. Buckley 's television show, during Kerouac's later years when Alcoholism had taken control. He is seen often incoherent and very drunk. Books also continue to be published that were written by Kerouac, many unfinished by him. A book of his Haikus and dreams also were published, giving interesting insight into how his mind worked. In August 2001 , most of his letters, journals, notebooks and manuscripts were sold to the New York Public Library for an undisclosed sum. Presently, Douglas Brinkley has exclusive access to parts of this archive until 2005 . The first collection of edited journals, '' Wind Blown World '', was published in 2004 . TRIVIA
INFLUENCE Related article: Jack Kerouac In Popular Culture Kerouac is considered by some as the "King of the Beatniks " as well as the "Father of the Hippies ". QUOTES
:— Jack Kerouac
:— Ray Manzarek , The Doors ' keyboard player
:— Bob Dylan
:— Allen Ginsberg
:— Michael McClure , San Francisco poet
:— Michael McClure , San Francisco poet :— more BIBLIOGRAPHY Prose
Poetry, letters, audio recordings and other writings
NOTES FURTHER READING
SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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