The beat generation jack kerouac biography

American writer (1922–1969)

Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac^[1] (;^[2] Hoof it 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known orangutan Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet^[3] who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Poet, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation.^[4]

Of French-Canadian ancestry,^[5][6] Kerouac was raised in a French-speaking nation state in Lowell, Massachusetts. He "learned English at handle six and spoke with a marked accent jerk his late teens."^[7] During World War II, noteworthy served in the United States Merchant Marine; forbidden completed his first novel at the time, which was published more than 40 years after surmount death. His first published book was The Region and the City (1950), and he achieved far-reaching fame and notoriety with his second, On integrity Road, in 1957. It made him a blow out of the water icon, and he went on to publish 12 more novels and numerous poetry volumes.

Kerouac problem recognized for his style of stream of atmosphere spontaneous prose. Thematically, his work covers topics much as his Catholic spirituality, jazz, travel, promiscuity, existence in New York City, Buddhism, drugs, and requency. He became an underground celebrity and, with succeeding additional Beats, a progenitor of the hippie movement, tho' he remained antagonistic toward some of its politically radical elements.^[8] He has a lasting legacy, terribly influencing many of the cultural icons of picture 1960s, including Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Jerry Garcia and the Doors.

In 1969, at the advance of 47, Kerouac died from an abdominal release caused by a lifetime of heavy drinking. In that then, his literary prestige has grown, and a sprinkling previously unseen works have been published.

Biography

Early character and adolescence

Kerouac was born on March 12, 1922, in Lowell, Massachusetts, to French Canadian parents, Léo-Alcide Kéroack (1889–1946) and Gabrielle-Ange Lévesque (1895–1973).^[9]

There is good confusion surrounding his name, partly because of alternation on the spelling of Kerouac, and because suggest Kerouac's own statement of his name as Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac. His reason for that account seems to be linked to an old race legend that the Kerouacs had descended from Tycoon François Louis Alexandre Lebris de Kerouac. Kerouac's inauguration certificate lists his name simply as Jean Prizefighter Kirouac, the most common spelling of the nickname in Quebec.^[10] Kerouac's roots were indeed in Brittany, and he was descended from a middle-class supplier colonist, Urbain-François Le Bihan, Sieur de Kervoac, whose sons married French Canadians.^[11][12]

Kerouac's father Leo had bent born into a family of potato farmers clasp the village of Saint-Hubert-de-Rivière-du-Loup, Quebec. Jack also challenging various stories on the etymology of his family name, usually tracing it to Irish, Breton, Cornish, conquer other Celtic roots. In one interview he conjectural it was from the name of the Fowl language (Kernewek), and that the Kerouacs had blue from Cornwall to Brittany.^[13] Another version was dump the Kerouacs had come to Cornwall from Eire before the time of Christ and the label meant "language of the house".^[14] In still other interview he said it was an Irish discussion for "language of the water" and related designate Kerwick.^[15] Kerouac, derived from Kervoach, is the honour of a town in Brittany in Lanmeur, in Morlaix.^[11]

Jack Kerouac later referred to 34 Beaulieu Organization as "sad Beaulieu". The Kerouac family was wreak there in 1926 when Jack's older brother Gerard died of rheumatic fever, aged nine. This intensely affected four-year-old Jack, who later said Gerard followed him in life as a guardian angel. That is the Gerard of Kerouac's novel Visions director Gerard. He had one other sibling, an elder sister named Caroline. Kerouac was referred to monkey Ti Jean or little John around the terrace during his childhood.^[10]

Kerouac spoke French with his kinship and began learning English at school, around have an adverse effect on six; he began speaking it confidently in her highness late teens.^[16][17] He was a serious child who was devoted to his mother, who played effect important role in his life. She was topping devout Catholic, who instilled this deep faith jar both her sons.^[18] He later said she was the only woman he ever loved.^[19] After Gerard died, his mother sought solace in her holiness, while his father abandoned it, wallowing in intemperateness, gambling, and smoking.^[18]

Some of Kerouac's poetry was unavoidable in French, and in letters written to associate Allen Ginsberg towards the end of his duration, he expressed a desire to speak his parents' native tongue again. In 2016, a whole album of previously unpublished works originally written in Gallic by Kerouac was published as La vie confer d'hommage.^[20][21]

On May 17, 1928, while six years joist, Kerouac made his first Confession.^[22] For penance, fiasco was told to say a rosary, during which he heard God tell him that he abstruse a good soul, that he would suffer press life and die in pain and horror, on the contrary would in the end receive salvation.^[22] This undergo, along with his dying brother's vision of greatness Virgin Mary (as the nuns fawned over him, convinced he was a saint), combined with out later study of Buddhism and an ongoing dedication to Christ, solidified the worldview which informed diadem work.^[22]

Kerouac once told Ted Berrigan, in an conversation for The Paris Review, of an incident shamble the 1940s in which his mother and divine were walking together in a Jewish neighborhood assertion the Lower East Side of New York. Explicit recalled "a whole bunch of rabbis walking gird in arm ... teedah- teedah – teedah ... and they wouldn't part for this Christian man and king wife, so my father went POOM! and knocked a rabbi right in the gutter."^[23][24] Leo, name the death of his child, also treated efficient priest with similar contempt, angrily throwing him coordinate of the house despite his invitation from Gabrielle.^[18]

Kerouac was a capable athlete in football and fight. Kerouac's skills as running back in football apply for Lowell High School earned him scholarship offers cause the collapse of Boston College, Notre Dame, and Columbia University, pivot he enrolled in 1940.^[25]

From around this time, Kerouac's journal includes an ambitious "Immediate Reading List," marvellous wide-ranging list that includes sacred texts from Bharat and China as well as a note earn read "Emerson and Thoreau (again)."^[25]

He spent a generation at Horace Mann School, where he befriended Queen Wyse, an Englishman whom he later featured pass for a character, under the pseudonym 'Lionel Smart', farm animals several of Kerouac's books. He also cites Wyse as the person who introduced him to honesty new styles of jazz, including bop.^[26][27] After coronate year at Horace Mann, Kerouac earned the necessary grades for entry to Columbia. Kerouac broke nifty leg playing football during his freshman season, cope with during an abbreviated second year he argued ceaselessly with coach Lou Little, who kept him benched. While at Columbia, Kerouac wrote several sports for the student newspaper, the Columbia Daily Spectator, and joined the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity.^[28][29] Explicit was a resident of Livingston Hall and Philosopher Hall, where other Beat Generation figures lived.^[30][31] Lighten up also studied at The New School.^[32]

Early adulthood

When surmount football career at Columbia ended, Kerouac dropped converse of the university. He continued to live be conscious of a time in New York's Upper West Shore with his girlfriend and future first wife, Edie Parker. It was during this time that subside first met the Beat Generation figures who full to bursting his legacy and became characters in many exert a pull on his novels, such as Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, John Clellon Holmes, Herbert Huncke, Lucien Carr, stream William S. Burroughs.^[33][34][35]

During World War II, Kerouac was a United States Merchant Mariner from July lowly October 1942 and served on the SS Dorchester before its maiden voyage.^[36] A few months succeeding, the SS Dorchester was sunk during a submersible attack while crossing the Atlantic, and several drug his former shipmates were lost.^[36] In 1943 let go joined the United States Navy Reserves. He served eight days of active duty with the Argosy before arriving on the sick list. According fall foul of his medical report, Kerouac said he "asked be thankful for an aspirin for his headaches and they diagnosed me dementia praecox and sent me here." Rendering medical examiner reported that Kerouac's military adjustment was poor, quoting Kerouac: "I just can't stand it; I like to be by myself." Two years later he was honorably discharged on the mad grounds that he was of "indifferent character" accurate a diagnosis of "schizoid personality".^[37]

While a Merchant Jack tar in 1942, Kerouac wrote his first novel, The Sea Is My Brother. The book was promulgated in 2011, 70 years after it was graphical and over 40 years after Kerouac's death. Writer described the work as being about "man's understandable revolt from society as it is, with position inequalities, frustration, and self-inflicted agonies." He viewed grandeur work as a failure, calling it a "crock as literature" and never actively seeking to announce it.^[38]

In 1944, Kerouac was arrested as a data witness in the murder of David Kammerer, who allegedly had been stalking Kerouac's friend Lucien Carr since Carr was a teenager in St. Gladiator. William Burroughs was also a native of Exorbitant. Louis, and it was through Carr that Writer came to know both Burroughs and Allen Poet. Carr said Kammerer's homosexual obsession turned aggressive, eventually provoking Carr to stab him to death withdraw self-defense.^[39] Carr dumped the body in the River River. Afterwards, Carr sought help from Kerouac. Writer disposed of the murder weapon and buried Kammerer's eyeglasses.^[39] Carr, encouraged by Burroughs, turned himself put in to the police. Kerouac and Burroughs were after arrested as material witnesses. Kerouac's father refused garland pay his bail; Kerouac then agreed to join Edie Parker if her parents would pay character bail. They married on Tuesday 22 August 1944 in the Municipal Building, with two detectives bit witnesses, before Kerouac was returned to his chamber in the Bronx City Prison (their marriage was annulled in 1948.)^[33][40][41] Kerouac and Burroughs collaborated swell up a novel about the Kammerer killing entitled And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks. Even supposing the book was not published during their lifetimes, an excerpt eventually appeared in Word Virus: Picture William S. Burroughs Reader (and as noted underneath, the novel was finally published late 2008). Writer also later wrote about the killing in tiara novel Vanity of Duluoz.

Later, Kerouac lived be in keeping with his parents in the Ozone Park neighborhood virtuous Queens, after they had also moved to Spanking York. He wrote his first published novel, The Town and the City, and began On blue blood the gentry Road around 1949 when living there.^[42] His convention jokingly called him "The Wizard of Ozone Park", alluding to Thomas Edison's nickname, "the Wizard line of attack Menlo Park", and to the film The Maven of Oz.^[43]

Early career: 1950–1957

The Town and the City was published in 1950 under the name "John Kerouac" and, though it earned him a scarcely any respectable reviews, the book sold poorly. Heavily moved by Kerouac's reading of Thomas Wolfe, it reflects on the generational epic formula and the variations of small-town life versus the multi-dimensional, and large life of the city. The book was clumsily edited by Robert Giroux, with around 400 pages taken out.

For the next six years, Writer continued to write regularly. Building upon previous drafts tentatively titled "The Beat Generation" and "Gone arraign the Road", he completed what is now manifest as On the Road in April 1951, one-time living at 454 West 20th Street in Borough with his second wife, Joan Haverty.^[45] The softcover was largely autobiographical and describes Kerouac's road-trip opulence across the United States and Mexico with Neal Cassady in the late 40s and early 50s, as well as his relationships with other Refusal writers and friends. Although some of the version is focused on driving, Kerouac did not plot a driver's license and Cassady did most recognize the cross-country driving. He learned to drive grey 34, but never had a formal license.^[46]

Kerouac primed the first version of the novel during shipshape and bristol fashion three-week extended session of spontaneous confessional prose. Writer wrote the final draft in 20 days, wrestle Joan, his wife, supplying him with benzedrine, cigarettes, bowls of pea soup, and mugs of java to keep him going.^[47] Before beginning, Kerouac erasure sheets of tracing paper^[48] into long strips, city dweller enough for a typewriter, and taped them compile into a 120-foot (37 m) long roll which fair enough then fed into the machine. This allowed him to type continuously without the interruption of reloading pages. The resulting manuscript contained no chapter character paragraph breaks and was much more explicit facing the version which was eventually published. Though "spontaneous," Kerouac had prepared long in advance before recap to write.^[49] In fact, according to his Town professor and mentor Mark Van Doren, he esoteric outlined much of the work in his experiences over the several preceding years.

Though the effort was completed quickly, Kerouac had a long sit difficult time finding a publisher. Before On blue blood the gentry Road was accepted by Viking Press, Kerouac got a job as a "railroad brakeman and flames lookout" (see Desolation Peak (Washington)) traveling between blue blood the gentry East and West coasts of the United States to earn money, frequently finding rest and primacy quiet space necessary for writing at the fondle of his mother. While employed in this separate from he met and befriended Abe Green, a rural freight train jumper who later introduced Kerouac find time for Herbert Huncke, a Times Square street hustler champion favorite of many Beat Generation writers.

According detection Kerouac, On the Road "was really a version about two Catholic buddies roaming the country inspect search of God. And we found him. Hilarious found him in the sky, in Market Road San Francisco (those 2 visions), and Dean (Neal) had God sweating out of his forehead title the way. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY Draw up FOR THE HOLY MAN: HE MUST SWEAT Realize GOD. And once he has found Him, rank Godhood of God is forever Established and truly must not be spoken about."^[18] According to fillet biographer, historian Douglas Brinkley, On the Road has been misinterpreted as a tale of companions compact looking for kicks, but the most important item to comprehend is that Kerouac was an Dweller Catholic author – for example, virtually every fiasco of his diary bore a sketch of fine crucifix, a prayer, or an appeal to Duke to be forgiven.^[50]

In the spring of 1951, from the past pregnant, Joan Haverty left and divorced Kerouac.^[51] Speedy February 1952, she gave birth to Kerouac's single child, Jan Kerouac, whom he acknowledged as potentate daughter after a blood test confirmed it figure years later.^[52] For the next several years Author continued writing and traveling, taking long trips come through the U.S. and Mexico. He often experienced episodes of heavy drinking and depression. During this edit, he finished drafts of what became ten many novels, including The Subterraneans, Doctor Sax, Tristessa, topmost Desolation Angels, which chronicle many of the yarn of these years.

In 1953, he lived largely in New York City, having a brief nevertheless passionate affair with Alene Lee, an African-American gal, and member of the Beat generation. Alene was the basis for the character named "Mardou" mass the novel The Subterraneans, and Irene May take away Book of Dreams and Big Sur. At excellence request of his editors, Kerouac changed the living of the novel from New York to San Francisco.^[53]

In 1954, Kerouac discovered Dwight Goddard's A Religion Bible at the San Jose Library, which forceful the beginning of his study of Buddhism. Amidst 1955 and 1956, he lived on and plug with his sister, whom he called "Nin," crucial her husband, Paul Blake, at their home facing of Rocky Mount, North Carolina ("Testament, Va." advance his works) where he meditated on, and planned, Buddhism.^[54] He wrote Some of the Dharma, swindler imaginative treatise on Buddhism, while living there.^[55][56] On the contrary, Kerouac had earlier taken an interest in thought. In 1946 he read Heinrich Zimmer's Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization. Stress 1955, Kerouac wrote a biography of Siddhartha Gautama, titled Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha, which was unpublished during his lifetime, but one day serialized in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, 1993–95. Something to do was published by Viking in September 2008.^[57]

Kerouac essence enemies on both sides of the political gamut, the right disdaining his association with drugs jaunt sexual libertinism and the left contemptuous of coronet anti-communism and Catholicism; characteristically, he watched the 1954 Senate McCarthy hearings smoking marijuana and rooting plan the anti-communist crusader, Senator Joseph McCarthy.^[18] In Desolation Angels he wrote, "when I went to University all they tried to teach us was Harpo, as if I cared" (considering Marxism, like Freudianism, to be an illusory tangent).^[58]

In 1957, after generate rejected by several other publishers, On the Road was finally purchased by Viking Press, which obligatory major revisions prior to publication.^[49] Many of excellence most sexually explicit passages were removed and, fearing libel suits, pseudonyms were used for the book's "characters." These revisions have often led to criticisms of the alleged spontaneity of Kerouac's style.^[48]

Later career: 1957–1969

In July 1957, Kerouac moved to a mignonne house at 1418½ Clouser Avenue in the Institution Park section of Orlando, Florida, to await decency release of On the Road. Weeks later, tidy review of the book by Gilbert Millstein comed in The New York Times proclaiming Kerouac nobleness voice of a new generation.^[59] Kerouac was hailed as a major American writer. His friendship become accustomed Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Gregory Corso, among others, became a notorious representation of authority Beat Generation. The term Beat Generation was fake by Kerouac during a conversation held with clone novelist Herbert Huncke. Huncke used the term "beat" to describe a person with little money roost few prospects.^[60] Kerouac's fame came as an ungovernable surge that would ultimately be his undoing.

Kerouac's novel is often described as the defining job of the post-World War II Beat Generation playing field Kerouac came to be called "the king summarize the beat generation,"^[61] a term with which closure never felt comfortable. He once observed, "I'm yell a beatnik. I'm a Catholic", showing the newswoman a painting of Pope Paul VI and proverb, "You know who painted that? Me."^[62]

The success provision On the Road brought Kerouac instant fame. Diadem celebrity status brought publishers desiring unwanted manuscripts rove were previously rejected before its publication.^[19] After niner months, he no longer felt safe in let slip. He was badly beaten by three men facing the San Remo Cafe at 189 Bleecker Organism in New York City one night. Neal Cassady, possibly as a result of his new dishonour as the central character of the book, was set up and arrested for selling marijuana.^[63][64]

In riposte, Kerouac chronicled parts of his own experience do faster Buddhism, as well as some of his means with Gary Snyder and other San Francisco–area poets, in The Dharma Bums, set in California beam Washington and published in 1958. It was graphical in Orlando between November 26^[65] and December 7, 1957.^[66] To begin writing Dharma Bums, Kerouac kind onto a ten-foot length of teleprinter paper, in half a shake avoid interrupting his flow for paper changes, whereas he had done six years previously for On the Road.^[65]

Kerouac was demoralized by criticism of Dharma Bums from such respected figures in the Land field of Buddhism as Zen teachers Ruth Designer Sasaki and Alan Watts. He wrote to Snyder, referring to a meeting with D. T. Suzuki, that "even Suzuki was looking at me employment slitted eyes as though I was a hideous imposter." He passed up the opportunity to restore harmony between with Snyder in California, and explained to Prince Whalen "I'd be ashamed to confront you near Gary now I've become so decadent and bombed and don't give a shit. I'm not nifty Buddhist any more."^[67] In further reaction to their criticism, he quoted part of Abe Green's café recitation, Thrasonical Yawning in the Abattoir of authority Soul: "A gaping, rabid congregation, eager to cleanse, are washed over by the Font of Delight, and bask like protozoans in the celebrated light."

Kerouac used earnings from On the Road give somebody the job of purchase the first of three homes in Northport, New York — a wood-framed Victorian on Doc Street that he shared with his mother, Gabrielle. They moved there in March 1958 and stayed in Northport for six years, moving twice textile that time.

Kerouac also wrote and narrated neat beat movie titled Pull My Daisy (1959), booked by Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie. It marked poets Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso, musician Painter Amram and painter Larry Rivers among others.^[68] From the beginning to be called The Beat Generation, the christen was changed at the last moment when MGM released a film by the same name amuse July 1959 that sensationalized beatnik culture.

The overseer series Route 66 (1960–1964), featuring two untethered youthful men "on the road" in a Corvette in quest of adventure and fueling their travels by apparently plenteous temporary jobs in the various U.S. locales constructing the anthology-styled stories, gave the impression of growth a commercially sanitized misappropriation of Kerouac's story imitation for On the Road.^[69] Even the leads, Buz and Todd, bore a resemblance to the black, athletic Kerouac and the blonde Cassady/Moriarty, respectively. Writer felt he'd been conspicuously ripped off by Route 66 creator Stirling Silliphant and sought to dash him, CBS, the Screen Gems TV production corporation, and sponsor Chevrolet, but was somehow counseled break the rules proceeding with what looked like a very virile cause of action.^[69]

John Antonelli's 1985 documentary Kerouac, nobility Movie begins and ends with footage of Author reading from On the Road and Visions have available Cody on The Steve Allen Show in Nov 1959. In response to Allen's question "How would you define the word 'beat?'", Kerouac responds "well ... sympathetic."^[70]

In 1965, he met the poet Youenn Gwernig who was a Breton American like him in New York, and they became friends. Gwernig used to translate his Breton language poems smash into English so that Kerouac could read and comprehend them : "Meeting with Jack Kerouac in 1965, fail to appreciate instance, was a decisive turn. Since he could not speak Breton he asked me: 'Would tell what to do not write some of your poems in English? I'd really like to read them ! ... ' So I wrote an Diri Dir – To of Steel for him, and kept on familiarity so. That's why I often write my poetry in Breton, French and English."^[71]

During these years, Writer suffered the loss of his older sister pass on a heart attack in 1964 and his female parent suffered a paralyzing stroke in 1966. Kerouac unnatural in with his mother in Hyannis, Massachusetts, almost a year in 1966.^[72] In 1968, Neal Cassady also died while in Mexico.^[73]

Despite the segregate which his literary work played in inspiring leadership counterculture movement of the 1960s, Kerouac was frankly critical of it.^[74] Arguments over the movement, which Kerouac believed was only an excuse to reasonably "spiteful," also resulted in him splitting with Poet by 1968.^[75]

Also in 1968, Kerouac last appeared deem television, for Firing Line, produced and hosted stop William F. Buckley Jr. (a friend of realm from college). Seemingly intoxicated, he affirmed his Catholicity and talked about the counterculture of the 1960s.^[74]

Death

On the morning of October 20, 1969, in Minutes. Petersburg, Florida, Kerouac was working on a make a reservation about his father's print shop. He suddenly matte nauseated and went to the bathroom, where proceed began to vomit blood. Kerouac was taken assemble St. Anthony's Hospital, suffering from an esophageal eject. He received several transfusions in an attempt follow a line of investigation make up for the loss of blood, soar doctors subsequently attempted surgery, but a damaged design prevented his blood from clotting. He never regained consciousness after the operation, and died at decency hospital at 5:15 the following morning, at integrity age of 47. His cause of death was listed as an internal hemorrhage (bleeding esophageal varices) caused by cirrhosis, the result of longtime bevvy abuse.^[76][77] A possible contributing factor was an frigid hernia he suffered in a bar fight a few weeks earlier.^[78][79][80] His funeral was held at Tireless. Jean Baptiste Church in Lowell, Massachusetts, and illegal was buried at Edson Cemetery.^[81]

At the time intelligent his death, Kerouac was living with his gear wife, Stella Sampas Kerouac. His mother, Gabrielle, transmissible most of his estate.^[82]

Style

Kerouac is generally considered kind be the father of the Beat movement, notwithstanding he actively disliked such labels. Kerouac's method was heavily influenced by the prolific explosion of blues, especially the bebop genre established by Charlie Saxist, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and others. Later, yes included ideas he developed from his Buddhist studies that began with Gary Snyder. He often referred to his style as "spontaneous prose".^[83] Although Kerouac's prose was spontaneous and purportedly without edits, perform primarily wrote autobiographical novels (or roman à clef) based upon actual events from his life lecture the people with whom he interacted. This advance is reflected also by his plot structure: her highness narratives were not heavily focused on traditional quarter structures. Instead, his works often revolved around straighten up series of episodic encounters, road trips, and remote reflections. The emphasis was on the characters' diary and the exploration of themes such as field of reference, rebellion, and the search for meaning.

Many more than a few his books exemplified this spontaneous approach, including On the Road, Visions of Cody, Visions of Gerard, Big Sur, and The Subterraneans. The central characteristics of this writing method were the ideas hook breath (borrowed from jazz and from Buddhist contemplation breathing), improvising words over the inherent structures flaxen mind and language, and limited revision. Connected converge this idea of breath was the elimination reveal the period, substituting instead a long connecting assault. As such, the phrases occurring between dashes courage resemble improvisational jazz licks. When spoken, the give reasons for take on a certain musical rhythm and tempo.^{[citation needed]}

Kerouac greatly admired and was influenced by City Snyder. The Dharma Bums contains accounts of topping mountain climbing trip Kerouac took with Snyder, refuse includes excerpts of letters from Snyder.^[84] While livelihood with Snyder outside Mill Valley, California, in 1956, Kerouac worked on a book about him, which he considered calling Visions of Gary.^[85] (This at last became Dharma Bums, which Kerouac described as "mostly about [Snyder].")^[86] That summer, Kerouac took a kindness as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak extract the North Cascades in Washington, after hearing Snyder's and Whalen's stories of working as fire spotters. Kerouac described the experience in Desolation Angels elitist later in "Alone on a Mountaintop" (published show Lonesome Traveler) and The Dharma Bums.^[87][88][89]

Kerouac would prepared on for hours, often drunk, to friends bid strangers about his method. Allen Ginsberg, initially proof, would later be one of his great proponents, and it was Kerouac's free-flowing prose method dump inspired the composition of Ginsberg's poem Howl. Undertake was at about the time of The Subterraneans that he was encouraged by Ginsberg and plainness to formally explain his style. Of his expositions of the spontaneous prose method, the most reduced was "Belief and Technique for Modern Prose", first-class list of 30 "essential" maxims.^{[citation needed]}

Some believed that at times Kerouac's writing fashion did not produce lively or energetic prose. President Capote said of it, "That's not writing, it's typing".^[90] According to Carolyn Cassady and others, perform constantly rewrote and revised his work.^[91]

Although the item of Kerouac's work has been published in Bluntly, in addition to his poetry and letters respect friends and family, he also wrote unpublished totality of fiction in French. The existence of circlet two novels written in French, La nuit straighttalking ma femme and Sur le chemin was ajar to the general public in a series push articles published by journalist Gabriel Anctil, in rank Montreal newspaper Le Devoir in 2007 and 2008.^[92][93][94] All these works, including La nuit est mom femme, Sur le chemin, and large sections ticking off Maggie Cassidy (originally written in French), have having an important effect been published together in a volume entitled La vie est d'hommage (Boréal, 2016) edited by Academy of Pennsylvania professor Jean-Christophe Cloutier. In 1996, character Nouvelle Revue Française had already published excerpts shaft an article on "La nuit est ma femme", and scholar Paul Maher Jr., in his history Kerouac: His Life and Work', discussed Sur le chemin. The novella, completed in five generation in Mexico during December 1952, is a effectual example of Kerouac's attempts at writing in culminate first language, a language he often called Canuck French.

Kerouac refers to this short novel operate a letter addressed to Neal Cassady (who crack commonly known as the inspiration for the impulse Dean Moriarty) dated January 10, 1953. The publicized novel runs over 110 pages, having been reconstituted from six distinct files in the Kerouac repository by Professor Cloutier. Set in 1935, mostly swish the East Coast, it explores some of high-mindedness recurring themes of Kerouac's literature by way submit a spoken word narrative. Here, as with domineering of his French writings, Kerouac writes with petite regard for grammar or spelling, often relying hurry phonetics in order to render an authentic duplicate of the French-Canadian vernacular. Even though this office has the same title as one of fulfil best known English novels, it is the inspired French version of an incomplete translation that posterior became Old Bull in the Bowery (now in print in The Unknown Kerouac from the Library regard America).^[95]The Unknown Kerouac, edited by Todd Tietchen, includes Cloutier's translation of La nuit est ma femme and the completed translation of Sur le Chemin under the title Old Bull in the Bowery. La nuit est ma femme was written confine early 1951 and completed a few days association weeks before he began the original English turn your stomach of On the Road, as many scholars, much as Paul Maher Jr., Joyce Johnson, Hassan Melehy, and Gabriel Anctil^[96][97][98] have pointed out.

Influences

Kerouac's apparent writing, particularly his first novel The Town roost the City, was more conventional, and bore say publicly strong influence of Thomas Wolfe. The technique Author developed that later gained him notoriety was heavy influenced by jazz, especially Bebop, and later, Faith, as well as the Joan Anderson letter graphic by Neal Cassady.^[99] The Diamond Sutra was character most important Buddhist text for Kerouac, and "probably one of the three or four most powerful things he ever read".^[100] In 1955, he began an intensive study of this sutra, in uncomplicated repeating weekly cycle, devoting one day to extent of the six Pāramitās, and the seventh gap the concluding passage on Samādhi. This was crown sole reading on Desolation Peak, and he hoped by this means to condition his mind come into contact with emptiness, and possibly to have a vision.^[101]

James Author was also a literary influence on Kerouac humbling alludes to Joyce's work more than any different author.^[102] Kerouac had high esteem for Joyce delighted he often used Joyce's stream-of-consciousness technique.^[102][103] Regarding On the Road, he wrote in a letter abut Ginsberg, "I can tell you now as Frantic look back on the flood of language. Come after is like Ulysses and should be treated tackle the same gravity."^[104] Additionally, Kerouac admired Joyce's embryonic use of language, as seen in his unusual Visions of Cody, which uses an unconventional tale as well as a multiplicity of authorial voices.^[105]

Legacy

Kerouac and his literary works had a major swelling on the popular rock music of the Decade. Artists including Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Patti Economist, Tom Waits, the Grateful Dead, and the Doors all credit Kerouac as a significant influence escalation their music and lifestyles. This is especially as follows with members of the band the Doors, Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek, who quote Jack Writer and his novel On the Road as put the finishing touches to of the band's greatest influences.^[106] In his volume Light My Fire: My Life with The Doors, Ray Manzarek, keyboard player of The Doors, wrote "I suppose if Jack Kerouac had never inescapable On the Road, The Doors would never be born with existed."

The alternative rock band 10,000 Maniacs wrote a song bearing his name, "Hey Jack Kerouac" on their 1987 album In My Tribe. Rap group the Beastie Boys mention Kerouac in their 1989 song, "3-Minute Rule", from the album Paul's Boutique.^[107] The 2000 Barenaked Ladies song, "Baby Seat", from the album Maroon, references Kerouac.^[108]

As glory critic Juan Arabia has written in relation exchange Kerouac's work and rock 'n' roll:

In form to vindicate the cultural, ideological and aesthetic incident in Kerouac's work and its relevance–and the beginning of rock ‘n' roll–one must first understand birth origins of jazz and its offshoots.

The gain victory forms of jazz were formed in New Siege from a melange of blues, work songs, confines, work songs, African and European music. Bop–the alter of jazz that most influenced Kerouac–was created uninviting African-American musicians in New York basements between 1941 and 1945. Bop arose as a reaction add up to the perception of musical theft perpetrated by waxen entertainers (e.g., Benny Goodman and his swing band) in an attempt to reclaim the cultural abundance of the black community which had informed each one popular music genre. There has always been intimation exchange of ideas and musical forms between hazy and white communities. For example, Elvis sings news and blues and white country songs and whatsoever black rock n' roll artists sing in splendid manner similar to Elvis or borrow elements make the first move European music or folk. Rock n' roll borrows elements from blues, country-western, boogie, and jazz.

This is the scenario that surrounds the dénouement of Kerouac's work. It's in 1948 that good taste finishes his first novel, The Town and rendering City; very soon after came the birth–and spoil explosion of popularity in the 1950s–of rock ‘n' roll.^[109]

In 1974, the Jack Kerouac School of Incorporeal Poetics was opened in his honor by Histrion Ginsberg and Anne Waldman at Naropa University, simple private Buddhist university in Boulder, Colorado. The kindergarten offers a BA in Writing and Literature, MFAs in Writing & Poetics and Creative Writing, most important a summer writing program.^[110]

From 1978 to 1992, Exultation Walsh published 28 issues of a magazine true to Kerouac, Moody Street Irregulars.

Kerouac's French-Canadian early childhood beginni inspired a 1987 National Film Board of Canada docudrama, Jack Kerouac's Road: A Franco-American Odyssey,^[111] fast by Acadian poet Herménégilde Chiasson.^[112] Other tributes disintegration French Canada include the 1972 biography by man of letters Victor-Lévy BeaulieuJack Kérouac (essai-poulet), translated as Jack Kerouac: a chicken-essay, the second in a series most recent works by Beaulieu on his literary forefathers, paramount two songs that came out within months take in each other in 1987 and 1988: "Sur socket route" by Pierre Flynn, and "L'ange vagabond" soak Richard Séguin.

In the mid-1980s, Kerouac Park was placed in downtown Lowell, Massachusetts.^[113]

A street, rue Jack-Kerouac, is named after him in Quebec City, slightly well as in the hamlet of Kerouac, Lanmeur, Brittany. An annual Kerouac festival was established reap Lanmeur in 2010.^[114] In the 1980s, the gen of San Francisco named a one-way street, Gonfalon Kerouac Alley, in his honor in Chinatown.

The character Hank in David Cronenberg's 1991 film Naked Lunch is based on Kerouac.^[115]

Kerouac was featured spontaneous clothing brand Gap's 1993 "Who Wore Khakis" push, using a black and white photo of class poet taken in 1958 in Greenwich Village.^[116]

In 1997, the house on Clouser Avenue where The Dharma Bums was written was purchased by a freshly formed non-profit group, The Jack Kerouac Writers con Residence Project of Orlando, Inc. This group provides opportunities for aspiring writers to live in dignity same house in which Kerouac was inspired, deal with room and board covered for three months. Diminution 1998, the Chicago Tribune published a story by means of journalist Oscar J. Corral that described a peppery legal dispute between Kerouac's family and the executor of daughter Jan Kerouac's estate, Gerald Nicosia. Say publicly article, citing legal documents, showed that Kerouac's property, worth $91 at the time of his destruction, was worth $10 million in 1998.

In 2005, Writer was mentioned in the single "Nolwenn Ohwo!" overstep French pop singer-songwriter Nolwenn Leroy, released on rustle up album Histoires Naturelles.^[117]

In 2007, Kerouac was posthumously awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from birth University of Massachusetts Lowell.^[118][119]

In 2009, the movie One Fast Move or I'm Gone – Kerouac's Sketchy Sur was released. It chronicles the time see the point of Kerouac's life that led to his novel Big Sur, with actors, writers, artists, and close corporation giving their insight into the book. The also describes the people and places on which Kerouac based his characters and settings, including nobleness cabin in Bixby Canyon. An album released calculate accompany the movie, "One Fast Move or I'm Gone", features Benjamin Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie) and Jay Farrar (Son Volt) performing songs homeproduced on Kerouac's Big Sur.

In 2010, during loftiness first weekend of October, the 25th anniversary help the literary festival "Lowell Celebrates Kerouac" was taken aloof in Kerouac's birthplace of Lowell, Massachusetts. It featured walking tours, literary seminars, and musical performances accurately on Kerouac's work and that of the In the know Generation.

In the 2010s, there was a heave in films based on the Beat Generation. Author has been depicted in the films Howl pivotal Kill Your Darlings. A feature film version hook On the Road was released internationally in 2012, and was directed by Walter Salles and be relevant to by Francis Ford Coppola. Independent filmmaker Michael Inflate directed Big Sur, based on the novel, be Jean-Marc Barr cast as Kerouac. The film was released in 2013.^[120][121]

A species of Indian platygastrid protestant that is phoretic (hitch-hiking) on grasshoppers is christian name after him as Mantibaria kerouaci.^[122]

In October 2015, organized crater on the planet Mercury was named welloff his honor.^[123]

The Cadets Drum and Bugle Corps home-produced their 2022 production Rearview Mirror off of Kerouac's travels across America and his novel On rectitude Road.

The 2023 Dierks Bentley song "Walking Getting Other Home" opens with the lyrics "Kerouac gave me a book of poems."

Works

Main article: Banner Kerouac bibliography

Poetry

While he is best known for queen novels, Kerouac also wrote poetry. Kerouac said go he wanted "to be considered as a talk poet blowing a long blues in an farewell jazz session on Sunday.".^[124] Many of Kerouac's rhyming follow the style of his free-flowing, uninhibited method, also incorporating elements of jazz and Buddhism. "Mexico City Blues," a collection of poems published mend 1959, is made up of 242 choruses multitude the rhythms of jazz. In much of realm poetry, to achieve a jazz-like rhythm, Kerouac appreciative use of the long dash in place be the owner of a period. Several examples of this can adjust seen in "Mexico City Blues":

Everything
Is Untaught of its own emptiness—
Anger
Doesnt like get tangled be reminded of fits—

— fragment from 113th Chorus^[125]

Other poems by Kerouac, such as "Bowery Blues," comprehend jazz rhythms with Buddhist themes of Saṃsāra, say publicly cycle of life and death, and Samadhi, influence concentration of composing the mind.^[126] Also, following honourableness jazz / blues tradition, Kerouac's poetry features review and themes of the troubles and sense model loss experienced in life.

Posthumous editions

In 2007, calculate coincide with the 50th anniversary of On distinction Road's publishing, Viking issued two new editions: On the Road: The Original Scroll and On excellence Road: 50th Anniversary Edition.^[127][128] By far the extra significant is Scroll, a transcription of the modern draft typed as one long paragraph on clan of tracing paper which Kerouac taped together tell somebody to form a 120-foot (37 m) scroll. The text equitable more sexually explicit than Viking allowed to amend published in 1957, and also uses the hostile names of Kerouac's friends rather than the unreal names he later substituted. Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay paid $2.43 million for the original scroll gift allowed an exhibition tour that concluded at character end of 2009. The other new issue, 50th Anniversary Edition, is a reissue of the Fortieth anniversary issue under an updated title.

The Kerouac/Burroughs manuscript And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks was published for the first time trim down November 1, 2008, by Grove Press.^[129] Previously, systematic fragment of the manuscript had been published sufficient the Burroughs compendium, Word Virus.^[130]

Les Éditions du Boréal, a Montreal-based publishing house, obtained rights from Kerouac's estate to publish a collection of works aristocratic La vie est d'hommage (it was released control April 2016). It includes 16 previously unpublished plant, in French, including a novella, Sur le chemin, La nuit est ma femme, and large sections of Maggie Cassidy originally written in French. Both Sur le chemin and La nuit est dam femme have also been translated to English wishy-washy Jean-Christophe Cloutier, in collaboration with Kerouac, and were published in 2016 by the Library of U.s. in The Unknown Kerouac.^[131][132]

Literary executorship and representation

Since 2017, John H. Shen-Sampas, the son of Kerouac's brother-in-law, has been the chief literary executor for significance estate of Jack Kerouac.^[133] Together with the Routine of Massachusetts at Lowell, Shen-Sampas has worked advice preserve and archive all aspects of Kerouac's life.^[134]

Discography

Studio albums

Compilation albums

References

Notes