In just a few weeks the film adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s ‘On The Road’ will be released in UK cinemas, I’m currently re-reading the book in anticipation. As you would expect there have been alot of articles & blogs written about Jack Kerouac as the film approaches, many looking to make a name for themselves by accusing Kerouac sexism, racism, homophobia, being anti-semitic & a reactionary conservative - that’s not to mention the legions of comments sections frequented by people who have read the book once in school & read a few ill-informed articles.
UK Release 12th October 2012
One such example I saw used the following quote "Several times I went to San Francisco with my gun and when a queer approached me in a bar john I took out the gun and said ‘Eh? Eh? What’s that you say?". Which of course to anyone reading it would look homophobic, but is comletely out of context, missing the remorse that follows and what could even be considered a comment on the effect guns have on people - "I’ve never understood why I did that; I knew queers all over the country. It was just the loneliness of San Francisco and the fact that I had a gun. I had to show it to someone."
This also sums up the conflict at the heart of Kerouac for me, you can look at his writing through modern eyes and see words like ‘queer’ or ‘negro’ (or worse) and be offended or you can place yourself in the time. Writers like Keroauc were born in the 1920’s, and were young men in the 1940’s when sexism, racism & homophobia were not only the social norm but in the case of racial segregation, the law.
Virtually every one of our relations alive in the same era would have used similar expressions, held similar opinions that appear wrong to our modern viewpoint. Does that make everyone else bad people aswell? Or are we just picking on him because he wrote about things the way they were? How do we know that in 70 years time there will not be people looking at us judging our society as unenlightened?
Jack Kerouac & Allen Ginsberg
One article that I thought hit alot of nails on the head comes from a suprising source, theamericanconservative website. It doesn’t try to claim Kerouac as a conservative, but points out that as a young man all of his actions show him to be non-conservative, non-conformist, infact very unpolitical in any way. He is a young writer who wants to see, hear & experience all that he can, he does not write of his gay friends like Ginsburg, Orlovsky and others with disgust but with love, respect and affection. It is only after he becomes famous, and his inablity to cope with that, when he has sought refuge in drink that he returns to the familiar, conservative reactionary roots that surrounded him as he grew up. Read the article here.
I once heard Andy Warhol say something along the lines of "As a shy person you desperately want attention, but when you get it you don’t know what to do with it". This sums up Jack perfectly, he wanted to be a famous writer but when fame arrived he couldn’t cope with the attention, couldn’t cope with the criticism, couldn’t cope with the way people politicised his writing for their own ends, couldn’t cope with the constant stream of people who would turn up at his mothers house expecting him to party with them. So he retreated from the world into alcoholism, travelled less, prefering to stay in the safety of his mother’s home and reacted against what people wanted him to be by turning to the familiarity of his conservative catholic upbringing.
The 'On The Road' Scroll
Then of course there’s the did he, didn’t he write it in 3 weeks debate. To say either is far too simplistic. Jack made copious notes about his travels and tried to write the book a couple of times, binning them as he couldn’t realise what was in his head. Then he was inspired by one of Neal Cassady’s stream of concsiousness letters, and realised that if he combined this style with his own prose-poetry he might get what he was looking for. He then wrote the infamous scroll in 3 weeks as the legend tells us, before reworking this into the book that was finally published. Can we leave the discussion behind now?
I wasn’t really intending the first blog I wrote on my passion for Kerouac’s books to be a defense, I had thought I’d write about what I love about his work, but that’s not how things have worked out I guess. I am excited to see the On The Road film which is released in just a few weeks, and to see the original scroll which I learnt a few days ago will be on display at the British Library until Christmas. Hopefully I can combine a trip to see both in one day, and I’ll doubtless write a blog about that.
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