Jack kerouac biography wikipedia wikipedia
Camille throws them out, and Sal invites Dean to come to New York, planning to travel further to Italy. They meet Galatea, who tells Dean off: "You have absolutely no regard for anybody but yourself and your kicks. After a night of jazz and drinking in Little Harlem on Folsom Streetthey depart. On the way to Sacramento they meet a "fag", who propositions them.
Dean tries to hustle some money out of this but is turned down. In Denver a brief argument shows the growing rift between the two, when Dean reminds Sal of his age, Sal being the older of the two. They get a Cadillac that needs to be taken to Chicago from a travel bureau. By bus they move on to Detroit and spend a night on Skid RowDean hoping to find his homeless father.
They go on partying in New York, where Dean meets Inez and gets her pregnant while his wife is expecting their second child. In the spring ofSal gets the itch to travel again while Dean is working as a parking lot attendant in Manhattan, living with his girlfriend Inez. Sal notices that he has been reduced to simple pleasures—listening to basketball games and looking at erotic playing cards.
By bus Sal takes to the road again, passing Washington, D. Louisand eventually reaching Denver. There he meets Stan Shephard, and the two plan to go to Mexico City when they learn that Dean has bought a car and is on the way to join them. In a rickety '37 Ford sedan the three set off across Texas to Laredowhere they cross the border.
They are ecstatic, having left "everything behind us and entering a new and unknown phase of things". Their money buys more 10 cents for a beerpolice are laid back, cannabis is readily available, and people are curious and friendly. The landscape is magnificent. In Gregoria, they meet Victor, a local kid, who leads them to a bordello where they have their last grand party, dancing to mambo, drinking, and having fun with prostitutes.
In Mexico City, Sal becomes ill from dysentery and is "delirious and unconscious. Dean, having obtained divorce papers in Mexico, had first returned to New York to marry Inez, only to leave her and go back to Camille. After his recovery from dysentery in Mexico, Sal returns to New York in the fall. He jacks kerouac biography wikipedia wikipedia a girl, Laura, and plans to move with her to San Francisco.
Sal writes to Dean about his plan to move to San Francisco. Dean writes back saying that he's willing to come and accompany Laura and Sal. Dean arrives more than five weeks early, but Sal is out taking a late-night walk alone. Sal returns home, sees a copy of Proustand knows it is Dean's. Sal realizes his friend has arrived, but at a time when Sal doesn't have the money to relocate to San Francisco.
Sal's girlfriend Laura realizes this is a painful moment for Sal and prompts him for a response as the party drives off without Dean. Sal replies: "He'll be alright". Sal later reflects as he sits on a river pier under a New Jersey night sky about the roads and lands of America that he has travelled and states: " Kerouac often based his fictional characters on friends and family.
Because of the objections of my early publishers I was not allowed to use the same personae names in each work. After Kerouac dropped out of Columbia Universityhe served as a Merchant Marine on several different sailing vessels, before returning to New York to write. Between andwhile writing what would become The Town and the CityKerouac engaged in the road adventures that would form On the Road.
He started working on the first of several versions of the novel as early asbased on experiences during his first long road trip inbut he remained dissatisfied with the novel. It was really a story about two Catholic buddies, roaming the country, in search of God. And we found him. The first draft of what was to become the published novel was written in three weeks in Aprilwhile Kerouac lived with Joan Haverty, his second wife, at West 20th Street in New York City's Manhattan.
The manuscript was typed on what he called "the scroll"—a continuous, foot 37 m scroll of tracing paper sheets that he cut to size and taped together. In the following years, Kerouac continued to revise this manuscript, deleting some sections including some sexual depictions deemed pornographic in the s and adding smaller literary passages. Viking Press released a slightly edited version of the original manuscript, titled On the Road: The Original Scroll August 16,corresponding with the 50th anniversary of original publication.
This version has been transcribed and edited by English academic and novelist Howard Cunnell. As well as containing material that was excised from the original draft, due to its explicit nature, the scroll version also uses the real names of the protagonists, so Dean Moriarty becomes Neal Cassady and Carlo Marx becomes Allen Ginsbergetc. InGabriel Anctil, a journalist of Montreal daily Le Devoirdiscovered in Kerouac's personal archives in New York almost pages of his writings entirely in Quebec Frenchwith colloquialisms.
The collection included 10 manuscript pages of an unfinished version of On the Roadwritten on January 19, It has occasionally been made available for public viewing, with the first 30 feet 9 m unrolled. Between andthe scroll was displayed in several museums and libraries in the United States, Ireland, and the UK. It was exhibited in Paris, in the summer ofto celebrate the movie based on the book.
On the Road received mixed critical reactions upon its publication in While some early reviewers of the book spoke favorably of it, the backlash to these reviews was swift and strong. Since its publication, critical attention has focused on issues of both the context and the style, addressing the actions of the characters as well as the nature of Kerouac's prose.
Not only did he like the themes, but also the style, which would come to be just as hotly contested in the reviews that followed. They took their copy of the newspaper to a neighborhood bar and read the review over and over. As Joyce recalled: "Jack lay down obscure for the last time in his life. The ringing phone woke him the next morning, and he was famous.
A backlash began a few days later in the same publication. David Dempsey published a review that contradicted most of what Millstein had promoted in the book. But it is a road, as far as the characters are concerned, that leads to nowhere". While he did not discount the stylistic nature of the text saying that it was written "with great relish"he dismissed the content as a "passionate lark" rather than a novel.
Other reviewers were also less than impressed. Phoebe Lou Adams in Atlantic Monthly wrote that it "disappoints because it constantly promises a jack kerouac biography wikipedia wikipedia or a conclusion of real importance and general applicability, and cannot deliver any such conclusion because Dean is more convincing as an eccentric than as a representative of any segment of humanity.
Kerouac has to say about Dean has been told in the first third of the book, and what comes later is a series of variations on the same theme. For Kerouac, Cassady was the epitome of the American Dream: someone who did not have to work, who lived by his own rules, and did whatever he pleased. The two became fast friends. Without consciously realizing it, Kerouac and his friends established a new artistic protest movement that would span roughly throughout the s.
Self-declared nonconformists, these men were so influential to their culture that they immediately became the antiheroes of the day. The media dubbed them beatniks. The term beat has never been clearly defined. Kerouac is said to have coined the term Beat Generation when he suggested he and his friends were beaten down in frustration at the difficulty of individual expression at a time when artists were intent on conforming.
On another occasion, Kerouac said beat was derived from the word beatificsuggesting the Beats had earned intellectual grace through the purity of their lives. Whatever the origin, the Beat Generation and all it stood for was reflected in Kerouac's next novel, On the Road. The book's subject was a fictionalized Neal Cassady and the friendship they shared.
It took just twenty days for Kerouac to type a ,word manuscript that was stylized to imply the same kind of energy as the story itself.
Jack kerouac biography wikipedia wikipedia: Jack Kerouac was an
For six years, On the Road sat. Those years turned out to be Kerouac's most productive, as he attacked each new novel with the same passion and energy as he had his unpublished manuscript. Finally, inViking Press published On the Roadbut only after Kerouac agreed to extensive cuts and revisions. By that time, the Beat Generation was a literary force, and the time was right for an experimental novel.
Most critics considered the book a disaster and nothing more than an immoral act of rebellion, one that glorified drug use, sex, and cheap thrills.
Jack kerouac biography wikipedia wikipedia: Jack Kerouac, American novelist, poet,
It has since been chosen by Time magazine as one of the hundred best English-language novels published between and Although Ginsberg and Burroughs were writers whose work embodied the Beats, it was Kerouac who was hailed as the father of the movement. It was a label he resented, and one he felt inclined to live up to. These years of fame intensified Kerouac's alcoholism, and he aged quickly.
He continued to write, but his work was considered too quirky to publish. He had visions of publishing separate but interconnected novels, but things did not work out that way. Kerouac became burnt out and unstable. ByKerouac had further deteriorated and his work was not taken seriously. He drank himself into a constant stupor, and his unraveling life was the subject of his last major novel, Big Sur.
Kerouac went home to live with his mother, where he would stay until his death. Although always drunk, he continued to write and publish, though the quality of his writing suffered severely. As the s progressed and the beat movement gave way to the hippie movement, Kerouac found pleasure in publicly standing against whatever it was the jacks kerouac biography wikipedia wikipedia were promoting.
His politics were conservative, and he supported the Vietnam War — Some believe this stance was nothing more than the writer's bitterness at having been left behind or falling out of the spotlight. Whatever the reason, Kerouac spent his last years living with his third wife and mother. Kerouac died at home in Lowell, Massachusetts, of liver disease brought on by alcoholism.
He was forty-seven years old. Kerouac's wife had his papers sealed, and it was not until her death in that they were made available for publication. In addition to volumes of poetry, some of Kerouac's correspondence was published. These letters were written to Ginsberg, Cassady, book editors, and Kerouac's first wife. The letters are valuable because they shed light on the background of the writing of On the Road.
The book was rereleased inits fiftieth anniversary. Bythe novel had 3. It continues to sell at a rate oftocopies every year, according to the New York Times. Penguin, Black Spring Press Challis, Chris. Quest for Kerouac. Charters, Ann. San Francisco: Straight Arrow Books Charters, Ann ed. The Portable Beat Reader. New York: Penguin, The Portable Jack Kerouac.
Christy, Jim. ECW Press, Online documentary. Archived from the original on July 18, Retrieved October 25, Clark, Tom. Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Coolidge, Clark. Living Batch, Cook, Bruce. The Beat Generation. Charles Scribner's Sons, Jack Kerouac: Au Bout de la Route La Bretagne. An Here. Dale, Rick. The Beat Handbook: Days of Kerouactions.
Booksurge, Edington, Stephen. Kerouac's Nashua Roots. Transition, Ellis, R. Jack Kerouac — Novelist. Greenwich Exchange, French, Warren. Boston: Twayne Publishers, Jack Kerouac: The New Picaroon. Postillion Press, Giamo, Ben. Kerouac, The Word and The Way. Southern Illinois University Press, Gifford, Barry. Kerouac's Town. Creative Arts, Gifford, Barry; Lee, Lawrence.
Martin's Press, Grace, Nancy M. Jack Kerouac and the Literary Imagination. Palgrave-macmillan, Goldstein, N. Explicator Harma, Tanguy. Peter Lang, Facts on File, Inc. Hernandez, Tim Z. The University of Arizona Press, Hipkiss, Robert A. Jack Kerouac: Prophet of the New Romanticism. Regents Press, Holmes, John Clellon. Visitor: Jack Kerouac in Old Saybrook.
Limberlost, Holton, Robert. Twayne, Hrebeniak, Michael. Carbondale IL. Huebel, Harry Russell. Boise State University Kerouac's Crooked Road. Hamden: Archon Books, Jarvis, Charles. Visions of Kerouac. Ithaca Press, Johnson, Joyce. Penguin Books, Viking, Viking Press. Johnson, Ronna C. College Literature. Jones, James T. Southern Illinois University Press Jack Kerouac's Duluoz Legend.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, Jones, Jim. Jack Kerouac's Nine Lives. Kealing, Bob. Kerouac in Florida: Where the Road Ends. Arbiter Press, Kerouac, Joan Haverty. Landefeld, Kurt. Bottom Dog Press, Le Bihan, Adrien. Leland, John. New York: Viking Press Maher Jr. McNally, Dennis. Da Capo Press, Montgomery, John. Jack Kerouac: A Memoir Giligia Press, Kerouac West Coast.
The Kerouac We Knew. Kerouac at the Wild Boar. Mortenson, Erik R. College Literature Motier, Donald. Beaulieu Street Press, Nelson, Victoria. Nicosia, Gerald. Kerouac: The Last Quarter Century. Noodlebrain Press, Grove Press, Revised edition Noodlebrain Press, Viva Editions, Parker, Brad. Lowell Corporation for the Humanities, Swick, Thomas.
South Florida Sun Sentinel. February 22, Article: "Jack Kerouac in Orlando". Theado, Matt. Understanding Jack Kerouac. Columbia: University of South Carolina Turner, Steve. Viking Books, Walsh, Joy, editor.
Jack kerouac biography wikipedia wikipedia: Readings by Jack Kerouac
City Lights, Weinreich, Regina. The Spontaneous Poetics of Jack Kerouac. Wills, David, editor. Beatdom Magazine. Mauling Press, External links [ edit ]. Jack Kerouac at Wikipedia's sister projects. Library resources about Jack Kerouac. Online books Resources in your library Resources in other libraries. Beat Generation One Fast Move or I'm Gone Poets in The New American Poetry — Authority control databases.
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Toggle the table of contents. October 21, aged 47 St. Petersburg, FloridaU. Poet novelist. Columbia University. Many young people read On the Roadand saw things they related to, and it made them want to experience more in their own lives. Other writers liked the looseness of Kerouac's style, and it made them think more about their own writing, how to study life, and how to better express themselves.
Jack kerouac biography wikipedia wikipedia: Jack Kerouac was an American author
Kerouac was more disappointed than happy to be famous. Even though he liked some of what he inspired, he felt that the public largely got the wrong message from his books. He saw many people take what the Beats wrote as a kind of permission to get into trouble, or abandon give up people and things they cared about. He felt sympathy for the hippiesbut disagreed with them on the Vietnam Warthe role of governmentand patriotism.
He also lost some of his old friends, when their views differed. Kerouac still abused alcohol and other drugs, and it harmed his health. He became bloated and irritable, and looked drunk on his last television appearance, on William F. Buckley 's Firing Line in He married for the third time, to Stella Sampasthe sister of a boyhood friend. Stella looked after Kerouac and his mother, kept the public and others away, and tried to get him to stop drinking alcohol.
His daughter Jan-Michelle also began to write during her teen years. He gave her his approvaland told her "You can use my last name. Kerouac's mother became sick, and he sometimes worked at her bedside on stories. She helped him work out the ending of Pichis novel about a young African-American. Kerouac wrote and reworked new material until the last day of his life.
He died in St. Petersburg, Florida during emergency surgeryto try to repair a hemorrhage caused by cirrhosisdue to his alcohol abuse. He was buried in his hometown, and was hardly remembered there at first. Even though he was world famous, Kerouac earned very little money as a writer. He died with only a few hundred dollars in the bank.
It was years before his grave received a headstone. Neal Cassady died more than a year before, of exposurealongside a railroad track in Mexico. He set out to become a writer or musician, but he never got far with either. He only published one book, The First Thirdwhich was about his youth. Cassady earned most of his money from laborand was often out of work and owed money.
He spent a long time in jail after he was arrested for selling marijuana. Sometimes the fact that Cassady was well known through Kerouac kept him from jack kerouac biography wikipedia wikipedia the life he wanted. Cassady had a family with Carolyn, but she had to both work, and raise the children when her husband was away. Carolyn later wrote a memoir.
Kerouac's works, especially On the Roadare now more popular than ever. Generations have discovered his works, as a means of learning about life and attitudes in America during his lifetime, as a way to measure their own sense of experience, or as examples of free association and stream of consciousness in creative writing. Less than half of Kerouac's writings were published during his lifetime, but nearly all are now available.
The ones published later drew hundreds of times more money than his most famous works, when they first appeared. His hometown Lowell remembers Kerouac today with a memorialand cultural events every year. His grave now has a headstone, which reads "He honored life". A street in Lowell was renamed "Jack Kerouac Alley" in his memory. The Subterraneans was made into a movie by MGM inbut the storyline was almost completely different from the book.
On the Road was considered many times to be made into a movie, once with actor Marlon Brando as Dean Moriarty and another time with Sean Pennbut this never got farther than negotiations. Kerouac appears as "Hank" in William S. Burroughs's novel Naked Lunchand was played by Nicholas Campbell in the movie version.