Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusett on March 12, 1922, to parents with a French background. Originally, he was christened Jean-Louis lebris de Kerouac. He attended a French Canadian school, a preparatory in New York, and Columbia University. Jack was a prolific writer even before his famous book “On the Road” got the attention of the literary world. On the Road was published in 1957. The text is a reflection of the cultural and social character of the postwar era. Kerouac with writers of his time created the Beat Movement concept. The concept addresses and highlights a generation filled with a high degree of optimism, spiritual seeking, and risk-taking. Big Sur is a culmination of the life of Kerouac. As the American dream is being sought by many in his generation, he chose to write explicitly and passionately about the social insecurities of his time.
The passion he injects into his writing is demonstrated in the transition in style. He is not limited by formal literary boundaries. Also, he explores areas of writing that were not common. He was not fixed to a particular style of writing. The expressive literary works of Jack shows the poetic and narrative abilities that he infuses into these works. Thus, he applies a versatile character in his texts. The works of Jack Kerouac reveals someone who writes purposefully from his feelings, concepts, and issues around him.
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Many of his writings became known after "On the Road" was published. Among his collections include The Dharma Bums (1958), The Subterranean (1958), and Maggie Cassidy (1959). The Dharma Bums is a focus on spiritual seekers. It is a rendition of Buddhism to the Bohemian world and the counter-culture of North America. The Subterranean is a narrative of mental youthfulness reflected in a disjointed affair. The Maggie Cassidy's text is about young teenage infatuation. Jack wrote about family, relationships, culture, and social life. Big Sur is a narrative of his life at the point of deterioration and the coping mechanisms that he attempted to apply.
Big Sur is a reflection and lesson on the failure to manage the influence of fame. I like the work because it is different from the other works written by Jack Kerouac. The text gives a picture of how many famous individuals, especially in entertainment, sports, and the literary world have failed to manage success. It exemplifies the influence of friends and the power that alcohol has over people who are overwhelmed by fame. Big Sur is the end narrative of a celebrity. It points to the inevitability of death and the consequences of not managing one's desires.
Three Things from Background/Biography
Family values influence many writers, and Jack Kerouac is not an exception. His social development as a young American of French origin and Catholic background colored his perspective on issues in life. His hunger for spiritual truth is one of the things about him that interest me. The highlight is the transition from Catholicism to Buddhism. This reinforces the fact that he is not a close-minded individual. He considers himself someone who can freely think and explore his life and can question issues around him.
He cherished friendship. Jack Kerouac demonstrates a friendly and calm disposition towards those he befriends. So, he was not overtly antisocial in his interactions with people, especially his friends. He treats friends with great loyalty. The incidence of concealing evidence, which led him to prison, is an attestation of his loyalty. Though, this loyalty is not according to the law. Throughout his early school days and work there are friends he met and friendships he established that shaped his writings (Watson, 1995). Even his perspective on national issues appears to be influenced by his buddies. Jack Kerouac’s political, spiritual, and social understandings play significant roles in the form and content of his writing.
The dead of his brother, childhood friend, and father is another fact of interest. His brother died at the age of nine. He lost a close friend in his adolescent years and his father in 1944 and 1946 respectively. This loss may have affected his spiritual attachments. It also may account for why he wrote about family and his brother’s death. At his father's deathbed, he promised to take care of his mother, Gabrielle. The published novel, "The Town and the City" (1950) reveals his perspective on family and relationships. The book centers on the challenges, love, victories, and losses. Jack Kerouac effectively wrote about the America's counter-culture, spiritual seekers, and the optimists in the postwar generation. The salience of his writings is the depiction of his character as an individual who can relate to different people and be open-minded.
Critics and Readers’ Responses
As an academic contribution, peer-review and criticism is expected from any intellectual piece. The works of Jack Kerouac also received criticism and readership. The New York critic gave his work, On the Road a good rating by extolling the merits of the text. Some section of the public interpreted it differently. According to Weinreich (2017), “While Millstein extolled the literary merits of the book, to the American public the novel represented a departure from tradition.” (n.p). Most of his works critics focus on his life rather than the merit of the texts. Charters observe that critics of Kerouac “have different orientations, but their insights into his life and work are often based on common ground” (1990, p.181). And because the novel, On the Road was published about the time when the Beat concept was gaining popularity, it received significant negative criticism (Campell, 2000).
The Beat generation did not encourage careerism but a quest for happiness and risk-taking. Also, it lacked a sense of commitment to relationships and personal development. However, Kerouac wrote his style called Spontaneous prose as a deviation from the normal and formal prose. He attributed it to the way Neal Cassady writes his letters to him (Berrigan, 1999). Thus, readers and critics were on opposite side of Jack Kerouac’s literary style and content. On one end he was seen as a great thinker with an explorative poetic and narrative mind, while the other end consider him a less fancied writer whose narration falls short of the formal literary styles.
Why he is a Major Writer
Jack Kerouac should be considered a major American writer because of the style he introduced and the impact of his texts. The content of On the Road and some of his texts on relationships and spirituality mark him out as one of the best American writer. Jack Kerouac appears in almost every list of the best 100 American writers. This places him among the best in America. And On the Road has continued to inspire many hopeless and reckless youths in the country to pursue careers that will transform their lives. He stated that:
The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles. (Jack Kerouac Said).
This quote is presently as powerful as it was in his days. Therefore, it is important to credit jack Kerouac for the literary contribution he made to America’s literature. He gave Americans and the rest of the world a different form of writing called spontaneous prose.
References
Berrigan, T. (1999). ‘The Art of Fiction XLI, interview with Kerouac’ in Plimpton, G. (ed) Beat Writers at Work. London: Harvil Press.
Campbell, J. (2000). This is the Beat Generation . London: Vintage.
Charters, A. (1990). ‘The Past is the Root of the Future’ in P. Anctil, L. Dupont, R. Ferland and E. Waddell (eds.) Un Homme Grand: Jack Kerouac at the crossroads of Many Cultures . Ottawa University Press.
Jack Kerouac said: "The only people for me are the mad ... (n.d.). Retrieved from http://thinkexist.com/quotation/the_only_people_for_me_are_the_mad_ones-the_ones
Watson, S. (1995). The Best of the Beat Generation: Visionaries, rebels, and hipsters, 1944-1960. New York: Pantheon.
Weinreich, R. (2017). “Jack Kerouac” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/biography/jack-kerouac
