08 September 2011

Kerouac: A Truer Darkness

Kerouac: sensible haircut and OCBD
"I began to understand that the city intellectuals of the world were divorced from the folkbody blood of the land and were just rootless fools, the permissible fools, who really didn’t know how to go on living. I began to get a new vision of my own of a truer darkness which just overshadowed all this overlaid mental garbage of ‘existentialism’ and ‘hipsterism’ and ‘bourgeois decadence’ and whatever names you want to give it."

Jack Kerouac, Vanity of Duluoz (1968)
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9 comments:

  1. Anonymous08 September, 2011 07:19

    Nice quote and picture. Jack Kerouac continues to be misunderstood. Many of those who pay lip service to their idea of him really don't know the man behind the books.

    Best regards,

    JRC

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  2. Soxtory08 September, 2011 10:36

    Jack Kerouac's grave: the only tourist attraction in Lowell, Massachusetts. The Red Sox minor league team gave away JK bobblehead dolls a few years ago. I would like to find one.

    Vern Trotter

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  3. Anonymous08 September, 2011 22:13

    The late period Mr.Kerouac seemed to his so-called "beat" associates to have become a horrible square reactionary,anti-communist,etc. I say he just became the adult in the room. Too bad it didn't stop him from drinking to death...

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  4. Anonymous09 September, 2011 04:06

    The Library of America published the collected works of Kerouac just a few years ago, still very much in print. Their volumes are especially good for home libraries -- compact, scholarly, good binding and good paper, not very expensive. (I have no commercial connection with LOA.)

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  5. Thirty Miles At Sea09 September, 2011 20:04

    An incisive quote. I am suprised that Kerouac uttered it, and will have to give his later work a read when I get the chance. There are style blogs and there are culture blogs; this one does an excellent job exploring the interstices. Nice work Admiral.

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  6. Laguna Beach Fogey09 September, 2011 20:08

    TMAS ~ Thanks mate.

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  7. Anonymous10 September, 2011 23:12

    Gore Vidal claims to have....

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  8. Soxtory13 September, 2011 12:23

    Bill Buckley forever dispatched Gore Vidal as a nuisance both on national TV and in later libel cases.

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  9. Anonymous14 September, 2011 12:21

    I appreciate that excellent quote by Kerouac, who was rejected by many of his supporters for failure to keep faith with hipster dogma. As a person older now than jJack was when he died I can appreciate his honesty and the doubts he had about ideas he once held to be sacrosanct. Excellent blog you have and one I will be coming back to regularly. Thank Richard at WASP 101 for linking to your site.

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