All of Life Is Creation: Jack Kerouac’s Art

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/all-of-life-is-creation-jack-kerouacs-art/

by samclemens • 8 years ago

38 15 8 years ago

rmason• 8 years ago

I'm a serious fan of Jack Kerouac and I knew he dabbled at painting having read all the biographies written about him.

Someone, might have been his Mother, was quoted as saying that nothing he ever painted was good enough to hang in her house.

So I'm a bit gobsmacked that he was actually regarded as a good artist. I can only hope that someone organizes a travelling collection of his work because I want to decide for myself.

LandR• 8 years ago

I read and loved "On The Road" but had to give up on Desolation Angels it just read like an incoherent stream of consciousness and felt like such hard going.

brother-seamus• 8 years ago

That was exactly my take as well. Absolutely loved On the road, found Dharma Bums to be too incoherent.

keiferski• 8 years ago

For anyone who’s read Kerouac and didn’t quite “get it”: try listening to it as an audiobook. His work takes on an entirely different flavor when heard aloud. Akin to listening to a jazz recording vs. seeing it played improvisationally live.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVPg69sblWk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H7aHumxaQ4A

Loughla• 8 years ago

100% spot on. Kerouac is one of the few authors who need to be read out loud (preferably by someone on speed) to be appreciated the way I assume he wanted it to be.

Not to get too far afield, but I would put Ginsberg on the same list. Howl is a great epic poem, until you hear it screamed out loud over a crowd by someone with an attention disorder. Then it's transcendental.

To get even further removed, if you struggled with the translation of The Canterbury Tales, read the Middle English translation, but read it out loud at 80-120 beats a minute. The words you don't know suddenly become clear, and the entire thing makes sense.

I find it fascinating that some works are seemingly intended to be read out loud and 'performed', but we force people to hear it in their internal voice alone. And then we wonder why folks hate 'classics' of literature or poetry.

ArrayList2• 8 years ago

I'm not sure what videos those are, as youtube is blocked at my work, but this is absolutely essential viewing:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...

ArrayList2• 8 years ago

I'm from Lowell. Good to see Jack on the front page of HN.

creep• 8 years ago

Interesting article, but I'm disappointed with the lack of photographs of the paintings in question. You would expect to see at least one, considering the detailed description of each. It's difficult to follow such descriptions having never seen the object.

redwood2• 8 years ago

On The Road helped kick start the 60s revolution. Great read

mruts2• 8 years ago

I don't think the beats actually shared much with the hippies that came after. Certainly Kerouac himself didn't, he hated hippies.

jim_bailie• 8 years ago

So true. Kerouac was actually <gasp> conservative and quite religious.

All of Life Is Creation: Jack Kerouac’s Art

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