Jack Kerouac: biography, personal life, creativity, photo

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

American writer Jack Kerouac during his lifetime became an idol of the reading public. His works, which decisively broke with the main principles of the literature of the 50s, became a real revelation for many. Of even greater interest was his personal life, where drug use was side by side with an intense spiritual search. During the life of the writer, critics were cool about his works: their confessional style, the method of automatic writing, contrasted too much with the technique of the classic novel. However, shortly after Kerouac's death, voluminous monographs began to appear under the authorship of leading critics, exploring in detail the writer's creative method.

Childhood

Jack Kerouac was born March 12, 1922 in the small town of Lowell, Massachusetts, to a family of emigrants from Canada. The future writer had an older brother, Jerome, who died at the age of nine. This had a serious impact on Kerouac's entire worldview: he believed that his brother became his guardian angel, and even dedicatedhim a short novel "Visions of Gerard", published in 1963.

Kerouac's parents were Canadian French, so the family spoke the Joual dialect. The future master of words began to learn English only at the age of six, when he went to school. Jack's father owned a printing house that published the Spotlight newspaper. The boy showed interest in his father's activities and learned a lot from him: later he will establish a publishing house for a sports bulletin, which he will distribute among his friends.

The print shop was a steady source of income, but Kerouac Sr. was addicted to drinking and betting on the racetrack. In 1936, due to numerous debts, the printing house had to be closed. All the hardships of supporting the family fell on the shoulders of the mother - a strict woman, a devout Catholic. Jack kept the memory of his mother for life and obeyed her in almost everything.

Football, literature and war

In high school, Kerouac became famous throughout the city for his achievements in football. However, his dream was literary work. He was able to enter Columbia University, where for some time he successfully combined literature and sports. But during one of the games he was seriously injured. Playing football qualified Kerouac for an athletic scholarship. Now he was deprived of it. Because of the refusal to renew the scholarship, Jack quarreled with the coach and left the university.

Leaving the university forced Kerouac to look for ways to make a living. He got a job as a sailormerchant ship, and when the United States entered the war with Germany, he volunteered for the Navy. But he did not manage to stay there: six months later, Kerouac was discharged, having been diagnosed with schizophrenia. It is difficult to say how true this was. Kerouac himself stated that he was fired from the Navy because he declared his unwillingness to kill.

First literary experiments

Kerouac's diagnosis was not special. For representatives of earlier literary movements, such as surrealism or Dadaism, schizophrenia was common. There were many schizophrenics in the company of young people who would later form the core of the beatnik movement.

In 1944 Kerouac recovers at Columbia University and becomes close friends with future poet Allen Ginsberg and writer William Burroughs.

During his service in the Navy, Kerouac wrote a huge number of not very successful poems and published only in 2011 the novel "My Brother the Sea". From that moment on, he firmly decided to become a great writer and introduced Ginsberg and Burroughs to this art. Life itself threw interesting stories to him.

Most often students met at the apartment of their girlfriends Joan Vollmer and Edie Parker. They had a real literary salon, where many people entered. Along with all his comrades, Kerouac tried various drugs. While drunk, the friends talked about many things, but most of all about literature.

And the hippos boiled in their pools

In August 1944One of the members of the "salon", Lucien Carr, killed his lover and threw the body into the Hudson Bay. Kerouac helped Carr get rid of the murder weapon. These events were made known to Burroughs, who offered to surrender, but after a discussion with heavy drinking, the trio went to the Museum of Modern Art. The next day they were arrested: Carr on murder charges, Kerouac as an accomplice, and Burroughs for innocence.

The crime of Lucien Carr and the circumstances of the investigation formed the basis of Kerouac's first serious novel, co-written with Burroughs: "And the hippos boiled in their pools." The writing method was as follows: the authors wrote on behalf of different characters. Burroughs first used the pseudonym William Lee, and Kerouac became Mike Rico. During the life of the authors, the novel was not published. In 2005, Lucien Carr died, and only three years later, the work of Kerouac and Burroughs was published.

Marriage

The Carr incident had another consequence for Kerouac. His parents, horrified by his lifestyle, refused to post bail. Edie Parker's parents paid the required amount. After his release, Kerouac married her.

Forced marriage did not bring happiness to the newlyweds. Two months was enough for them to understand that such a life was not for them. Kerouac divorced his wife, but could not return to the university. He finds a job in the Navy again. During flights, he writes a new work - "The Town and the City", - where, under various pseudonyms,all members of their "salon". While working on the text, he begins to take the potent drug benzedrine, which has a narcotic effect. As a result, the writer's he alth was seriously undermined: he fell ill with thrombophlebitis.

First success

According to critical reviews, Jack Kerouac in "Town and Town" proves to be quite a classic writer, not breaking with the traditions of the American novel. But the next work thundered all over America, causing completely polar opinions.

In 1957 Jack Kerouac's most famous novel, On the Road, was published. Based largely on the details of the writer's biography, the work broke sharply with tradition. One method of writing it by automatic writing on paper glued into a roll 36 meters long with the author's incessant use of benzedrine caused bewilderment of critics, accusations of immorality and strong rejection in the academic environment. On the other hand, Jack Kerouac's novel "On the Road" became wildly popular among young people who considered themselves to be part of the "broken generation".

The novel was inspired by one of the writer's friends - Neil Cassidy, introduced under the name of Dean Moriarty. Cassidy showed an interest in literature, but managed to write only a third of his biography, but he was famous for his ability to write letters. One of them consisted of a single sentence, but stretched over 40 pages. After reading Cassidy's letter, Kerouac realized that he had found his style: no paragraphs and punctuation, nothing that could stopthought.

Drugs, coffee and Buddhism

Truman Capote has a curious review of "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac: "It's not prose, it's typescript."

At best, publishers spoke in a similar way. Most of them slammed the doors on the writer. Kerouac once spread his scroll on the floor of the publisher's office to heighten the effect, but in response he heard only a demand for careful editing. The inability to let the public get acquainted with his work caused a serious mental crisis for Kerouac. He is increasingly using benzedrine, washing it down with huge doses of strong coffee and studying the "Buddhist Bible" by Dwight Goddard.

Burroughs openly ridiculed his friend's infatuation both in personal conversations and in his novels, but Kerouac did not stop: he was sure that Buddhist ideas of enlightenment could breathe new life into American culture.

The book "On the Road" Jack Kerouac still managed to publish, but had to agree to editing. All scenes of drug use were removed from the text, and Cassidy-Moriarty's homosexuality was retouched. Despite all the edits that angered the writer, the novel became a cult.

End of an era

In the 60s, the ideas of the beatniks were unclaimed. The society was rapidly politicized. The growing hippie movement anticipated the student, sexual and psychedelic revolution. And although it was the beatniks who could lead all these revolutions, they ran out of steam. Affected by age, too muchbenzedrine was consumed.

Kerouac took the most conservative stance. In particular, he supported the Vietnam War. But no politics could distract him from literary searches. The fascination with Buddhism manifested itself in full force in Jack Kerouac's 1958 novel Dharma Tramps. And although the fury of the beatnik was still heard in it, thoughts about life, the abandonment of a person, almost about existential loneliness began to occupy more and more space.

Latest works

Kerouac made a determined attempt to free himself from addictions and, together with his friend Lawrence Ferlinghetti, went to Big Sur, located on the California coast. However, it did not work out to merge with nature - three days later Kerouac leaves Big Sur, but memories of him resulted in a novel of the same name, published in 1962.

As if anticipating death, the writer tries to fulfill one of his long-standing desires: to find out something about his ancestors. He goes to France, but this trip does not give any results. Satori in Paris contrasts sharply with On the Road. Instead of adventures with Dean Moriarty, the reader is faced with the loneliness of a man who is trying in vain to find at least some meaning in his life. Even more sinister is Jack Kerouac's Angels of Desolation. Being relatively young, the writer turned into a real ruin, which determined the mood of his last works.

Death

In 1966, Kerouac marries StellaSampas. If his previous two marriages were fleeting, then Stella lingered until his death. In 1968 they move to St. Petersburg, where they live relatively quietly, away from student revolutions and minority rights movements. Kerouac does not leave literature, but at the same time he understands that he has nothing to say to the new generation: it is completely different.

October 20, 1969 Kerouac dies. The official version of death was cirrhosis of the liver caused by excessive use of alcohol and drugs. According to another version, Kerouac got into a fight in a local bar. He suffered numerous cuts. Blood clotting disorders prevented the writer's life from being saved, although he received several transfusions.

Meaning and memory

Although several generations have passed since the first novels were published, many people still read and love the works of Jack Kerouac. Almost all of his novels were dismantled into quotations. For example: "Nothing can be understood once and for all" ("On the Road"), "Hate is older than love" ("Maggie Cassidy") or "It's impossible to live in this world, but there is nowhere else" ("Dharma Drifters").

In 2012, the film adaptation of the novel "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac was released. The film evoked polar reviews from critics, which is not surprising: it is too difficult to shift the author's automatic writing into the language of cinema. However, it shows that the ideas and thoughts of one of the most significant prose writers in the United States remain relevant to this day.