Jack Kerouac was born 100 years ago today. (March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969). Some of his writings made him a great mentor to me as a teen in the 1960s, being very influential in my comprehension and practice of Buddhism, of personal freedom, and of the great outdoors. He was one of the great influencers in my life.
Of his books, The Dharma Bums, On The Road, and Desolation Angels were most important to me as a high school seeker.
His novels are extremely uneven in their projected sense-of-life. They can occasionally have some very rare “healthy” aspects (which, to me, are his articulations of the joy of getting out “on the road” to new unexplored places, of seeking out uniquely interesting people, of some of his insights into Buddhism, and, above all, his chronicling of a solitary human slogging through Samsara). But most of his other novels are extremely depressing and portray his often sick, addicted and sad soul. Ignore those. Following below, I will try to winnow out what are, to me, the best aspects of Kerouac’s writing.
I read his novels in this order: In high school, my friends and I traded books and ideas. Mark handed me a copy of Kerouac’s Desolation Angels. Wow! I had already been deeply into Buddhism, but this was my first immergence into Zen. We next found On The Road.
Then, The Dharma Bums (1958). This is one of those top few books that have inspired me the most both in my young life and beyond.
Jack partied – hard, as did I – but he also meditated, and he sought out what an honest and authentic human should think and do. This novel chronicles the mid-1950s Beat Generation renaissance in poetry and freedom on the West Coast. And much, much more.
Gary Snyder, the poet, translator and intellectual, is a key figure in The Dharma Bums (his name is disguised as Japhy Ryder). Snyder introduced Kerouac (and me) to the poetry of Chinese Ch’an/Zen mountain hermit Han Shan and his Cold Mountain Poems. Snyder later published a small volume of translations of some these Han Shan poems (1959), which I acquired in the late-1960s and still have with me close at hand.
And mountain climbing! I had always been fascinated by mountaineering literature and any books and documentaries of great climbs and climbers. So, Kerouac’s account, in The Dharma Bums, of him and Snyder doing a backpack climb in the High Seirra was right on.
Jack had earlier gone to a San Franciso surplus store and bought a rucksack, sleeping bag and other gear, outfitting himself for major backpack rambling. His concept of a “rucksack revolution”, where he envisioned American youth loading up their packs and venturing out into a bold rambling way of life – this hit home, and it easily launched me “on the road” and into the hills.
Re: my own Buddhist journey. I had been exploring comparative religions then in my teens, and I liked Buddhism most of all, especially the life-story narratives of Siddhartha Gautama (the Shakyamuni Buddha), with his genuine solitary all-out seeking of moral truths. The Pali Canon of “southern Buddhism”, i.e., the most ancient Hinayana/ Theravada traditions (despite their unfortunate supernatural interludes) chronicled this, and it seemed more historically accurate than the Mahayana cosmic visions. But Zen, a Mahayana offshoot, seemed to nail the here-and-now beauty of mountain and forest in its practice – without dogma.
In this book, Kerouac reinforced a native trait I already had: bivouacking out alone under the night skies. He stayed with his sister for a while in North Carolina, and he found a little spot amongst the trees where he could sit and meditate in the frosty winter nights. I, too, staked out an obscure spot of nature above Chandlers Valley that I called the Zen Grove, where I would sit and meditate. And, in all the years since, I’ve found special little spots of privacy and quiet, in forests, meadows, or even urban corners, where I can sit. And see the Moon.
Zen apprentice motto: “Haul Water, Chop Wood.”
Barlow corollary: “Climb high, Watch Moon.”
I think The Dharma Bums is Kerouac’s finest writing. It was written in late-1957, just after On The Road was finally published, with Jack’s first experience of literary recognition and success, so he was full of energy, enthusiasm, and was rather “optimistic” (if that concept could ever be ascribed to Desolation Jack).
Desolation Angels (published in 1965) was written over time in 1956 and again in 1961 There are two distinct sections: “Desolation Angels” and “Passing Through”. (But Kerouac had wanted them published as separate books.) The first section (written c.1956) was mainly from his journals while he was a lone Firewatch up on Desolation Peak in the North Cascades for the summer of 1956, and it was written before his publishing success. The second section (c.1961) was a reflection on later experiences, and I found this last section very depressing.
The greatest impressions on me from that first section on Desolation Peak – as a teenage explorer of Buddhism and my first reading of Kerouac – was his presentation of Zen, its aesthetics, and especially the recognition of the wonderous Full Moon and the night. Han Shan too!
On The Road (1957) written in 1951. This book launched countless numbers of us in my generation to hit the road. By 1968, I had a rucksack, sleeping bag, and a jungle hammock shelter, and I had “dropped out”. The day after graduation, (the late) Gary Olson and I hitchhiked across northern Pennsylvania’s Route 6 toward the unknown of New York City. We went right to Greenwich Village, traditional Beat center, and we drank beer at Gerdy’s Folk City, the bar where Bob Dylan was discovered. That summer, I hitched all over the northeastern US, on the road, as a Dharma bum with Kerouac as an example. A satori in the USA.
By the way, get the best version: On The Road: the Original Scroll, published not that long ago, which has the original text. A purist’s delight. And, there was a good 2012 film version of this Kerouac novel.
In summation: Jack, you were a bit sick and self-destructive, but I did especially appreciate your compassion. Whenever I see hardship and adversity endured by either humans or animals, in my mind I hear you exclaim, like a long-enduring bodhisattva:
“Poor suffering creatures, everywhere”.
Caveat: my scholarship on Kerouac history is not up to date, so I may have to update and correct this post from time to time.
-Zenwind.
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