It's not that I don't like Ginsberg and Snyder; I like their works very much actually. Ginsberg's "Howl" was a familiar piece that I read in LAR. I also watched a YouTube video of some guy--not by Ginsberg--reading the piece out loud. Because there is so much alliteration and strong consonant-driven words, it's difficult to read. But when read, it sounds like musical poetry where the rhythm stands out. I can imagine someone reading it and people snapping along. Snyder's poems were good too, although I was a little disturbed by "Beneath My Hand and Eye the Distant Hills. Your Body." In my opinion, both writers cannot compare to Kerouac. And why? Because I have been a Jack Kerouac fan ever since I was introduced to the Beat Movement.
I read Kerouac's On the Road and loved the idea of a very long road trip with friends. Although Kerouac's road experience was more for a mature audience, the whole concept of being out and free on the road is thrilling. There are also similarities between the writings of Kerouac and Ginsberg, however, Ginsberg has more harsher (not sure how to put it) consonant sounds.
Because I am originally from California, anything that mentions the state or any its cities catches my attention. In Big Sur, Kerouac often mentions the cities of California, mostly involving their trip, such as San Francisco and San Jose. He also made a reference to On the Road, talking about Dean Moriarty (one of his characters) which I found interesting. In his novels, there is always him and his close friend: Cody and Dean Moriarty.
Lastly, I know alcoholism tends to be a driving force in many writers including my other personal favorite F. Scott Fitzgerald. But I have never read it the way Kerouac describes it. For example, on page 1321, Kerouac writes (and this is a long sentence/paragraph but I'm adding it to prove my point), "Any drinker knows how the process works: the first day you get drunk is okay, the morning after means a big head but so you can kill that easy with a few more drinks and a meal, but if you pass up the meal and go on to another night's drunk, and wake up to keep the toot going, and continue on to the fourth day, there'll come one day when the drinks wont take effect because you're chemically overloaded and you'll have to sleep those last five nights, so delirium sets in----Sleeplessness, sweat, trembling, a groaning feeling of weakness where your arms are numb and useless, nightmares (nightmares of death)...well, there's more of that up later." If this is what drinking is like to them, I feel like it slows them down: their youth, their freedom, and their trip. I mean, drinking is part of the life they enjoy, but it is a huge controlling element in their life that ironically was the cause for Jack Kerouac's death. (F. Scott Fitzgerald also died very young, mostly because of excessive drinking.)
I agree that the poem was hard to read silently--when we listened to it in class it seemed easier to follow along and was easier to understand. I always think this ironic especially with Fitzgerald and the fact that he dies from what he writes about. I mean he realizes the problem but he decides to keep excessively drink. I liked your connection with California and the fact that you can connect with the poem in a way that others may not be able to.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that the California connection had such different effects on you and me. The mentions caught my attention in the same way, but for me it ended up being a disappointment. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy the familiar mostly NorCal setting, but rather the opposite: having the story set in California raised my expectations, and then they weren't met because I could hardly read the story with Kerouac's unique writing style. So I guess really it didn't have such a different effect on us, you were just actually able to read the story and understand it whereas I was not. I might have to go back and reread it sometime now and give it another chance knowing it was a positive experience for another Californian.
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