Jack Kerouac - On The Road

Rick, just a couple of books you should add to your American Lit list: Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, and William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying. Just two of my favourites.

The teacher who thought that you belonged in special ed. You showed her your test scores and watched the shocked look on her face. Hee Hee!

Yes, I must admit, that was a perfect squelch.

Hmmmm, Cav. Let's see. Isn't the 49th parallel somewhere near Maine?

OK. It seems I have a lot of catching up to do. Point is however that here in the Netherlands we mainly focuse on European Literature: besides of course Dutch literature, mostly British, German and French literature. We did have some American Literature as I already pointed out, but that wasn't very much to say the least.

Oh that one. Ya, that was something, I'm STILL enjoying it . But I have to go now, I'll log in again tomorrow.

Maine schmane...we have better lobster.

Rick, it seems you have had some good exposure to tried and true classic novels in American Lit. You do need to explore the underbelly, the radical, the American writers criticized and persecuted for their works. I propose a steady diet of Henry Miller, Charles Bukowski, Faulkner (again) and Edmund Wilson's 'Memoirs of Hecate County', with that Whitman thrown in for vitamins.

Oh, Hemingway too, I suppose, if you like that sort of manly stuff.

Cav, I believe young Rick is logging out. You know something, Cav. I believe that the thing that Hitler feared most about the Jews, was the fact that they were so damned intelligent. I don't usually ascribe one characteristic to an entire race, but the more I come in contact with members of the Jewish community, the more I am awed by their mental acuity.

People of the book, Letty, that's how the faithful amongst us describe themselves.

As for Hitler, I think he was just your average whackjob who happened to be in the right place at the right time, no pun intended, lol.

Kerouac wasn't all that fond of Jews either, just as a sidenote.

Well, I knew personally a woman who was a war bride and was a secretary for the Gestapo. I wanted to talk to her about the purge, and was stunned at her reply.

The biggest reason ,in my opinion, why Hitler came to power was the fact that The Treaty of Versailles was a joke. He seized it as opportunity to corrupt the minds of the youth in a post war situation. Yes, my friend. Times did make that man, but he was politically savvy. That's what sorta gives me the creeps about our president.

.

Politically savvy maybe, as an opportunist, not a strategist, which makes him, in my mind, a very poor example of a leader. Bush Jr. is kinda in the same boat, although I'd hardly call him a Hitler. At least the American public has a chance to vote him out.

I don't know, Cav. Florida was a pivotal state in the last election. I watched Peter Jennings (my favorite anchor man) fumble and stumble for words when his projection about Gore was totally wrong. First time that I have ever seen that man lose his composure.

Well, this has been a fantastic thread and I have enjoyed the exchanges. Certainly would have been nice to have you and Rick in my gifted class.

Later.

Nah, Desolation Angels is the good one; more honest, more frank -- more depressing. Nowhere near as honest, frank, and depressing, though, as what the women in Kerouac's life have had to write and say about him. Most of the other beats were poets rather than novelists/memoirists -- folks like Gary Snyder, Ginsburg, Gregory Corso. Personally, I think Ferlinghetti is the best poet of the bunch.

And of course there was William S. Burroughs. Not really a beat, exactly.

Ken Kesey -- "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" -- was the hippie successor to the beat writers. At least, that argument could be made. Oh, and there's also Richard Brautigan ("Trout Fishing In America").


Just some mental regurgitations of a few Americans from that time I read when I was d'Israeli's age...

Desolation Angels would indeed make a fine companion read to On The Road, as a comparison. I'm a big fan of Ferlinghetti. Coney Island of the Mind is among my faves. Kesey as well. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test are must reads.

I wondered, reading Acid Test, how much Wolfe actually saw and how much he go from hearsay -- and how much of the latter might have been the result of the Merry Pranksters putting him on. A great read, though.

Have you read "Once Upon A Time A Great Notion" -- Kesey's Oregon novel? I liked it more than Cuckoo's Nest in a lot of ways, but I think partly because it reminded me of my home town.

Patio, you and I once disagreed on the prophetic quality of Marshall McCluhan, but I still think the man knew of what he was speaking.

As to Ferlinghetti:

verses:



CHRIST climbed down

from His bare Tree

this year

and ran away to where

there were no rootless Christmas trees

hung with candy canes and breakable stars



Christ climbed down

from His bare Tree

this year

and ran away to where

no intrepid Bible salesmen

covered the territory

in two-tone Cadillacs

and where no Sears Roebuck crèches

complete with plastic babe in manger

arrived by parcel post

the babe by special delivery

and where no televised Wise Men

praised the Lord Calvert Whiskey

The only poem that ever made sense to me.

I haven't read a book in four years. Not certain why.

I hope I didn't disagree with you about McCluhan -- I don't know anything about him!


Except, doesn't he show up to contradict a loudmouth ina movie line in Annie Hall?

Odd. I just lost my response. Ah, well. Trying again.

I remember more than you younguns. Remember your Afuzz profile as Setanta would say. It said, "What are you lookin' at"?

Now for that link. It was on Noddy's thread.

http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/hopkins_guide_to_literary_theory/marshall_mcluhan.html

Bet Cav knows him...

Wait -- "Understanding Media" wasn't written as two tracts, side by side throughout the book, was it?