If you drive across the bridge into St. Petersburg and somehow find your way to 10th Avenue North, stop by the address 5169.
There you’ll see a ramshackle home missing shingles from the roof, piles of yellowed advertisements at the door and a lawn that hasn’t been groomed in what looks like years.
You’d never guess that you were standing in front of the last home of one of the greatest American writers in the latter half of the 20th Century: Jack Kerouac.
Stop anyone on the street today and only a handful will be able to give you any information about Kerouac.
Who is Kerouac and why is he so important?
What could he possibly have to do with college students in the 21st Century?
In the 1950’s, seemingly as a response to the mass-produced and conformist lifestyle of the Eisenhower era, Kerouac, along with fellow writers Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso and John Clellon Holmes, founded a literary movement that would change the course of the written word forever: the Beat Generation.
This new movement encompassed the rhythms of young America—bebop jazz, spontaneous writing, drugs, casual sex, alcohol and alternative sensibilities—a veritable “out with the old and in with the new.”
This was the new wave, the “it” thing for the young people growing up in the doldrums.
Kerouac was uncomfortably placed as the figurehead of this movement: “the King of the Beats.”
His work can be found in every bookstore and library across the country, ranging from his most famous novel, On the Road to other classics such as The Dharma Bums, The Subterraneans, Visions of Cody, Mexico City Blues and Big Sur.
He influenced dozens of famous writers from the likes of Hunter S. Thompson (of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) to Ken Kesey as well as actors like Johnny Depp and musicians like Bob Dylan and John Lennon.
But what happened to Kerouac?
One would think that with a repertoire like that he’d be a household name by now. Sadly that’s furthest from the truth.
The obvious answer is he died.
A lifelong alcoholic, Kerouac lost his battle with the bottle on Oct. 21, 1969 in a St. Pete hospital from an internal hemorrhage caused by cirrhosis.
Still there is a bigger question in need of asking: why isn’t his spirit still alive on college campuses?
There was a point in time when the name Jack Kerouac conjured up images of youth in revolt, young men and women going out fulfilling their lust for life, experiencing what it meant to be young and alive, to be full of ideals and love and willing to go off in search of adventure in true Beat fashion, that is, to be tired of the norm and always ready to change it.
Aside from F. Scott Fitzgerald and his early stories and J.D. Salinger with The Catcher in the Rye, Kerouac was responsible for turning the young generations back on to literature by writing what they wanted to read — true stylistic and literary revolution.
Despite the impact he had during his time, it seems that Kerouac just doesn’t translate to the youth of today.
Are his works archaic or do we simply not understand them?
Regardless of whatever answers the previous questions might garner, one thing remains true: Kerouac, even in this age, remains a beacon of light in a sea of pop culture nonsense.
There’s something about the youthful intensity and excitement in his writing that seals itself into the pages of history more than any Top 40, frequent-airplay mega-hit or any sorry excuse for a novel on some bestseller list.
Needless to say, Kerouac didn’t churn out any Bible-sized pieces of fan-fiction about teen vampires and werewolves in love.
He wrote about real people, real things and real feelings.
He had a unique understanding of the world that helped him craft a generational movement: love everything, accept the madmen and madwomen, embrace the role of pariah and resist the mold in any way, shape or form.
Despite his drop in popularity over the years, Kerouac will always be there.
In his novel Big Sur, Kerouac claims he needs to make “one fast move or I’m gone.”
His ace in the hole is that his “fast move” is the ability to turn on new generations of readers to his work and philosophy of life.
By doing this, Kerouac will never be “gone.”
Conner McDonough can be reached at cmcdonough@spartans.ut.edu
I am definately a beat junkie- no author have ever seemed to even come close to kerouacs art. A few like Thompson, Borroughs, and Tom Robbins have certainly come close. Im 16 and have been reading Kerouac for a while now and although he has died many years ago he still has a HUGE impact on my outlook on life.
William,
Kerouac DID influence Thompson. Compare Thompson’s style to Kerouac’s and you’ll see a lot talk about the American Dream and a lot of frantic sentences. Just because that burnt-out acid casualty said he thought Kerouac’s stuff was sentimental, doesn’t mean he wasn’t influenced by it anyway.
Secondly, because you’re 24 and see pseudo-intellectuals all the time you’re all of a sudden some kind of expert on the state of college? Isn’t that a careless assumption?
Shit man, I’m 26 and I see rocks all the time but I’m no damn geologist.
I will agree with you that shit is sad and that Kerouac is a hero, though.
Jesus Christ. Someone writes something about Kerouac and suddenly it’s a damn political debate. Hey, “A Questioner,” take your neo-conservatism agenda somewhere else. You’re not winning any friends here. And screw the Tea Party! The fact that they took their political philosophy from some speed-freak from the Soviet Union with a penchant for writing long novels about nothing only makes you look foolish. You want to rap politics and economics, do it somewhere else.
“Kids today would have a stroke if they didn’t have their safety nets. They simply could never understand Kerouac or any type of real struggle.”
Ouch. That’s a massive generalization which has a lot of truth in many cases, but not every kid today is like this. I think a lot of them have probably experienced a lot of useless, depressing things at a young age and just lost hope for the future. Not that this didn’t happen in the past, but there is a lot more hopelessness going around these days.
All I know is the sheltering creates more trouble than it prevents AND causes about as much pain. So, it isn’t really sheltering anyone, and it is naive to think that kids today aren’t living to the same degree, there are just different issues that predominate now and they don’t ALL match up with Kerouac’s awesome writings (in some cases anyway).
Kids, young adults of today are far too narcissistic to have any ideals beyond “what is my mommie going to do for me today” and “i MUST have that latest piece of commercial shit or i will just die.” Kids today would have a stroke if they didn’t have their safety nets. They simply could never understand Kerouac or any type of real struggle.
What the hell are you talking about? He influenced Hunter Thompson? Thompson hated Kerouac’s writing and figured it to be too sentimental. Fitzgerald was Thompson’s hero and The Great Gatsby was his favorite novel.
Also, you’re making constant careless assumptions. College students are just as over idealistic and psuedo intellectual as they’ve always been, trust me, I’m 24 and see it all the time.
Kids are still walking around thinking they’ve got some kind of holy connection to Holden Caufield and wondering why life isn’t like it used to be during On The Road.
This generation has nothing to fight for. If anything the majority of us pine, scratch, and claw for something to fight for, to believe in, but there’s nothing. Jack Keroauc is a hero.
This blog is just something you wrote to fill up space and you’re making assumptions.
I am 17 years old, and Jack Kerouac’s writings have changed my outlook on the world. Each book speaks to me and I try to live my life to the fullest in the beautiful moment…I often ask myself, What would Jack do?
Are you suggesting that hippies were right wing constitutionalists?
Kerouac is dead.
His ideas that informed a generation about freedom and doing your own thing away from the strictures of a controlling society are still alive; though in places you’d likely never think to look.
Let’s rap, my brothers:
The Hippie movement of the 1960’s was a direct result of Kerouac’s work; and until they were vigorously co-opted by the anti-Vietnam crowd in the early 70’s, they espoused freedom from ‘the man’. Today, the anti-Vietnam crowds are all that people can picture when they think of Hippies. The ethic of freedom from a restrictive ‘man’ – the government – and the ability to live life on your own terms has been put away.
You see, the real hippies grew old. They had families, they got responsibilities. Many tuned out and dropped back in. Some simply joined the protests and rode that wave forward until it became the modern post-Reagan Democrats. It’s a bad trip though. The Democrats aren’t about free-living. It’s about control. Control of what you eat, control of who gives you health care, control of wether you can open up a shop or not, control of that farmer’s market where you bring your organic produce. The Republicans aren’t any better, because they’ll just let you be controlled by their interests too. You see, both of them are corrupt. They are both ‘the man’. There’s no hope and change in that. They want to run you into the ground with a smile on their face and feeling good that they helped you out.
Now here’s the dirty little secret you’re not gonna hear on the news:
The Tea Party? Yeah, you know. ‘Those guys’. The ones that want small government, low taxes and the freedom to do their own thing without ‘the man’ crushing their dreams with regulations?
They’re the hippies now.
Embrace it, man.