Tag - On the Road

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Happy Birthday Jack Kerouac
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Alcoholic Authors III

Happy Birthday Jack Kerouac

 

birthday cake

As it is Jack Kerouac’s birthday today (he would have been 94) I am dedicating this week’s post to the iconic author.

Jack KerouacJack Kerouac(March 12th 1922 – October 21st 1969)

Notable works: On the Road, The Dharma Bums, Big Sur, The Town and the City

Novelist, poet and artist Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1922 to French Canadian parents. Alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg he was one of the pioneers of the Beat Generation. Today Kerouac is best remembered for his spontaneous prose style. Themes in his work include jazz, Buddhism, drugs, poverty, promiscuity and above all travel.

A notoriously heavy drinker, Kerouac’s favourite drink was said to be Margarita. He wrote in his book, Big Sur, ‘Don’t drink to get drunk. Drink to enjoy life.’ His drinking led to his premature death aged 47 from internal bleeding.

Here are some interesting facts about Jack Kerouac:

  • According to Kerouac he was born Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac.
  • He was a high school athletics star (sprinter and hurdler) and college football player (running back).
  • Kerouac has been compared to James Dean because of the rebellious nature of his work and his Hollywood good looks.
  • Kerouac is buried at Edson Cemetery in his hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts.

Kerouac’s most famous work, On the Road, was written on a 120-foot piece of continuous scroll over a 3 week period in April 1951. It was not published until 1957. Here is a picture of the original manuscript.

Manuscript 

I have read 2 of Kerouac’s books, On the Road and Maggie Cassidy. Although On the Road is his seminal work, I preferred Maggie Cassidy. Click on the links to read my reviews.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac – The defining text of The Beat Generation is a largely autobiographical account of the author’s adventures in America and Mexico. The story follows restless protagonist Sal’s various road trips…(More)

Maggie Cassidy by Jack Kerouac – Set in the close-knit working-class French-Canadian community of Lowell, Massachusetts, Maggie Cassidy is a semi-autobiographical account of Kerouac’s adolescence. The story is recounted through the teenage mind(More)

Here are 2 good Jack Kerouac quotes:

‘Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.’ — On the Road

‘Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.’ — Jack Kerouac

Alcoholic Authors III

As my Alcoholic Authors series has proven to be fairly popular here is a further instalment.

 Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker (August 22nd 1893 – June 7th 1967)

Notable works: Enough Rope, Sunset Gun, A Star is Born.

American writer and poet Dorothy Parker was renowned for her sardonic wit and writing abilities.  Parker sold her first poem to Vanity Fair in 1914 and went on to have an incredibly successful career, which saw her publish books, short-stories, screenplays and poetry.  Her achievements include being a script writer for the Academy Award nominated film, A Star is Born.

A lifelong heavy drinker, Parker suffered from bouts of acute depression, even attempting suicide on several occasions.  In later years as a direct result of her habit she was to suffer declining health. There has been much speculation as to why she drunk so heavily, perhaps it was a result of a traumatic childhood – her mother died when she was a small child, or her failed marriages and affairs; the author was married three times, twice to the same man.

Parker once famously said about her favourite drink martini:

“I like to have a martini,

Two at the very most.

After three I’m under the table,

After four I’m under my host.”

Little has been documented about Parker’s drinking habits, this may be in part due to the often isolated nature of her consumption, but also because as a woman her alcohol excess was never glorified.

Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac

(March 12th 1922 – October 21st 1969)

Notable works: On the Road, The Dharma Bums, Big Sur.

American novelist, writer, poet and artist Jack Kerouac was a member of the Beat Generation that also included William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg.  Kerouac primarily wrote autobiographical novels in a spontaneous prose style.  His most famous book, On the Road, set against a backdrop of poetry, jazz and drug use was the defining work of the postwar Beat Generation.

Kerouac was a very heavy drinker, who particularly enjoyed Margaritas, having developed a taste for them during one of his trips to Mexico.  The author was acutely aware of his drinking problem, often expressing a desire to quit or at least moderate his habit.  In his book, Big Sur, Kerouac eloquently explained the nature of alcoholism.  He once said, ‘Don’t drink to get drunk.  Drink to enjoy life.’

In later years Kerouac’s alcohol consumption increased as he found himself feeling isolated from the burgeoning counter-culture movement that he had reluctantly started.  On October 20th 1969, Kerouac was rushed to hospital with abdominal pain.  He died the following day from an internal hemorrhage caused by cirrhosis of the liver, caused by a lifetime of alcohol excess; he was forty-seven years old.  The author’s legacy is that he will always be remembered as a literary pioneer and an integral part of the Beat Generation.

I am currently in Munich at the annual Oktoberfest beer festival.  It seems likely that the alcohol theme will continue next week when I plan to recount my time there.

Click here to read Part 2 of Alcoholic Authors.

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