Hey Those Out There In the Great Beyond,
How are you? If you're tired of me talking about Graphic Novels and Funny Books well here's a break. A few years ago while still harboring delusions about the stability of an English degree I took a class on Beat Literature. It was taught by Don Revell who is that kind of English teacher you dream of but never really get a chance to take a class from. He's crazy, irreverent, magical and deeply feels the poetry he's teaching. If you get a chance I highly reccommend checking out his poetry or attending a reading/class.
Anyway, I came to Beat Lit relatively late in regards to my poetry/modern lit experience. As a teen I was not really the rebellious type, my upbringing was full of pragmatism. Workaholics don't have time for drunken rambles and road trips. So while I found Beat Lit intriguing, I looked more toward structural formalist poetry. Modern poetry just didn't make any sense to me as a teenager, and I didn't feel it was relevant. Perhaps Beat Lit isn't really meant to be appreciated by those who haven't experienced a measured amount of turbulent existence. Maybe I just wasn't ready for it.
So I didn't end up picking up 20th century poetry until I was in my early 20s. Now my 20s ended up being the cliched self-discovery odyssey that should be expected. That could be the reason that I responded so strongly to On the Road upon first reading it. (I've talked about it before so I won't go in depth.) Kerouac's Sal Paradise is a reflective surface. The only identity he has is the women, friends, and alcohol that he surrounds himself with. It is not until the end that he discovers that only he can express his own emotional turmoil. He cannot rely on his friends, only himself. In our mid-20s this is an essential lesson. One must develop their own self-identity in order to move on to the next stage. How can you care about someone else if you don't know who you are yourself?
The main characters of Kerouac's novella The Subterraneans, exemplify this dilemma. Leo and Mardou are lost within their surroundings. Their lives are a desperate mixture of extreme emotions and actions. These two are able to equally mete out love and pain within their short coupling. The highs are high and the lows are low. Neither seems to be able to tell the other what they need or expect from each other. Clearly they do not know, because they don't know themselves as individuals. To cope with this Leo drinks too much. Mardou goes to see an analyst. Neither seems to do any good. The ending of their relationship is inevitable.
Knowing that the main character Leo is meant to be Kerouac, The Subterraneans is a form of confessional prose. Writing is Kerouac's safest method of coping with his extreme emotions. Otherwise he ends up drinking too much and getting into bar fights. His prose style tumbles out to the reader as he tries to convey his emotional turmoil. Kerouac needs to share his thoughts and emotions with the reader. He is begging for someone to explain to him what went wrong with Mardou. This emotional style requires the reader to bend a sympathetic ear. It's easy to toss him off as unbearably solipsistic, however Kerouac has no other healthy way to share his turmoil.
For me beat literature contains a wonderful emotional honesty that can be refreshing. Too often, as adults we are urged to loose our humanity in order succeed. "Grow Up" we are told. Kerouac explores the consequences of not being able to integrate his own extreme emotional state and a healthy self identity. Kerouac never manages to do so, and ends up alone.
I'll be writing more about Beat Literature this month so stay tuned. Book Slave.
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