Jordan Mattox

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Chapter 1

Summary: In this first chapter, we meet Jack Duluoz, the author of “On the Road” as he wakes up drunk in San Francisco. The success of his book has led to fame that has proved trying on his patience with reporters and fans constantly on the hunt for his whereabouts and words, saying that it has “driven him mad (p. 4).” He has come to San Francisco based on an invitation from Lorenzo Monsanto to come to his cabin in Big Sur and do things like chopping wood, drawing water, sleeping, and writing. He discusses the waste and debauchery that is surrounded in the city, setting up the departure for a retreat narrative. 

Questions: 

1. Why does he get drunk as soon as he arrives in San Francisco? 
2. What do we learn about his view of fame? 
3. What does this prologue to his journey suggest about the upcoming retreat? 

Historical Insights 

The song “I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen” is mentioned twice in the first chapter. It is an Irish ballad that was performed by the likes of Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley, and Johnny Cash. The ballad was originally written in 1875, 11 years after the end of the American Civil War. The message of the song is about bringing a beloved wife home to Ireland because of all of the death that is experienced in the US. 

Chapter 2: 

In this brief chapter, we get a picture of Jack’s room: his rucksack ready for a journey and his mind and body trapped in a mental malaise of “a physical and spiritual and metaphysical hopelessness” as he describes it. He spends time explaining how difficult it is to escape this hopelessness before jumping up to race out his apartment, buy groceries, and get on a bus to Monterrey, describing his journey as an “escape.” He arrives in Monterrey at 2am and begins his hike into Raton Canyon. 

Questions: 

1. What precipitates Jack’s sudden escape from the malaise? 
2. What does Jack mean when he says that you can’t learn his hopelessness in schools? 
3. What does Monterrey represent for Jack? 

Literary Insights: 

There are two references to existential themes in Chapter 2. Existentialism was a major part of the zeitgeist during the time. Here’s a brief discussion from a larger article about the connection: 

The fiction of Jack Kerouac was no exception. Like the other writers of the Beat ilk, he wrote novels that reflected the youth’s exasperation, innocence, zest and spiritual yearnings. They are a powerful fictional signature of a generation baffled by the contemporary American society’s negation of human values which were most evidently evinced in the American assault on Vietnam, oppression of gays and lesbians, prejudices against racial minorities and such other oppressive paradigms of the establishment. The novels are an intriguing reflection of the zeitgeist of that time as it “….was a war with social overtones..” 

Chapter 3:

In chapter three, Jack is dropped by a taxi on the edge of Raton Canyon. After his ride leaves, Jack has to navigate in the darkness alongside a road and the ocean. The natural environment appears menacing to Jack, and he struggles to find his way through it. Eventually, a “dreamy meadowland” emerges, pointing toward his destination. 

Questions: 

1. What can we derive about Kerouac’s view of nature from this chapter? 
2. What does the darkness represent in this story? 
3. What function does the religious language serve in this chapter? 

Literary Insights:

On page 12, Kerouac uses the homonyms “afraid” and “affrayed” to describe his feeling alone in the dark. Afraid seems to imply a division between Kerouac and nature and affrayed, which has its roots related to a fray or fight between two people that disturbs the peace. The latter implies that the darkness perhaps represents an internal struggle for Jack with darkness as something in him. 

Chapter 4

In chapter four, it is morning in Big Sur and the terrifying landscape that Jack wandered in the night is revealed in the clarity of daylight. The height of the bridge terrifies Jack, seeing the remains of a car at the base that had gone over the edge nearly ten years before. He also quakes the ferocity of the ocean with the menacing and jagged rocks puncturing its surface. Finally, Jack mocks the common phrase that Big Sur is a beautiful place, seeing instead the violence and darkness.

Questions: 

1. What is it about the height of the bridge and the depth of the sea that terrifies Jack?
2. Why are the woods, which he refers to as “pleasant,” mostly a positive landscape for him?

Literary Insights: 

William Blake, the famous English poet, had an impact on the writing of the Beat Generation. Here’s a discussion from a blog post on Beatdom.com:

William Blake’s influence on the Beat Generation is arguably more significant than that of any other writer or artist. Most notably he was Ginsberg’s “guru” and the “catalyst” for his poetry, and even warranted a mention in “Howl”. Blake supposedly appeared to Ginsberg in 1945 and read “Ah Sun-flower”, and again in 1948 when Ginsberg was reading “The Sick Rose”. He explained,

‘I was never able to figure out whether I was having a religious vision, a hallucinatory experience, or what, but it was the deepest ‘spiritual’ experience I had in my life, and determined my karma as poet. That’s the-key pivotal turnabout of my own existence. That’s why I was hung up on setting Blake to music.”

Visions were important to Blake, who claimed that his poetry was not necessarily a work that he created, but something channeled through him. He referred to himself as a “true Orator” and claimed that poetry came from a voice that he simply wrote down.

This isn’t too different from Williams S. Burroughs’ claim about the origins of his own weird prose:

‘I get these messages from other planets. I’m apparently some kind of agent from another planet but I haven’t got my orders clearly decoded yet.’

It should also be noted that Burroughs was supposedly unable to recall writing any of the original material for Naked Lunch. However, Burroughs – who originally leant Ginsberg copies of Blake’s poetry when they first met, not long before Ginsberg’s famous vision – was dismissive of the mystical idea of visions, claiming that Blake simply saw things that others couldn’t see.

Blake’s method of transcribing words from the ether also seems to bear a strong resemblance to Kerouac’s fabled Spontaneous Prose, which shunned traditional ideas of composition and sought to grasp something holy from within. Although Kerouac named numerous influences on his style, just months before he died he wrote to Philip Whalen and told him that “Blake’s Jerusalem…is worth a fartune” (“fartune” being a Blakean spelling of “fortune”). Jerusalem was one of the poems Blake claimed to have dictated from a voice.

But perhaps even moreso than Ginsberg, Burroughs, and Kerouac, it was Michael McClure that took Blake has his greatest literary influence. Like Ginsberg, Blake also came to McClure in a vision, and the two men marveled over the difference in their perceptions of this visitor. McClure explained,

“Allen has a Blake who is a Blake of prophecy, a Blake who speaks out against the dark Satanic Mills. My Blake is a Blake of body and of vision.”

Chapter 5

Summary: In this poetic chapter, Kerouac explores some of the challenges of being in nature. At the start of the chapter, he discusses dreams and extrapolates meaning in complex prose. He talks about being left alone at the cabin, the nature of his poor sleeping bag, the presence of flies, and frightening nights sleeping on the beach. The chapter ends with the fog rolling in. 

Questions

1. This chapter makes a turn from the chronological narrative to more vague and meandering prose that loses the linear path of the story in some ways. What is the function of this turn? 
2. What do his dreams tell us about his spiritual journey in Big Sur? 

Environmental Insight:

I’ve enjoyed digging into the landscape, climate, topography, and geology of Big Sur. Here’s a great YouTube video that explores the geology of this area: 

Geology of the Big Sur Coast: A Dynamic Landscape

Chapter 6

Summary: 

In this chapter, Jack explores and discusses the beauty and unique climate of the Big Sur region. He contrasts his new life of peace and tranquility in the woods in the cabin with his life of fame before where he had to go on talk shows and on dates with irritating women who are only seeking to be in proximity to his fame. The chapter includes many allusions to literature and art as Jack attempts to describe what his isolation does for him spiritually. 

Questions: 

1. Do these chapters have a philosophy of time and how much time has transpired in the woods so far? 
2. Why does Kerouac end the chapter by alluding to a transformation of nature into something “sinister?” 

Historical Insight: 

Kerouac mentions in this chapter going on the Steve Allen Show. Thanks to YouTube, we have the power to see this reference: 

JACK KEROUAC on THE STEVE ALLEN SHOW with Steve Allen 1959

Chapter 7

Summary: This is the most poetic and most beautiful chapter in the book so far. The themes of transcendentalism emerge early in the chapter in his reference to Emerson. There are also discussions of poetry and seeming references to the poetic voice of Robinson Jeffers. Duluoz sits in a cave at the beach recording the sounds of the ocean crashing. Later in the chapter, he reflects on the land, the native people before him, how all things are connected, but eventually return to the sea, and more. 

Questions: 

1. What is Kerouac’s understanding of the spirit in nature? 
2. In what ways does Duluoz carry the attributes imparted in Emerson’s essay On Self Reliance? 

I’ve read a lot of Robinson Jeffers over the years and have felt his presence in this book even though he is not mentioned and the two seemingly have no connection. Here’s a poem of Jeffers that I was reminded in reading the section where Duluoz is listening to the ocean: 

Ocean

by Robinson Jeffers

It dreams in the deepest sleep, it remembers the storm last month or it feels the far storm.

Off Unalaska and the lash of the sea-rain.

It is never mournful but wise, and takes the magical misrule of the steep world

With strong tolerance, its depth is not moved

From where the green sun fails to where the thin red clay lies on the basalt

And there has never been light nor life.

The black crystal, the untroubled fountain, the roots of endurance.

Therefore

I belted

The house and the tower and courtyard with stone,

And have planted the naked foreland with future forest toward noon and morning: for it told me,

The time I was gazing in the black crystal,

To be faithful in storm, patient of fools, tolerant of memories and the muttering prophets,

It is needful to have night in one’s body.

Chapter 8

Summary: Kerouac, in this chapter, takes an inventory of beauty. Each sentence, save a few, starts with “there’s” and then makes an observation about the environment. There’s a special focus on animal life and, at one point, he pauses his serial approach and says “there’s universal substance which is divine because where else can it be?” But the chapter ends with Duluoz saying “there are the signposts of something wrong,” presaging some imminent conflict, which we can only assume will be something that has to do with the thing that Duluoz was escaping: civilization. 

Questions: 

1. What is Kerouac doing by using the serial listing and repetition in this chapter? 
2. When Kerouac says “there’s universal substance which is divine because where else can it be,” what is he telling us about his ontology? 

As I’ve been reading Big Sur, Thoreau’s influence on Kerouac has been front of mind for me. There are not many direct allusions so far, but I found a great blog post by doctoral student that looks at the relationship between these two writers: 

When Petrus Alfonsi, writing in the twelfth century, gathered the stories for his Disciplina Clericalis, he may have hoped, but could not have been aware, that he would influence great writings far into the future, including Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, as well as children’s literature through publisher John Newbery. Jonathan Swift certainly hoped to influence, even sway, his immediate audience, and as Ireland’s troubles grew, so did Swift’s influence, which still remains in the writings of James Joyce, Brendan Behan, and others. Henry David Thoreau, convinced of the need for individuals to pursue truth in simplicity and nature, wrote Walden as a lasting record of his time dedicated to that pursuit, and in doing so, he influenced, almost one hundred years later, other authors whose pursuit of truth would lead them to individual encounters with nature. Jack Kerouac’s Big Sur recounts, in an autobiographically fictional style, his time spent in isolation on the California coast, and his work fulfills the long-building influence of Thoreau on Kerouac’s life, echoes the experiences of Thoreau during his retreat at Walden, and mirrors, dimly, Thoreau’s experiment at Walden Pond.

Considering Kerouac’s near obsession with death as Big Sur draws to a close, an understanding of how Kerouac and Thoreau explore that theme becomes significant, and while their surface reactions are completely different, the topic of death brings out the analytical in each. Kerouac indicates early in the work that he “went crazy inside three weeks” (39) and references his own unstable state of mind several times throughout the work; therefore, the reader should not be surprised that, on his return to Raton Canyon, he exhibits some inexplicable behavior. Observing his sleeping companions, he writes, “‘But they all look dead!’ I’m carking in my canyon, ‘Sleep is death, everything is death’” (213). Important references to death in Kerouac’s Big Sur concern his cat, his brother, and Billie’s son. Kerouac, after pointing out his seeming overreaction to the death of his cat, equates that death to the death of his brother: “[I]t was exactly and no lie and sincerely like the death of my little brother” (49). The anguish caused by the death of Kerouac’s cat conflicts sharply with Mitchell Breitweiser’s indication of his “lack of grief” shown for his brother in Visions of Gerard (Breitwieser 256). Kerouac seems aware of this antithetical attitude between the two time periods. He refers to Gerard as his “little brother” though Kerouac was four years younger. He begins an analysis of the shift in his attitude almost immediately: “[M]y relationship with my cat . . . has always been a little dotty: some kind of psychological identification of the cats with my dead brother Gerard who’d taught me to love cats when I was 3 or 4” (51-52). Kerouac begins psychoanalysis to help him understand not the death of his cat but to the reaction he has to that death. As an adult, he is grieving for the brother he lost when he was too young to understand how to grieve.

Thoreau, too, takes an analytical view of death, and though he fails in his work to show the emotional reeling exhibited by Kerouac, he is not confronted with the death of a beloved pet or person. Breitwieser suggests that “It may be unsettling to read Thoreau telling of turning that careful, measuring eye toward the corpses with no more remorse than when he turns it to the shells of sea-crabs” (146). But Thoreau, always the pragmatist, points out in Walden that “We are cheered when we observe the vultures feeding on the carrion” (557). Thoreau understands that nature’s cycles take preeminence over human emotions or contrary plans. The fact that death plays a part in nature’s work, for Thoreau, is a cause for celebration at the opportunity to observe the processes at work in the same way he observes a bird at his window or the melting ice on Walden Pond. While both authors are analytical about death, Kerouac turns his analysis inward while Thoreau looks, as he often does, to his surroundings.

Within the writings of Kerouac, Thoreau’s influence is impossible to miss, and the Beat writer is not beyond having intended this perception of his work. The “Thoreauvian-style transcendence” (Haslam 444) Kerouac relates in Big Sur calls readers to question the complexities of modern society, as Kerouac sets up a binary of a simple seclusion, echoing Walden’s child-like purity, pitted against the chaos he finds in the urban setting. As Alfonsi did for Chaucer and Swift for Joyce, Thoreau provides a model for, a suggestion to, an influence on Kerouac. And for the two of them, Kerouac speaks: “[T]he universe is an Angel” (22), and one hundred years before this, Thoreau responds: “Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me” (341). In the images he presents in his novel, in the attitudes he expresses, Jack Kerouac mirrors, however darkly, his Transcendentalist hero, Henry David Thoreau, and though writing a century and a continent apart, these authors walk together through the woods.