The Joys of Reading Jack Kerouac in Youth

In the third of what has turned out to be a trio of recent posts on Beat literary heroes (Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” on 10/3/10; Lawrence Ferlinghetti on 10/5/10), today I am remembering the liberating influence of the novels of Jack Kerouac. Of course the iconic novel is "On the Road," but in my teens and twenties I read many of his other novels as well: "The Subterraneans," "The Dharma Bums," and "Desolation Angels," among others. For a young person especially, these novels were intoxicating, with their evocation of feelings of freedom, Bohemianism, thumbing one’s nose at the establishment, and living authentically. At the time I read them, my generation was creating its own version of all that in the excitement of the late 60s and early 70s: the “hippie” era, with its proverbial “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll,” along with the era of political protests, the Civil Rights movement, the beginnings of the women’s movement and the gay rights movement, and more. Other signs of the more liberated times included our colorful clothing and long hair, our willingness to “take off” on trips to various places with only a backpack (although perhaps with our parents’ financial support…), and the increasing acceptance of couples living together without marriage. Although I now have trouble re-reading Kerouac – partly because of my age, partly because of knowing about his later descent into alcoholism and a sad end – I honor and remember with joy his contribution to opening up the world for many young people. And on a quick personal note: it still makes me happy to remember being young in the sixties/seventies; one representative memory (among many!) is my first big trip on my own, my trip “out west” (from Michigan to British Columbia) on my own, wearing jeans, a fringed vest, and a floppy hippie hat, feeling like the ultimate free spirit. Although it was actually quite a tame adventure, for me it felt liberating and joyous!

Who Will Win the Nobel Prize in Literature?

The Nobel Prize in Literature will likely be announced tomorrow (although there is no set date for this announcement, unlike for the other Nobel Prizes). Who will the winner be? There has been much speculation, as there is every year. A look at the various articles and blogs, as well as the odds set by the UK-based bookmaker Ladbrookes, produces the following summary of good possibilities. Near the top of many lists are: Sweden's Tomas Transtromer, Kenya's Ngugi wa Thiong'o, the U.S.'s Cormac McCarthy, Japan's Haruki Murakami, the U.K.'s A. S. Byatt, and Canada's Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood. Other strong contenders include the U.S.'s Don DeLillo, E. L. Doctorow, Joyce Carol Oates, Thomas Pynchon, and Philip Roth. There are others on various lists who are far less well-known. In fact, the Nobel Committee is famous for choosing lesser-known (beyond the borders of their own countries or continents, or the knowledge of literary experts), unexpected winners, so we may all be completely surprised at the announcement. My own hope is that either Alice Munro or Margaret Atwood wins. But no matter who wins, I am grateful that for at least one news cycle, the focus of many stories and of much conversation will be on literature.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Poet and Hero

After seeing and writing here (10/3/10) about "Howl," the film, I was so glad to read in today's San Francisco Chronicle about the Litquake Festival's honoring of Lawrence Ferlinghetti Saturday evening with an evening of tributes and the Barbary Coast Award. Ferlinghetti was the one who was put on trial for selling Allen Ginsberg's "Howl," considered obscene by some; he stood up for freedom of speech and art, and he won the case; for that alone, he would be a hero. But his influence is far wider and deeper than that. His City Lights bookstore (which he co-founded in 1953) is an icon, a beacon of light, a center for book lovers and for freedom of expression. The bookstore has supported Beat writers and every other kind of writer; it has also welcomed readers, even readers who cannot afford to buy books, but are allowed to read the books in the aisles. Ferlinghetti is also a poet of great gifts and great renown. His most famous poem, and collection of poems, "Coney Island of the Mind" (1958), "did more than any other book to turn young people the world over to poetry as an instrument to thinking and feeling...This was the beginning of a metamorphosis of consciousness," according to poet Michael McClure's tribute. The event on Saturday also included tributes by fellow writers Ishmael Reed, Michelle Tea, devorah major, and Jack Hirschman, among others, and performances by singers Patti Smith and Tom Waits. Another reason we San Franciscans treasure Ferlinghetti is his staying in and bringing international honor to San Francisco as a city that loves, honors, and protects literature and free expression.

Reading the World

When I discover an author whose work I like, I tend to go on binges and read everything she or he has written. For a while in my early 20s, I would go on binges of reading everything I could find from a certain country or continent. Remember, this was when much less world literature, especially from Nonwestern countries, was available in English in the U.S.; however, having access to a good university library, I was able to find quite a bit. Looking back on my reading list from those days, I find some of the following authors listed. I had a Middle Eastern mini-binge, reading Mahmoud Teymour, Naguib Mahfouz, Sonallah Ibrahim, Tayeb Salih, and Taufik Al Hakim. My Japanese binge took me through literature by Yasunari Kawabata, Yasushi Inoue, Yukio Mishima, Junichiro Tanizaki, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Hisako Matsubara, and Natsume Soseki. My South and Central American stage had me reading Pablo Neruda, Jorge Luis Borges, Ruben Dario, Rosario Castellanos, Pedro Prado, Jorge Icaya, Jorge Amado, Rachel de Quieroz, and Gabriela Mistral. Quite a few years later, I taught a class on "Contemporary Fiction by Nonwestern Women," and was able to discover many more writings by women from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East; that class' readings, and the research I did for it, will be a topic for another day. In any case, for a few years when I was a graduate student and had access to a large university library, I happily worked my way through various shelves from various parts of the world. My reading in those geographical areas was mainly untutored, unguided and unsystematic, but it was a wonderful experience and opened up many areas - geographical and otherwise - of understanding for me.

"Howl": The Movie

My daughter and I saw "Howl," the movie, last night. I don't usually write about movies here, but as this one was about a poet and a poem, it seems relevant to the blog. I had mixed feelings about the film, but overall enjoyed it very much and am glad that I saw it. The focus of the film is on Allen Ginsberg's famous reading of his long poem "Howl" and the ensuing trial in which Lawrence Ferlinghetti, whose City Lights Bookstore published the poem, is tried for obscenity. The film interweaves four types of scenes: first, from the reading in 1955 at the Six Gallery in San Francisco; second, from the trial; third, of Ginsberg being interviewed and speaking into a tape recorder; and fourth, animated scenes "illustrating" the spirit of the poem. The first three types of scenes were all engrossing and beautifully acted; the fourth type verged on the silly, with 60s/psychedelic/Fantasia-style/ecstatic whooshings and swoopings through a cityscape and the sky, animated attenuated creatures, and explosions of fireworks-type lights. However, I chose to give in to the spirit of those sequences and enjoy them. James Franco starred as Ginsberg and did a terrific job. His portrayal brought out the vulnerable and tender side of Ginsberg as well as the intellectual, poetic, free-spirit rebel side. The film is packed with wonderful actors, including David Straitharn, Jeff Daniels, Bob Balaban, Mary-Louise Parker, Treat Williams, and Jon Hamm. The focus of the film is on Ginsberg's pioneering work in a new, freer, jazz-influenced kind of writing, one that should not be fettered by narrow conservative views about what is appropriate and what is obscene language. In a touching last scene, we hear and then see a far older Ginsberg reading/chanting his poetry. As an aside: I was fortunate enough to see and hear Ginsberg read his poetry in his later years, in the 1980s, and am glad I could experience his unique poetry, wit, and spirit in person.

Great Biographies of Great Writers

Great biographies of great writers have a double whammy value: They are about wonderful writers that we care about; in addition, the best biographies are well written and sometimes become classics themselves. I was thinking about this the other day while talking with my friend B, a great admirer of Henry James. B spoke of what a masterpiece the Leon Edel five-volume biography of James was. I started thinking of other great bios of writers, and came up with the following as outstanding examples. One of the first such bios I was completely engrossed by was Michael Holroyd's "Lytton Strachey: A Biography." Of course that book was enhanced by its stories of the Bloomsbury group. And speaking of the Bloomsbury group, Quentin Bell's biography of his aunt, "Virginia Woolf: A Biography" is another classic. This book, like many of the classic bios, was found by later scholars to be somewhat biased and incomplete, but to me this doesn't subtract from the power of these great portrayals. Another and even older favorite of mine is Elizabeth Gaskell's "The Life of Charlotte Bronte." Gaskell and Bronte were contemporaries and knew each other, and as fellow female novelists, understood much about each other. Readers of that bio might want to read Winnifred Gerin's "Elizabeth Gaskell: A Biography." Claire Tomalin wrote the wonderful "Jane Austen: A Life," and R.W.B. Lewis wrote the terrific and slightly scandalous "Edith Wharton: A Biography." Although I don't believe one needs to know about a writer's life to appreciate her or his works, I -- like many readers -- am curious about the lives of my favorite authors, and have valued and enjoyed the great biographies listed above.

"Perfect Reader"? Not Really.

Readers of this blog will not be surprised that I picked up the novel, "Perfect Reader" (Pantheon, 2010), by Maggie Pouncey, at the library mainly on the basis of the alluring title, along with a quick perusal of the jacket verbiage. Perfect title, right? Perhaps my expectations were unreasonably high, but I was somewhat disappointed. Upon her famous critic and scholar father's death, the main character, Flora, finds she has been appointed his literary executor. Because of her parents' divorce and other problems, she has been somewhat distant from her father in recent years, but -- apparently on a whim and because she is not happy with her job anyway -- she goes "home" to Darwin, the small college town where she grew up, and where her father lived and taught. She camps out in his house -- now hers -- and dithers about what to do about a cache of poetry he wrote in his last year. When the poetry turns out to be about his new lover, one that Flora had not been aware of, her ambivalence about her father, about the poems, and about her role as his daughter and his literary executor increases. She seems to be paralyzed by indecision about whether to publish the poems, not to mention what she should do with the rest of her own life, and although she is perhaps meant to be a sympathetic character, I found her annoyingly passive and preoccupied with her own not very earthshaking dilemmas. The writing is fine, and the novel kept me reading, but I finished it with a "so what" shrug.