Lonesome Traveler (Penguin Modern Classics)
by Jack Kerouac
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jack KerouacEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2000-08-03
ISBN: 0141184906
Number of pages: 160
Publisher: Penguin Books
Book Reviews of Lonesome Traveler (Penguin Modern Classics)
Book Review: Skipping the Central Bop Prosody Silliness, the Rest is Pure Talent
Summary: 4 Stars
This book is a mixed bag. Unlike "Desolation Angels," where the true Kerouac mixes it up with the bop prosodist to the point where you really need to read all of it, "Lonesome Traveler" has distinct bop prosodist chapters and distinct, what I consider to be, great writing sections. I'd like to go into why I don't like bop prosody, but then the review might disappear. (The bop prosodist police.) Let's just say that Kerouac's great writing is very fluid and lucid, unlike something else we won't talk, and know nothing, about.
The first chapter has a Mickey Spillane quality about it and the narrator's guru has a thugish charm that is lacking in Neal Cassidy and Gary Snyder. Other than that, I can't remember anything about it, which is good.
The second chapter on Mexico is also a winner, though, if you can't handle cruelty to animals, please don't read the section on the bull fight, as Kerouac's journalistic virtuosity is much too ruthlessly evocative here for soft stomachs. The Aztecs are supposed to be the bad guys, ripping out hearts and whatnot. Then the civilized Spaniards come along with Christianity and mariachi bands and everything is supposed to be bueno... except for this thing called the bull fight. Kerouac doesn't make subtle points like Conrad does regarding civilized vs. uncivilized man. But, he scares the pants off you in ways that Conrad doesn't (can't?).
The long bop prosodist chapters on the railroad experience do nothing for me, either stylistically or thematically, so I didn't read much of them. Basically, he's drunk and talking bop gibberish to a bunch of brakemen and winos, except of course for the subtleties I'm obviously missing. I'll live without them. (I k-now no-th-in-g.)
Back to the good stuff. The chapters on Desolation Peak, New York and Europe are all excellent and the latter gives you, in Kerouac's discussion of France, a glimpse of two noteworthy qualities: he was a Renaissance man, who knew his art and literature just enough to avoid being overbearing, and he was blunt, as in his observation that the French, with whom he closely identifies, are "dishonest." The more I read about him, the more he comes off as part of the problem. But, what might his commentary be on the current state of affairs. His view of Obama? Unprintable. But, then I would need to throw him off the mountain with the rest of the Beat schnooks. His insights don't jive with much of his personality and if any of the Beats was queer it was him. He certainly has one foot in the Pont-Aven school and I can see him getting all worked up about Gauguin. But, then he smells Chinese food and it's all over. The contradiction with Kerouac is that his milieu required him to stay urban in the superficial American sense of the word, while his nature called for more of the 19th century salon alliances.
The last chapter on the demise of the hobo speaks to this point: no whole grain, New Age idea of renewable life would have saved Kerouac from the horror of his apple pie/benezedrine non-renewable nightmare. From rucksacks to self-poisoning in less than 10 years: straight lines, not circles. He's no Herbert Huncke, but he set a certain standard that too many other Ricky Nelsons followed into the bucket. He is the quintissential American, a hairy icon whose talent draws heavily on an incresingly superficial, addicted clientele, who follow him around like blind pigeons. Now it's Hollywood actors: their great talent in no way evident to me but fully eulogized by other great actors, who melodramatically mourn their sudden demises. To quote a fellow Arizonan, Edward Abbey, "the party's over [boys]." Yes, Eddy, but they have no where else to go.
If I could read only two Kerouac books, and I haven't read them all by any means, this one and "Desolation Angels" would fit the bill. "The Dharma Bums" is also worth reading, but, if the anachronisms aren't regularly hitting you in the noggen, then maybe you're prime material for some of his more schizo-affective, down-in-the-dirt stuff, of which there seems to be volumes. He's no Jack Kennedy and he's no Wordsworth, but where would we be without him?
Summary of Lonesome Traveler (Penguin Modern Classics)
As he roams the US, Mexico, Morocco, Paris and London, Kerouac records life on the road in prose of pure poetry. Standing on the engine of a train as it rushes past fields of prickly cactus; witnessing his first bullfight in Mexico while high on opium; meditating on a sunlit roof in Tangiers or falling in love with Montmartre - Kerouac reveals both the endless diversity of human life and his own particular philosophy of self-fulfillment.Classics Books
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