Mack Derouac

...I just read the part in Hollywood where he calls Kerouac a "writer who couldn't really write, but got famous because he looks like a rodeo driver," or some such.

Now, I will admit that after my 16 years (age 17 -33) of Jack Kerouac-worshipping...Bukowski, when I first discovered him earlier this year, dethroned Kerouac in my life. But... I am mystified why he would make such a comment denigrating Jack like this. I've picked up on the fact, by now, that he wasn't Kerouac's biggest fan, and I've heard the little potshots he's made here and there, but this statement really blew me away when I read it, it seems so over the top. I mean, to say he couldn't write???

Their styles are totally different, and yet some of Kerouac's books, where he retains a pretty accessible narrative and doesn't go off on surrealistic tangents of made-up words and things that have nothing to do with the story at hand (although, I like when he does that stuff) are quite similar to Buk's style. I mean, Vanity of Duluoz is very Buk-like..very funny, detached without being unemotional...very straightforward narrative, very honest...

Maybe it's like a Smiths/Cure thing...both being fantastic in their own ways, both being staples of a certain kind of artistic genre, and both being so important to the same general audience, yet so different from one another, that an inevitable rivalry forms. Morrissey could never write Disintegration...The Cure could never have written The Queen Is Dead.

Yet both are great great works, just like Ham on Rye versus Maggie Cassady. How can one compare the two? Better to read both.

"The Massachussetts River flows by her house."

...couldn't really write?? Nah!

Buk slams many, many other writers. Some is justified, but some coule be jealousy or just dislike for that person's style.

When he slams a friend of his (and yours) it is painful, but if you did not know Kerouac personally and Buk never called him a friends, then chalk it up to differences in taste, rivalry, jealousy, etc, etc.

Anyway, that is my opinion.

Bill

I like to remember the old saying, "You can't hate anyone unless you have a lot in common with them." which means if you have nothing in common you would not notice them.
Think about it just mentioning someone, complain or compliment, is drawing attention to them.

Bukowski, from what little i've gathered, seemed to regard Kerouac as a fraud. Similar to the white-collar guy who spends his weekends straddling a sportster full adrift in his Hell's Angel fantasy trip. Plus the jazzy, Eastern mysticism s*** probably set Bukowski's teeth on edge. I personally find James Joyce a disheartening bore, but that really doesn't mean much, does it? But I'm with you, going in dry I'd have thought Bukowski would have liked Kerouac. Like Love said, they both had a lot in common.

Did Bukowski blame Kerouac for the way Neal Cassady ended up? I can't remember the exact details but I seem to remember reading about it (maybe in Howard Sounes's book).

I'm not surprised, that he didn't like Kerouac. But I'm surprised, that he DID like Salinger (who is just as much a bore).

It could have much to do with Kerouac doing nothing after 25 except live with his mom and off his friends. One of buk's best pieces is the one with him and Neil in a car.
Unfortunately I have read all the Kerouac-including the letters looking for another gem...it never arrived-lines here and there but no big AHA. More like Ha ha moments on me.

I think Bukowski saw Kerouac as competition, a threat to his market share, much as he apparently dismissed Ginsberg for the same reasons. I don't take it too seriously.

Nothing Bukowski could say about Jack would lessen my high opinion of Kerouac. Jack could write sloppy shit (as could Bukowski), but when he was on his game, he was great. Tristessa is a pure classic.

Hey roni, thanks for posting this; I do disagree with you about Salinger however, to each his own.

More importantly, since you seem to be pretty knowledgeable on the subject at hand, could you tell me where I can find Buk references to Salinger? I've always wondered about his thoughts on him; I'd assumed he hated him.

Thanks for this.

I think we would all be quite lucky if we were capable of the kind of "nothing" that Kerouac produced after the age of 25.

I'm saying writing and living is a heck of lot easier with mom living downstairs-have you read the letters? He comes off as desparate. I don't know shit but perhaps Buk thought JK lived off one work and never worked a really worked day in his life after the merchant marines a few railway stints and the novel. Again I don't know shit.

Barry Miles' Kerouac bio was a great eye-opener. I read it about 3 months after I read On The Road and it let me know that it was ok not to like stuff that Kerouac just slapped together because he knew he could sell it to his publisher based on the OTR successes... Plus it greatly details his depressingly odd later life. Fame just catches up with some people and kills them...

I still love On the Road, Dharma Bums, and Tritessa... anything beyond that is pushing it.

Tristessa is a classic. Who knows if Bukowski read it though. I can understand why Bukowski would hate On The Road. He seemed allergic to most of that books sensibilities. And god, Subterraneans! You cant get much more pretentious than that book. sometime Kerouac’s writing was downright academic, just in a really weeded, sloppy kind of way. and hell, i'm sure kerouacs good looks did add to his fame.

Big Sur is probably the one Kerouac book that Buk would have liked.
The crux of the question is about how Buk reacted to the fame of the Beats. Reading through his letters he does drunkenly praise both Ginsberg and Burroughs. I think that Buk thought that these were rich spoilt kids that were flitting around europe funded by each other and their parents whilst Bukowski was stuck in a succesion of dead end jobs. There was certainly an element of jealously. Then when the beats moved west it was to San Fran. The was a big LA / San Fran divide. It's fair to say that Bukowski finally became popular when he read in San Francisco.
The short story where Buk talks about his meeting with Neil Cassidy is one of my favourites...'I met Jack's kid Neil C...'
Trueman Capote on Kerouac 'Thats typing not writing.' Haha.
Kerouac's great undoing was the fame from the book 'On The Road' - The media championed him as the figure head of a movement he didn't care much for or want to be involved with. In a sense that book killed him.
I am sure Buk would have liked Big Sur if he ever read it. We will never know.
They are two different writers with different backgrounds. I feel bukowski will stand the test of time better Jack K.

Well Jimmy Snerp, no one knows anything really; and you're certainly entitled to your opinion, which is as valid as anyone else's.

All I would say is, Kerouac's work ethic was, I think, on a par with Bukowski's. Bukowski repeatedly admits and laughs about his own totally minimal work ethic. So I doubt he'd denigrate Kerouac for not working, or for not wanting to work.

I'm sure he followed Kerouac's career even if the eye he kept on it was jaded and dismissive. I'm sure his disdain for Jack was more than slightly rooted in...well, not jealousy, because I think Buk was a better prose/essay writer and he was CERTAINLY a better poet, but...if not jealousy, then at least competiveness. But then again, Jack died before Buk had even published one novel. So...maybe I am the one who doesn't know shit.

Yes but when you mention stuff he "slapped together for the publisher based on the OTR successes" you must include one of your favorites, The Dharma Bums, as well as The Subterraneans, which tho you didn't list it, is widely regarded as a minor classic. I have read many accounts regarding these works being hastily written in the wake of the OTR hype...but maybe our opinions differ in that I do not necessarily equate slapping a work together with having no passion or talent or drive...I mean, On The Road was slapped together too, at least the initial version. It's the way he worked. And given that the pre-famous Kerouac was, during the early to mid 50s, when fame ardently eluded him, still writing furiously with no financial compensation or indication of fame...well to me this implies that he was NOT the type to just throw some shit together for money. Obviously he appreciated the fame and the cash when it did finally arrive -who wouldn't- but it's unfair to say that after that, he just threw shit together for more money.

And didn't Buk write Post Office is, what, a week or two? I remember Buk always saying that writing was like taking a shit. So, I know I am obfuscating your point somewhat, but all I'm saying is, just because Kerouac slapped some stuff together after becoming famous does not make the work weak or make him an overhyped writer.

The difference is Bukowski worked. Kerouac did not work-he lived with mom and sis. Granted, in houses, probably OTR financed.
Big Sur came out in 1961. He died in what 69? The writing stopped or at the very least good writing did-or we would have more-we don't. Whether he was talented or not I think it's safe to say whatever was there was wasted through drink and an odd devotion to mom???


I like OTR and I have read his stuff-but it for me is more miss than hit. I'm glad you like it but I can see why anyone including Bukowski would say theres not much there there. He's the 50's answer to Donovan (except Donovan still works)

I think Bukowski downplayed his work ethic intentionally in order to add to the myth that he was building, while in actuality he worked very hard. Writing Post Office in three weeks was probably untrue, but it added to the image he was trying to portray.

that would make him kind of a fraud though, wouldn't it? contrived? crafting an image? seems like the very thing he stood against.

If you can, read 1967's Vanity of Duluoz, the last real novel he wrote and published before he died, not counting, I think, Pic, which was about some black kid.

You need to read Vanity of Duluoz if you are going to criticize his later output. It is a direct prequel to On The Road but written many many years after, sort of like the Star Wars prequels, except much much better.

It tells of his arrival at Columbia College on a football scholarship and his original meeting with Burroughs and Ginsberg and then the accomplice to murder charge he got involved in with Burroughs and Julien Carr.

Mainly though it's a story about the beginning of everything, written very shortly before he died which is kind of cool because all the pretense was gone from his prose and the narrative is extremely conversational, flowing, and in many parts very goddamned funny.

He was a recluse in Florida dying of alcoholism in his mother's house when he wrote it. Anyway it's far and away one of his best, most excessible books, and very important too because through his eyes you get to see all these eventual great writers and countercultural icons as they were as unknown college kids.

Then he throws you for a loop in the last ten pages, where he tells about being hospitilized in his early 20s for excessive amphetamine use. So, you get an older, wounded, reclusive Kerouac at 45 (telling the story) juxtaposed against a freshfaced, green, enthusiastic Kerouac at 23, at the outset of all these adventures and waiting to get out of the hospital, where he is, unbeknownst to him at that time, about to meet Neal and begin the On The Road story. This retrospective passage contains some of the greatest, most existentially mournful and bittersweet nostalgia I have ever read or heard in my life. A nihilistic knock out punch that ends with him at his father's funeral in the mid 1940s which is, of course, exactly where On The Road begins.

Give it a whirl. Its style is very Bukowskian...straightforward, funny, sarcastic, a little jaded, but extremely honest. No frills, no made up words, no off-topic tangent about Buddha, just great, funny, nostalgic storytelling.

But, at any rate, I respect your opinions about him, although I ardently disagree.

Yeah, Bukowski worked regular jobs (besides the post office) for days, weeks, or til whenever he got sick of it, then he quit. He had no problem living in shitty rooming houses, eating no food, making only enough to drink and pay minimal rent...whatever it took not to succumb to the grind, and more power to him for it, but don't feed me this line that he had a strong work ethic or was a hard worker, even if just compared to Kerouac.

Yes, I agree that one can recoginize the morbidity of the daily 9 - 5 yet still subject oneself to it. Sometimes Buk did, other times he didn't. He wasn't afraid of the consequences. Maybe Kerouac was a bit more padded, lived with/off friends and relatives. But as someone else here implied, after 1957 his mother lived off HIM with the money he made from writing. Either way who cares, and what's it got to do with either one being a good writer?

It's a little hyperbolic to say that any of Kerouac's work belongs in the garbage, but that's fine, if it makes you feel better to say that, then OK. But you speak as an absolute authority when up to this point people have been offering opinions back and forth, not self-professed facts about these writers, which you apparently feel quailifed to do.

As for my bullshit detector, it doesn't need any adjusting simply because you decide that an artist or a work by said artist that I have championed, is unworthy of praise, or because I don't see a problem with self-mythologizing by appearing on talk-shows to promote fictionalized autobiographies. I've seen a lot of Kerouac TV appearances; he was usually drunk. If he was promoting or discussing On the Road, why shouldn't he appear publicly to promote something he is proud of? Bukowski shunned that kind of thing, which I totally respect, but that doesn't make someone else who does go on those shows a whore, and as for self-mythologizing...well, so what.

After all, I could say the entire White Album belongs in the trash because it is so goddamned overrated and chock full of mediocre filler by a band that had lost its focus, but it doesn't matter, because it's just my opinion and the White Album's been around longer than I have and will be around long after I go. So if I don't like it, I won't listen to it, I'll go for Revolver. But I won't tell someone that the White Album belongs in the garbage. And I certainly wouldn't throw it there myself. I'm not 14.

And yeah, I am new here, brah. And I knew it wouldn't be long before some know-it-all guy like you starts in with the implied insults and insinuations of superiority.

Von's may carry Kerouac books if they are still in business.

Back to the topic, My only issue with these Columbia writers was that many of them were well taken care of. Not that this has anything to do with writing (and it is a good thing to separate the two). If Buk went to Columbia on a scholarship and had movie star good looks and then wrote about being poor and ugly, it would have been a fraud. Buk certainly wrote a lot more than Kerouac and over a longer time period. Guys like Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs had a lot of time to write and not have to worry about the day to day grind. Certainly WSB was on a stipend from his family.

And there is probably truth to the theory that after OTR, Kerouac could have, and may have, milked it by putting out was even he felt was sub-par to sell books and/or satisfy a contract.

Bill

everybody gota die someday, brah.....

Having discovered Kerouac in my early twenties, I found On the Road and Dharma Bums to be thrilling rides - liberating and life-altering. They were unbelievably exciting at the time. He opened the reader to freedom, sexuality and the excitement of living in the moment. His writing was seamless, like watching him take a giant breath and then let it out in one continuous exhale of words.

He wrote about the secret life in America and the freedom that could still be found within a deadening society that was the ‘50s. He wrote about such geniuses as Charlie Parker as if such people were the real America, and Kerouac wrote in a similar improvisational way that had a tremendous influence on his peers. The great Beat album he did with Steve Allen was made by randomly pulling poems out of his briefcase and downing shots of whisky between takes - another seamless performance that has given many listeners hours of uplift to the spirit and pleasure. He had a great voice, full of color and inflections. (The album can be found in The Kerouac Collection.)

Later, he felt that his message of personal liberation has been misunderstood. He experienced ridicule when he discussed the Beat generation at Brandeis University and tried to meet the criticism, unsuccessfully, that his writings were a detriment to the young and he was fostering social irresponsibility. He took that rejection to heart and went into an alcoholic, emotional tailspin. He didn’t have the critical distance from his readers that Bukowski had and it destroyed him. But his writings are a beautiful expression of what was happening to him at the time, the joy of life and self-discovery.

“Whatever Happened to Kerouac?” is an excellent documentary that includes his appearance on the William F. Buckley show when Jack was drunk out of his mind - the sodden drunk you feel sorry for because you know he’s incapable of struggling against it. Nevertheless, Kerouac was more of a craftsmen than he’s given credit for and is no less than a “minor” master in his better works, despite his occasional sentimentally and emotional excesses. He had a sensitive, beautiful soul and celebrated nature in words like a painter. Not every writer knows how to pace himself like Bukowski did. If he had, he might not have burned himself out like a comet and found his voice again.

OOOOH, which direction shall it go in, which direction shall it go in!

The internet tough guy doth instigate! He beckons me onward with insults from behind his glowing glass screen!

Shall I take the bait and continue the word war, to satiate his lust for attention and his need to dominate his virtual kingdom, the Land of Hank, wherein Lord mjp doth rule and preside with an iron mouse? Shall I scale his semen-encrusted walls, vault over the top, and go for broke, my shield before me in anticipation of his next poison-tipped dart of wit and smugness?

How gruesome can it get? With baited breath the internet tough guy awaits my next clickety-click, in the meantime cooking up one, two, even five anticipitory rebuttals to defend himself with against my own impending rebuttal! Shall I take his bait, as presented here, oh shall I shall I?

Nah. I have to feed the cat.

And by the way, I couldn't get through Subterraneans either, I just wouldn't throw it in the garbage. And I don't think it represents the bulk of his work. And even a cursory glance at my other posts in this thread show that I have no problem whatsoever with someone disgreeing with me, provided they convey said disagreement without sounding like a pompous, boring jackass. I don't ask much.

OK now I really do have to go feed the cat.

I neither liked nor finished either Dharma Bums or On the Road.

There, I said it.

Rob;
I have both of those on Mp3 and I had a tough time just listening to Dharma Bums. It was okay, yet I don't see what is so great about him. Maybe back in the day he was cool. Things have changed but some authors still make sense even when times change.
...and there, I said that.

I could not get past the first ten pages of any Kerouac book.

Not my kind of writer.

I think Dharma Bums is decent but a little dry. I think it's most notable for fictionalizing the 6 Gallery reading where Howl was first read.

I can understand why a lot of people can't get into Kerouac; at times he is very trying, with his tangents and Buddha/Catholicism bullshit and make-believe words.

But at the same time, every book of his has a very different style, which is one thing that cannot be said for most other writers, including Bukowski, whose handful of novels, though written over the span of two decades, reads stylistically like one gigantic book, if placed in narrative chronological order...which is also cool.

Kerouac's voice from novel to novel is not very static, which isn't a good thing or a bad thing, just something that marks him out. His literary career is more musical in scope than literary...each album/book being a notable stylistic departure from the previous one. I think he mainly tried to take literary pictures of the people and events happening in his life, and at that time, and as a result you get these extremely picturesque, almost surreal passages which can be very stunning if digested but sometimes at the cost of the narrative flow and the reader's patience, as testified to by most of you.

But he inadvertantly embodied a zeitgeist that, while not perfect, was necessary, and I think he felt very distanced from it and cynical about it when it came to the fore as a whole, culturally, with On The Road...especially later on, when the Beatniks turned into the Hippies. And he obviously couldn't handle the fame, as he did kind of implode in the end.

But since most people here seem to either detest him or find him grossly overrated, I'm just going to shut the fuck up now and get out of this thread.