Hey Jack Kerouac

Jul 27, 2007 at 3:10 PM
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In my early 20’s whilst living in America I read all (all that I know of anyway) Jack Kerouac’s novels and poetry. Like thousands before me and since the books set me off around the country with my own Neal Cassidy (my best friend Jason) in search of the road, the late night bars and a life lived day by day. I won’t get into the debate about the ‘quality’ of some of those books but I will challenge anyone to tell me that ‘On The Road’ isn’t one of the most important novels of the 20^th Century. The book speaks to and sets the tone for post-war , combining Hemmingway’s appetite for adventure, Charlie Parker’s flighty imagination and Scott Fitzgerald’s lust for living. I always struggle when people ask what your favourite book is but this is definitely one of them.

Beyond his novels there is an incredible boxed set of recordings of Kerouac (in varying degrees of intoxication) reading selections of his writings from his novels and poetry. Over the years I’ve returned again and again to a couple of cassettes my friend Matt in made for me but recently I got my hands on the full box set and love listening to them. Like his writing, some of the readings sound like cheap red wine and Benzedrine may have taken its toll but his voice, the soft piano and the occasional saxophone definitely takes you back in time and into his company (on some of the recordings they let the tapes run while they tune up and ‘shoot the breeze’ and you are right back there in the late 1950’s eavesdropping on their small talk). Anyone who loves his writing from On The Road through the Dharma Bums via Mexico City Blues should seek out these recordings and spend some time in his company.