Desolate Angel

Author: Jack Kerouac
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2006-07-01
Features: On the Road is another autobiographical novel by Kerouac, completed in 1964, that continues his exploration of life on the move. On the Road contains far less fictional material than his other autobiographical novels, which he called "The Duluoz Legend." According to Kerouac's biographer Ann Charters, the novel is almost directly taken from his travel diaries, section by section, rather than being transformed from distant memories. It has been edited into shape—not so much a recreation as Kerouac's striking, often painful, life chronicle. The novel On the Road begins on a mountain called Desolate Peak. It is a state of stillness. At that time, Kerouac chose to spend 63 days as a wildfire observer on Desolate Peak. By then, Kerouac had gained a deep understanding of Buddhism and learned to meditate, but his pursuit of tranquility was mad. Through Buddhism, he could intellectually overcome his own "emptiness" and rationalize it, but he could never fully accept it. "Emptiness is emptiness, as I have come to understand it as a sad fact." So, after reaching Desolate Peak, Kerouac wrote in his diary that he gazed at Mount Hozomine every day, recording his feelings day after day—with a coldness of manner and ruthless honesty. "The problem with Desolate Peak is that there is no one else, loneliness, isolation." Kerouac quickly realized that he must immerse himself again in the flow of life—to "live, walk, adventure, pray, and not feel guilty about anything." This chapter of the novel is permeated with Kerouac's Zen-inspired insight into the impermanence of life and the importance of seizing the moment. Kerouac said, "My life is a long epic of contradictions." In the summer of 1956, Kerouac's deep thoughts and confrontations with the void atop Desolate Peak revealed the state of this man's existence: he was a nomad, stopping in different places and then setting off again. Perhaps he always fantasized about a new destination where he could find some balance between his desire for novelty and friendship and his inclination to withdraw from society. As Kerouac said, "If the essence of life is to pursue happiness, then few actions other than traveling can reveal the passion and contradictions of this pursuit." The last three chapters of the novel record the protagonist Jack Duluoz's return to the world from the mountain and his resumption of life on the road. Interestingly, the characters in On the Road are almost all "elite" members of the Beat Generation—Owen Garden (Allen Ginsberg), Burroughs (William S. Burroughs), Julian (Gary Snyder), and Jack Duluoz (Kerouac himself). They drove beat-up cars across the continent of America, even into Mexico, and did all sorts of absurd and bizarre things on the road—drinking excessively, smoking marijuana, having sex, listening to jazzly, talking about Eastern Zen, blocking traffic when tired, and staying in villages at night. In their eyes, "only madness could save them." So, to achieve freedom in the sense of resisting instrumental rationality, one had to be a little decadent. The passion of the work presents various social ideas, desires, ideals, and the confusion of homelessness, like a blurred image of 1950s America mixed with a variety of emotions, especially a sense of resistance to nihilism and despair.