Lots of people, including Bob Dylan, say he changed their lives. Born this date, March 12, in 1922, Jack Kerouac.
Born Jean-Louis Kerouac in down-and-out Lowell, Massachusetts, Jack Kerouac was a central figure among the so-called “Beat Generation” of writers—in fact, he coined the term “Beat.” In the nineteen-fifties, an era marked by conformity, the Beat writers believed in breaking the mold, and as writers, they valued spontaneity and intuition, impulsiveness and free expression. Along with Allen Ginsberg’s poem Howl (1956) and William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch (1959), Kerouac’s On the Road (1957)—a novel based on his cross-country road trip with friend Neal Cassady—is considered one of the defining books of the Beat movement.
Kerouac died in St. Petersburg, Fl in 1969. He was 47 years old.
Slate published this collection of personal recollections of the author on the 50th anniversary of the publication of On the Road in 2007.
http://www.slate.com/id/2173279/nav/tap1
Think you know your Kerouac? Try this quick quiz (adapted from Don’t Know Much About Literature)
TRUE or FALSE (Answers Below)
1. Kerouac was a star football player in high school.
2. Jack Kerouac typed his On the Road manuscript on a single, 120-foot-long scroll of paper.
3. Kerouac spent seven years trying to find a publisher for On the Road.
4. English was not Kerouac’s first language.
5. The Dharma Bums is based on Kerouac’s travels with fellow beat poet Allen Ginsberg.
6. Kerouac was a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War.
Answers
1. TRUE. He attended Columbia University on a football scholarship.
2. TRUE. He created the scroll so that his flow would not be interrupted by having to change typewriter paper.
3. TRUE. Publishers repeatedly told him again and again that the book was unpublishable.
4. TRUE. Kerouac first learned joual, a dialect of French spoken in Quebec.
5. FALSE. It’s about a mountain-climbing trip Kerouac took with Gary Snyder, the Zen poet known best for his nature poems.
6. FALSE. Kerouac was politically conservative, and he supported the war in Vietnam.
