Re: jack kerouac/terrible drafts

Jake McHenry (seymour@ktis.net)
Wed, 30 Jun 1999 10:55:52 -0500 

Kerouac, to me, has always been an important writer at least. (A mere
"typist" if you were to listen to Norman Mailer.) On the Road is not a
favorite but Desolation Angels, particularly before he comes down the
mountain, is some perfect writing. Scriptures of the Golden eternity could
just as easily been written by our man Seymour. You just somehow trust Jack
because you kow he has no damned reason to lie. He was writing for himself
as much as, if not more, than for an audience. (Aside from a small audience
of three or four.) He wrote as pure as Charlie Parker blew and as honest as
Coltrane. I suspect if there had to be a real life equivalent to Seymour it
would be Jack Kerouac.

And Tom Wolfe just cannot be trusted. Business suit and expensive shoes,
indeed. The good reverend bob is completely correct regarding him. He was a
mere spectator and that distance he set between himself and the proverbial
action allows room for error.  I don't entirely discredit Wolfe's ability as
a journalist but I seriously doubt most of what he wrote was accurate. In
fact, there are many other accounts that vary from the stuff he did in Acid
Test. Hunter on the other hand, regardless of Gonzoism, makes me believe
every damned word of what he writes. At least, if it is not entirely
accurate, I believe he was writing exactly what he perceived was happening
as opposed to just trumping things up to sound flowery or make for
interesting copy.

(Or maybe not.)
-Jake


>>When I was in High School, I would have thought it was really cool.  Now
>>it just seems like lowbrow drug humor.  Right up there with Up in Smoke.
>>Good for some yuks, but, really...favorable comparisons to Hemingway? :)
>
>i think falilv is a lot deeper than just a drug book with drug humor...
>
>>I prefer Tom Wolfe to Thompson any day.  At least he's trying to say
>>something.
>
>the only tom wolfe i read was the acid test and i didn't like it.  first
>off, he seems to distance himself...instead of becoming part of kesey's
gang
>he seems to just be standing off on the side and writing down everything he
>sees, still dressed in a business suit and wearing expensive shoes.  but
hst
>jumped into his stories, and he writes about what he's living and not what
>he's seeing.  if edward r murrow was reporting from a desk in new jersey
>based on photographs he was looking at he wouldn't have had the same sort
of
>impact.
>