Review: On the Road, by Jack Kerouac

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"

I know, it's so overused but for me, the above quote epitomizes On the Road; in a sense, it's the entire book. And it comes in Part 1 Section 1, so it's a great barometer. If you like it, boy are you in for a ride. (Why not get a tattoo?) Otherwise... "Oh boy... here we go..." That's what I said when I started this book; now, on the other side, my opinion still hasn't changed.

To read this book, one has to suffer through countless run-on sentences like the one above -- sentences that I'm sure many grade school English teachers would just love to mark up with red pen... And then there's the, uh, majesty of it all, a word I simply cannot apply to this book without a wink and a smile. Please, see William Shatner's dramatic reading of "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" for similar laugh-inducing "wonder"... And then the reader will have to slog through the self importance, the dead seriousness that sits underneath the light-hearted frolicking of this book, a strong glimpse at the literary pretensions of its author... Most of all, get ready for absolutely no plot -- just driving, drinking and fucking.

Please, meet Jack Kerouac. Jack is a part of a little group, a nice gang of fellas who have a major hard-on for life. They like to "get their kicks," they're "mad," "wild" -- "beat," even. This group likes to gallivant about the US, subsisting primarily on alcohol and male-on-male romance -- despite repeated insisting to the contrary. "Sal" (Jack's in-book pseudonym, to my estimation an inexplicable, entirely useless addition)is always trying to get in with women, women who are principally described by the color of their hair. And he's always eating pie... real pie, the kind that apparently represents "the idealized comforts of a certain middle-class American domesticity." But to me, it's all a conspiracy: the women and the pie are there, sure, but they're squished in beside endless drinking, and endless all-night, all-male talking sessions.

Jack and his friends bounce around, off the walls and off the coasts of the country. They're all antsy motherfuckers; they can't sit still, as if some part of them, *ahem*, "burns, burns, burns." So they move -- by hitchhiking, bus, or private car -- from city to city, often spending just a few days in a city they traveled thousands of miles to get to. On the Road is apparently famed for its descriptions of certain towns and cities -- Lord knows why, since they are usually so brief and incomplete. Jack is the kind of guy who could form a bad opinion of a place just because it happened to be cold and rainy during the two days he visited. And the people... well, just about everyone who is not within Jack's little circle gets ignored.

Most everyone in the group is a delinquent of some kind or another. They steal, con girls into bed, abandon wives and children, and often descend on a family situation like a swarm of locusts. They can clean out a cupboard and a hot water tank in nothing flat, with hardly a thank you. And what gets me the most: they get away with every bit of it.

Yes, everyone in Jack's group is a pain in the ass, but my real wrath is pointed directly at "Dean Moriarty." I can't believe I've gone this long without mentioning him. In some ways, Dean is the book -- Jack spends all his time following Dean around, Dean begins the book and Dean ends the book. Perhaps he's God, in Jack's imagination (an obvious idol in mine); perhaps he's just an "Angel of Death." Or! perhaps he's just a man, a "mad" man with a ton of other issues besides.

I did not like this book; therefore, I did not like Dean. Everything I've said to describe the group as a whole works just fine on Dean. I can add a few, as well... he's so very wise, yet he never makes much sense; he alienates all those around him, who generally only want to be close to him; he messes recklessly with other people's lives, his "Taoist philosophy" not withstanding; and, most of all he can't sit still. Dean is the kind of guy who talks incessantly throughout a TV show -- he's so antsy and self-important, and it's almost like he can't help it. Maybe that's it: he simply can't sit down and shut up. He can't help being an asshole... in the end, he may be fun to follow around for awhile, but he's not a lifelong friend. He's not anything. Listening to his odd ravings will not make you smarter, he has nothing to offer.

Now for a bit of apologizing... I feel almost bashful about hating this book, a little scared. In a way I feel like the Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier when he was so disgusted by a book of Whitman's poetry that he tossed it into the fire, a low point in his career and my estimation of him. Perhaps Whittier was too set in his ways, I think, to feel the magic and rhythm of a new kind of poetry. Perhaps I am too square to find a comfortable place among the Beats. I don't, can't, and won't get IT... Sometimes I ask myself, "Am I missing something?"

Only sometimes, mind you. The rest of the time... well, you already know. You know where I'm coming from at least. This book seemingly urges the reader to "burn, burn, burn" -- but, please, don't forget to spend five to ten hours reading it. Don't live vicariously through others, unless that "other" happens to be Jack Kerouac and his friends. Thankfully, this kind of self-indulgent literature will never have much of an audience because everybody wants to tell their story, nobody wants to listen. Regretfully, this book will always be known as the book that "turned on a generation...."

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Review: Blacksad, a graphic novel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

(Note: A review of a graphic novel always benefits from a few examples of artwork, and since I was unable to scan any from my copy of the book I have added a link here to a nice selection, courtesy of Google Images.)

This is the kind of graphic novel that tends to find its way onto Top 10 lists, and in this case the chorus of adulation seems predominantly justified. It's a collection, really, of three graphic stories, about sixty pages each, that were originally published on a "when-it's-done" schedule throughout this past decade. The stories are the stuff of classic noir, heavily inspired by the world set down by old pulp fiction and 40s-and-50s-era black-and-white American B-movies; except here the roles are played by animals that look like people, or as the authors prefer to see it, "people who look like animals."

So, Reader, meet John Blacksad, a big black cat, with a bit of white on his chin and an unfortunate name. He's a detective, and a fairly typical one at that, who has to deal with, in succession 1) unraveling and revenging the murder of an old flame, 2) immersing himself in a neighborhood race-war in order to find a missing child, and 3) investigating the murders of a circle of leftward-leaning scientists. The stories, although perhaps a bit typical, a bit too form-fitting to their genre, are still valiant, commendable efforts in their own little time and place... but the art... the art is for all time.

This collection was illustrated by Juanjo Guarnido, a former Disney animator. Now, these days the term "Disney animator" still packs a wallop, and if the quality of Disney's traditionally animated productions have degraded in recent years it is certainly not for a lack of talent. Nevertheless today the term "former Disney animator" may carry with it even more punch, since it indicates the person to whom it's attached has talent enough to be picked up by Disney, and freedom enough to create their own vision, free from under the still somewhat tyrannical eyes of the Disney crew.

Well, now... I suppose it's more than just a matter of DISNEY IS EVIL. The comics medium has been through a lot, spending most of its formative years in a production-oriented, highly profit-based world. And then, when comics went "underground," this new breed of artist had neither the money nor the inclination to make finely intricate comics. But now... now, I'm convinced we are in a golden age of comics art, when comics have moved off the assembly line, into galleries and museums, and many of the genre's top illustrators have the inclination, time, and financial freedom to create absolutely jaw-dropping stuff. And not just a panel or two, but throughout the whole book.

With Blacksad the artist has done just that. Just about every panel can stand on its own, as an individual piece of artwork, a testament to the artist's mastery -- and bane of millions of students who can only wish they had those skills. For proof just look at the faces: those bulky, awkward animal faces come to life and express a full range of human emotion (The Dreamworks people should take a few notes.) And mind you, the faces are just an example. The backgrounds, clothing, props -- even the atmosphere, a word as difficult and somehow intangible as the thing it describes -- all come to life in each panel.

When combined, the panels only enhance their effects; the narratives are always fast paced and the art sticks with them every step of the way. It never wallows upon itself, a common foible amongst the upper crust of comics art. Sometimes, I suspect, an artist of that caliber gets a little too full of himself. But not here... Here, almost child-like passion and enthusiasm positively drip from every page. And even if the stories don't appeal to you or the premise seems too cliche, I hope you will at least crack this book to enjoy the art. If nothing else, why not take Emerson's advice on Shakespeare? Read it backwards, from finish to start, and avoid all that messy plot nonsense that just confuses and obfuscates, and drags your attention away from the poetry in motion on the page.

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Shakespeare After All

The title refers both to a 2005 book by popular Shakespeare scholar Marjorie Garber and an accompanying class given by Garber at Harvard University in 2007 whose sessions were recorded and are now freely available online. The book is a hefty one-thousand pages, devoting a chapter each to the thirty-eight plays now considered to have been written by Shakespeare. The course, obviously more stretched for time, looks at only eleven works of his later career, addressing them in the order in which they were (probably) written, starting at Troilus and Cressida, working through his classic tragedies and romances, and ending with The Tempest.

Small guess, then, as to what I've been up to lately... I had a mission, as far back as August 2009, to read all of the Bard's plays, and by September of this year I had read eleven. Now... not to make the greatest author of all time sound like a chore, but I was having some trouble keeping a schedule, knocking the plays down like so many carnival-midway targets. I was reading haphazardly, if not quite randomly. I started with Hamlet, almost a year ago, simply because Hamlet is all the rage these days. And why did I read The Taming of the Shrew about a month ago? I wanted to watch Kiss Me, Kate and felt no self-respecting self-proclaimed "Shakespearean" could watch that jaunty 50s-era musical without first suffering through its source material.

But now I'm all business: in about half a month I've gone through Troilus and Cressida, Measure for Measure... Othello is next. I have settled into a routine: I read the play (in my big crappy one-volume complete works collection), then read the accompanying chapter in Shakespeare After All (which I borrowed from the library, but you can read most of it on Google Books or, ya know, buy it), and then finally download the appropriate lecture.

The scheme has worked out just fine. In fact, I recommend it. It's perfect for those who, like me, are working through the Shakespearean canon for the first time, hopefully laying a foundation for years of rereadings, related reading, and viewing of stage productions: a lifetime of Shakespeare... Or a week... or a month...or a year... In any case, it's very likely you'll walk away with something -- it is Shakespeare, after all, and any time you devote to it is time well spent. But if you're floundering a bit, or you're having trouble just jumping in, I can't think of anyone better to assist you than Marjorie Garber.

Garber has already devoted much of her life to these works so she's fitting, not to mention willing, to help others on their way. She has packed her book with sharp, close-to-the-text analyses of each work, ideas so solid that some might be tempted to commandeer them for their own, a crime called plagiarism that's ironically frowned upon in most academic (yes, even Shakespearean) circles. A bit of reading Shakespeare After All and then you can knick a few lines like these, to impress your friends into boredom: "The outer world of Hamlet, the play, mirrors the state of mind of Hamlet, the character," or "In Twelfth Night the complacent, passive natives of Illyria are stirred into action by the arrival of the very active foreigners" (principally Viola, who disguises herself as "Cesario," and Sebastian, her twin brother)...

As if being a thief were not crime enough, I've gone and committed the crime of enthusiasm. "I can't help it, your Honor!" (That's how I'll plead my case in court.) Garber's enthusiasm is as infectious as her ideas. And, besides, it hardly feels like theft at all since most of her assertions are so sound, so close to the text itself that they feel like common sense. Yes, common sense: perhaps the highest compliment a piece of literary criticism or analysis can receive. Such nonsense doesn't hold punch with other critics -- no, they need something wacky and dense to pull apart with tweezers -- but surely the common crowd has sense enough to pay some attention to this book.

And while you're at it don't forget the accompanying course, either! the course that compliments the book so well. Part lecture, part discussion, the course allows Garber to fill in and flesh out some of the gaps she left in her book, and creates a forum where various forms of tongue-tied stuttering students can ask questions of Garber, and unconsciously fawn before her greatness. The teacher/writer herself, however, takes it all in stride and generally answers their questions well, with charming alacrity...

One-year anniversary

Abe's Book Blog is now one year old. In fact, its "birthday" was September 29, but I missed it. I was busy taking a trip with my mom to southern Ohio to check on "Papa," my misnomer-toting former-Nazi grandfather who's gone a bit loopy since his first stroke a few years ago. He took a nasty tumble on Tuesday, though whether it was the result of a "mini-stroke" or the half empty bottle of Black Velvet next to his bed we can't be sure. The plan is to put him in a home within thirty minutes of here. Barrels of monkeys will surely ensue...

But now to something much more near and dear. When I started this blog over a year ago I had no high expectations. "If I write a hundred posts in a year I'll be happy" is what I said. "And if I learn a few things about writing, and improve my styling a bit, well that's all the better," I added. Well, I have just barely reached my desired posting count and I don't know that I've learned too much, but I have enjoyed myself and I do plan to keep at it long into an indeterminate future.

Of course I have plenty of plans for the future, year #2 -- not least of which is the maintaining of a stricter posting schedule, probably weekly, Monday-Wednesday-Friday -- but for now I wish to reminisce. Here, then, are five of my posts that I think stand out. They are not necessarily my best or the most representative, but they all for one reason or another seem remarkable to me. Why? Well, while I ponder this, you have your own opinions and if you feel so inclined please do shout them out. Much as I love the sound of my own voice, it's always nice to receive comment here.

My choices are:

1. Review: Meditations of Marcus Aurelius - "Sure, Meditations is often, as George Long put it, 'obscure,' and [Aurelius'] language is often unnecessarily lofty and learned. Sure, his work suffers from the same inconsistencies of all the ancient works of ethics that our modern eyes have recently 'discovered.' Yet I respect this man and feel everyone can learn something from his writings. If nothing else, he tried." I tried, too. I took a swing at condensing and critiquing this classic but difficult ancient philosophy text in under a thousand words -- and I didn't fall on my face.
   
2. Harvey Pekar: a great man is dead - Back in July of this year Harvey Pekar, the man who wrote the long-running autobiographical comic American Splendor, fell over and died. The next day I gave him the best sendoff I could think of. The last line: "...hopefully someone can be conjured up to say: 'This is our guy! I'm immensely proud of him.' Oh, hell -- it's already done."
   
3. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - My likening of the title characters of this classic absurdest play to a potted plant was, to me, spot on. And when I had nailed down that little bit the rest of the post seemed to naturally fall into place.
4. "Atlas is [Hugging]" - The title came as an afterthought, I swear. But the rest of the post is solid, giving the queen of mean, Ayn Rand, and her fans a good lashing, straying into humor occasionally without ever straying too far from the point. This is a very recent post, so I was and still am reading a collected edition of Heywood Broun, a 30s-and-40s era Socialist newspaperman and a big part of the Algonquin Round Table. The man's style inspired my post, and hopefully the solid technique employed by this classically trained newspaper columnist will continue to rub off.
   
5. What's going on here? (Part 2) - In this case, for once, the action in this post transcends the post itself. In essence, I spent one whole day in early April talking (almost) only in questions, then laid it out on paper (as the say) the next day. And why did I do this? Well... "If you want to get really philosophical about it, I don't know. Do I really have to answer this question? There was no grand scheme and there still isn't. It is not terribly useful, like curing Cancer, nor is it particularly breathtaking, like rock climbing or sky diving. But, but, but -- why does my life suddenly feel more complete?"
   

I do so hate these "digest posts" that simply recycle old content and create little to nothing new, and I'm sure you, the reader, do too. In television they call it "The Dreaded Clip Show." Since I don't like it when Everybody Loves Raymond does it of course I don't like to perpetuate the problem too much, anniversary reminisces excluded of course. But new content is coming soon, I promise -- next Monday if all goes well -- so hold tight, everybody, and get ready for an even more exciting year of Abe's Book Blog.

And please, remember to help control the pet population and have your pet spayed or neutered. (I watched too much TV down at "Papa's" house.)