Jacks or Better in The Nation

External Since: Aug 31, 2007 Posts: 14

In this article comparing Kerouac's On the Road with Jack London's The Road:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070730/raskin

we have this statement.

"So it's not surprising that London is the only author Kerouac mentions
by name in the novel; - "

and following we have your own comments.

--
Doubting Timus
Ubi Dubium Ibi Libertas
http://tremonius.blogspot.com/

External Since: Sep 02, 2007 Posts: 1

On Aug 16, 2:21 pm, Undecided <woes....DeleteThis@yahoo.com> wrote:
> In this article comparing Kerouac's On the Road with Jack London's The Road:
>
> http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070730/raskin
>
> we have this statement.
>
> "So it's not surprising that London is the only author Kerouac mentions
> by name in the novel; - "
>
> and following we have your own comments.
>
> --
> Doubting Timus
> Ubi Dubium Ibi Libertashttp://tremonius.blogspot.com/

I like Jack London's books, but I find him tedious when he gets on his
intellectual high-horse, espousing this ideological position and
that---depending on which philosopher he was reading at the moment.
Ideology is never far from the surface of his work: it is difficult to
read his famous _The Call of the Wild_, for instance, without being
aware of Darwin's presence hovering over the tale. Anyone interested
in the intellectual currents of the time might well look at London's
work as a kind of supermarket for them.

Kerouac never does this. There is a sense of the vitality of the
present moment in his writing that London's lacks. One doesn't get
the idea, as one often does with London, that his characters and
scenes are simply window dressing for a political or social agenda or
for some philosophical quirkiness. Despite London's conversion to
socialism--which he seems to have abandoned at the end of his life--he
was, in fact, an intellectually restless man who was prone to
enthusiasms that strike the modern reader as odd. Just read _The Star
Rover_, a book mentioned in the article, to get a look at how strange
London could be. Kerouac's restlessness takes other forms. He wants
to devour the American experience, much as Walt Whitman did, not wrap
it up in formulas. It is possible to read _On the Road_ from nearly
any political perspective and take from it what you want. If you want
to take anything political away from it at all. There is an
excitement in Kerouac that is totally lacking in London, and there are
pleasures, too--especially jazz--that make life worth living. One gets
the idea that Kerouac was a freer man within himself than was London.