Beat It

John Leland re-whips the myth of Kerouac

By John Hood

Late last year, to celebrate the half-century mark of Jack Kerouac’s inimitably immortal On the Road, the good folk at Viking unleashed three new books: the very handsome On the Road: 50th Anniversary Edition; the very welcome On the Road: The Original Scroll; and the very wily study by one John Leland entitled Why Kerouac Matters: The Lessons of On the Road (They’re Not What You Think) (Viking, $23.95). Sure, purists dug the scroll (how could they not?), and, yes, even first-timers were lured by the handsome reprint (always a good thing), but of the trio, it was Leland’s investigation that gave the work a whole new read.

Why? Well, as Leland writes in the very opening pages, because, “Beneath its wild yea-saying, On the Road is a book about how to live your life.”

It’s a bold statement, perhaps, but it’s about a bold book. Even bolder is the twist that lies behind it. See, Leland believes Road wears so well not due to the bright burn of both sides of every candle (though there is that), but because the bright burn ignited a core that will never be extinguished.

And that core, or course, is Sal Paradise, the character whom Kerouac wanted to be when he grew up. Forget for a second the much-mimicked Dean Moriarty, who, after all, seemed only to shine at the expense of others, and instead swing with a man game enough to imbibe fire without burning bridges to the souls he singed. We’re talkin’ morality — and ethics and truth and living wholly and fully for all time, no matter how much it kills you. A system of beliefs based equally on Bebop and Buddhism, and so deep you don’t even know it’s there.

But don’t take what I say for an answer; listen to the man himself. Then read his Why. And then when you reread On the Road (and everybody does), you’ll have a whole new lead light.

What is Beat?

It’s a floor wax, it’s a dessert topping. It’s many things to many people. To hustlers like Herbert Huncke, who taught the word to Kerouac and his friends, it meant beat down, weary, beneath the indignity of rehabilitation. To Kerouac it meant beatific — or so he said, after the moral guardians started criticizing the group. To Herb Caen of the San Fran Chronicle, who coined Beatnik, it meant Maynard G. Krebbs with a goatee and bongos. I think of it as a group of friends who wrote very diverse works. Realistically, it’s all those things. But it’s not working for IBM.

What makes Kerouac so Beat?

Kerouac was beat in the tautological sense — he coined the term Beat Generation in an automat with John Clellon Holmes. But also in the spiritual sense of beatific. All his books are spiritual quests, especially On the Road, which he described as a story about two Catholic buddies who go looking for God, and we found him.

Does he have any precursors?

He said his precursors were his father’s drinking buddies and Wimpy from the Fleischer Bros. cartoons. I’d add Melville and Twain, for the rugged voice, and engagement with the divine and the mordant sense of humor. Like Twain, he meanders; like Melville, he broods.

Does he have any successors?

The worst thing that could happen to a writer is to be Kerouac’s successor (maybe anyone’s), but certainly a case of the Kerouacs laid many a young writer low. Kerouac believed you were a genius all the time. His successors proved him wrong.

If Beat was a song, what would it be?

I suppose that in keeping with the beatitude theme, it’d sound like heaven. When I die I want to go to Dusty in Memphis.

John Leland reads from and discusses Why Kerouac Matters at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 11, at Books & Books, 265 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables. For more information, call 305-442-4408.