Page Twelve
THE MICHIGAN DAILY MAGAZINE
Sunday, -March 30, 1958
eTAM 1
4
IE ROUAC
A Fourth Class American Traveler
And The Beat Generation
THE SUBTERRANEANS. By
Jack Kerouac. Grove Press.
New York. 111 pp. Paperback,
$1.45.
By KEITH DEVRIES
JVHAT IS the present younger
generation? Crys of "conform-
ists" and "non-committed" are
commonly heard. Time magazine
attracted much attention last fall
with an article about the "No-
Nonsense Kids" and recently Life
ran a widely-read report on "The
Unsilent Generation,' a condensa-
tion from a book of the same title.
What has become increasingly
prominent, however, is an analy-
sis which dubs us the "Beat Gen-
eration."
Briefly, the "beat" thesis is that
the significant young man of to-
day is a "hipster": i.e., he goes
wild over jazz, motorcycles, hitch-
hiking, sex, marijuana and little
else. In most accounts he is pic-
tured as "looking for something,"
often finding it in Zen Buddhism.
Presumably it is this trait com-
bined with his always present ex-
pletive "gass" and "man" which
keeps him from being classified in
the old "Lost Generation."
The scoffers usually sneer that
these characteristics apply to on-
ly about ten people in the coun-
try, most of whom belong to the
Keith DeVries, a senior in
English Honors, was formerly
a Daily staff writer. He makes
his first, appearance in the
Magazine with his review of
"The Subterraneans."
small group of San Francisco mu-
sicians and writers who have pro-
claimed themselves the official
spokesmen for the "hipsters."
WHATEVER the actual size and
significance of the "beat"
trend may be, it has received a re-
markable amount of publicity. The
slick magazines, Esquire, Playboy,
Life, even Mademoisle, have de-
voted considerable and excited
space to its western prophets. In
San Francisco the city govern-
ment helped the "push" by at-
tempting to ban as obscene the
most famous "beat" poem, Howl,
by one of the famous "poets". Al-
len Ginsberg.
The subsequent hearing, at
which the ban was removed, was
enlivened by the prosecuting at-
torney, who apparently represents
the rage of the bourgeoisie at the
group. 'Can you tell me." he de-
manded of the Bohemians and
critics he brought to the stand,
"what a line means like 'angel-
headed hipsters burning for the
ancient heavenly connection to
the starry dynamo in the ma-
chinery of the night'?" That does
not seem so very difficult, but no
one would enlighten him. The best
answer he got was "you can't ex-
press in prose what you can say
in poetry."
In spite of the lawyer and his
fellow Philistines across the coun-
try, the Movement has flourished.
LAST FALL, another of the
spokesmen, Jack Kerouac, a
35 year old citizen of the high-
ways, had his novel On The RoadI
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Still worse there is really no
meaning given to Percepied's
troubles, not even the meaning of
no meaning. Kerouac never both-
ers to examine the standard Amer-
ican ideals and values which have
presumably brought his charac-
ters into Bohemia. An occasion-
al mention of racial prejudice and
one comment on "midtown silli-
ness" are his only attempts in
that direction.
Neither does he make the "beat"
environment of North Beach a
significant background. The
people there, who get drunk con-
stantly, play Gerry Mulligan con-
stantly, and dance the Mambo
naked are sillier than they are
dreadfully or excitingly nihilistic.
HE ONLY other conceivable
: A.a excuse for the final cries of
KEROUAC "I don't want to live in this beast-
..non-committed? ly world" would be an explora-
tion into the individual deptavi-
published. His second book and ties and failings of the central
his first genuinely "beat" one, it characters. While Kerouac at-
described a series of mindless tempts a little of this, he makes
frantic wanderings across Ameri' Percepied's supposedly terrible be-
ca trayal of Mardou only absurd. tHe
ca. vpushes her into a taxi and sends
The volume sold surprisingly her home alone so that he can
well and fast, particularly after a get to a bar before it closes.) Mar-
great number of magazine articles'gdo 'sbsubefent ylossMar-
many inspired by the book, ap- dous subsequent betrayal is mere-
peared towards the end of the ly justified and again a little stu-
year. So extraordinary indeed was pid.
its success that Grove Press de- As disappointing as anything
cided to publish another of Ker- else is the writing. In hisintro-
ouacs nvel, Te Sbter ensduction to Howl Allen Ginsberg
uac's novels, The Subtes-rases', hailed Kerouac as the "new
which had previously been rejected Buddha of American prose, who
by the publishers. Soon Kerouac's spit forth intelligence into eleven
frenzied fans received word of the books ... creating a spontaneous
new book and bought out nearly bo prosody and original classic
the entis'e first edition before it top pooyadoiia lsi
reahed nter ed er literature." He doesn't live up to
reached the retail stores, his billing.
In the midst of all this excite-
ment, it is a sad duty to report IT'S ONLY fair to say that in
that The Subterraneans isn't a some passages, particularly
very good book. those describing the affection be-
Its plot is essentially a love tween Mardou and Leo, Kerouac
story of a wandering "beat" nov- achieves a real beauty. Between
elist in his thirties, Leo Percepied these high points, however, are
and a Negro girl, Mardou Fox. All long, masses of uninspired, tedious
that really happens is they sleep prose.
together frequently, realize on ev- Early this year Kerouac turned
ery other page the magnitude of up in New York to read Ginsberg's
their love, question their rela- poetry to the accompaniment of
tionship on the pages in between, jazz. The clothes he wore then,
and finally drift apart. The effect brown slacks, brown shoes and a
is to make the 111 page book seem shirt that glowed in the dark, were
very long indeed, so decidedly non-cool as to raise
fears among his disillusioned fans
EVEN drearier than the plot are that he might have killed off the
the moaning complaints Ker- whole movement.
ouac makes about the awful suf- What he didn't do by his clothes
ferings his hero goes through in he may well do through his book.
an awful world. All in all, it just doesn't roll.
ON THE ROAD. By Jack
Kerouac. Viking. New York.
310 pp., $3.95.
By DONALD A. YATES
JACK KEROUAC. wanderer and
lover of America, comes as
close as anyone writing today to
being the Thomas Wolfe of his
generation. And we should have
a Wolfe in every generation-
someone to sing the praises and
the glory of the country in terms
of the poetry that Jamestown,
Valley Forge, Gettysburg, and
Chicago inspire, not in terms of
machines and might and motion.
Author Kerouac, as a fourth-
class traveler of the U.S. has been
close to what this country is un-
derneath the generalizations and
statistics. He can - and does --
speak to us of the power and
beauty that lies in the heart of
America, in the souls of Americans
who have to"be reminded of what
they really are - so far have
material concerns removed them
from their origins.
Kerouac writes with great free-
dom, and with surprising effec-
tiveness. It would seem it is diffi-
cult for him to write badly, even
when he is obviously not writing
consciously dramatic or descriptive
pages. The reader wants to be-
lieve in him as the seer and feeler
of all the sights that he, as the
author, has experienced and that
he unselfishly reveals to us.
Time and time again, our sym-
pathies are won over by a line, an
observation, written always on the
same theme-America as a place
where some people still live con-
sciously and believe in the past.
Here is an example of the love
for what is American, of the au-
thor's concern for what is at the
soul center of the country: "I
didn't know what to say; he was
right; but all I wanted to do was
sneak out into the night and
disappear somewhere, and go and
find out what everybody was doing
all over the country."
KEROUAC IDENTIFIES himself
with the "Beat" Generation,
the young idealless people who
want to "dig" whatever's exciting
and live, live, live. This novel tells
what it's all about. There's no
doubt that the "beat" group man-
ages to get closer to the soil than
the "Lost Generation" ever did.
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