L'intervista di Fernanda Pivano a Jack Kerouac Today marks the fifty-fourth anniversary of that October 21st, '69, the day when Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac, better known as Jack Kerouac, passed away prematurely; he was an American writer, poet, and also a painter.
He is considered one of the greatest and most important writers of the 20th century, as well as the father of the beat movement, since his writings explicitly articulated the ideas of liberation (of deepening one's consciousness and alternative self-realization) related to a group of American poets known as the "Beat Generation."
It was Jack Kerouac who coined the term "beat" as a contraction of the word "beatific," with a religious intent rather than a political or protest one, as was the case for most of the writers associated with the beat movement.
His style was rhythmic and immediate, and inspired many artists and writers of the Beat Generation, as well as musicians like Bob Dylan.
In my own small way, I read (over thirty years ago) his best-known works, such as "On the Road," considered the manifesto of that Beat Generation, "The Subterraneans," "The Dharma Bums," and "Big Sur," which narrated his travels across the States and his brief stays in various locations.
His writings reflect the desire to free oneself from suffocating social conventions and forms of the era and to give a liberating sense to one's existence, a deepening of consciousness sought also through drugs (such as benzedrine or marijuana), in religion, both Catholic and Buddhist (with a strong tendency toward syncretism and a Christianity characterized by a vigorous life force).
In his frantic travels, Jack Kerouac seemed to be in search of a place that would give him inner stability and fill that depressing sense of emptiness (symbolized by the death of his older brother, Gerard, at the age of four and then of his father) as well as an answer to the mystery of life; confronting the enigma of existence was considered by the writer the only important activity in this world.
He died at the age of 47 due to the consequences of liver cirrhosis, caused by the alcoholism that had troubled him for much of his life.
"So I am in real life and if you don't like it. I don't want to know because I live life my way."
