A Map of Mexico City Blues: Jack Kerouac as Poet

9. Conclusion

9 Conclusion Let a man be either a hero or a saint. In between lies, not wisdom, but banality. ~ Included in Book One ofDr. Sax, the novel Kerouac in_ tended to be an extension of the Faust legend, is a small map of the Lowell neighborhood called Pawtucketville, where Kerouac lived the years of his early adolescence. The map shows Phebe Street, where the character Jackie Duluoz lived in a house facing that of his friend G.J.; Phebe Street came to a dead end on Sarah Street at a park that was inhabited by ghosts. Gershom ran along one side of the park, Riverside along the other. Either street provided a safe route home for the boys, who "never walked home across the field, instead went Riverside-Sarah or Gershom-Sarah, Phebe ... was the center oftwo prongs" (Dr. Sax 42). I believe those two prongs represent two opposing qualities of language, two ways of getting home, and Kerouac's map of his boyhood apdy represents my map of the achievement of his poetry. Both routes lead to the same destination. 184 Conclusion In Word Cultures Robin Lydcnberg has argued brilliantly about William S. Burroughs's use of language. To translate her argument into my terms, it seems that Burroughs has adopted a neither /nor approach. He refuses to allow the reader to allegorize his texts, yet he never forces his texts beyond signification. Kerouac, his informal student and former collaborator, on the other hand, takes what might be called a complementary approach: both/and. Unlike Burroughs, Kerouac preferred multiple allegories deployed dialectically. He arrays fiction against poetry, memory against egolessness , society against solitude, sign against sound, Catholicism against Buddhism, control against spontaneity, and narrative against lyric. Further, by means of these contraries, he always manages to force his texts into the realm of pure sound. While Burroughs's method is one of negation, Kerouac's is one of balance . Though it is possible to find the same features of balance at work in Kerouac's fiction, especially the two novels of his early Buddhist period-Tristessa and Visions ofGerard-Mexico City Blues showcases the advantages of his poetics perfectly. He wrote it at a fateful time in his life when his conflicts, like so many governing stars, had come into auspicious alignment. Kerouac's thinking, like that of most Westerners, was profoundly dualistic. His singular advantage lay in his art, which, far from disguising the polarities of his life, builds them into its own music for all to hear. In Kerouac's complex counterpoint, his listeners may find a source of wonder that tlle divisions of our consciousness do not always lead to such balance. Kerouac's life, by contrast, proves with certainty that these divisions do indeed disable and destroy. The mystery of art, as Mexico City Blues so amply illustrates, is that it transforms life without falsifying it. The process is quite alchemical. It transmutes the material conditions of existence, which run to extremes of pain and pleasure, into a set of ideal conditions that are optimally organized to create a sense of equilibrium. Through this equilibrium the mind renews its thoughts and feelings by exploring the new territOlY opened in the space between the contraries and pursues inwardly its goal of self-discovery. As the poet Kerouac says in the "225th Chorus," 185 A Map ofMexico City Blues Yet I keep restless mental searching And geographical meandering To find the Holy Inside Milk Damema gave to all. Despite the homage so many writers have paid to Jack Kerouac , his value is still underestimated. Not only did he alter the face of American popular culture with his fiction, but he has also helped determine the future ofAmerican poetry by providing our tradition with one of its most original long poems. Among his other contributions, he appears to me to be one of the great religious writers of our time. In the years to come, Jack Kerouac's stature will undoubtedly grow, despite the reactionary criticism that has tried to belittle his contributions to literature by confusing his work with his lifestyle. Once the extent of his grasp of literary tradition has been fully explored, it will be impossible to deny him the status for which he ardently longed: the sainthood of literary canonization. I hope to have contributed solid testimony to the mastery of his art, and I believe that this Map will help guide...