Sarah E. Moffett

The literary world is buzzing. For once it is not wizards and vampires that are grabbing the columnists and publicists attention, but a fifty-six year old manuscript prosaically dubbed, On the Road: The Original Scroll.

In other words, hi Jack. You’ve been missed.

Yes, yes, I know July was officially Jack Kerouac Awareness Month, or thus saith the New York Times. I’m catching up. This weekend, I read Fritz Lanham’s insightful article in the Houston Chronicle on the continuing magic and mystery of Kerouac’s On the Road.

Aside from the usual legendary summary of Kerouac’s 3 week benzene and alcoholic writing binge in which he produced a single space, one paragraph 120 foot scroll in April of 1951 that six years later scored major literary fame, via one of the greatest New York Times reviews to date, and the literary establishment’s cognizable recognition of the Beat Generation, Lanham discusses Kerouac’s influence long after his untimely death from alcohol. Suffice to say, it was and is subconsciously directive and overtly invigorating. 

As Lanham observed, “the motion is the message.” That’s one way to put the journal of traveling by foot, thumb, car, and bus, across America a handful of times and into Mexico, all within a couple hundred pages. Lanham, via Douglas Brinkley, also inadvertently summarized my own personal attachment to Kerouac. “Catholicism was the steadiness in his life. He used his journals as a confession booth. Virtually every page is begging God for forgiveness and quoting Catholic hymns. He was quite taken over by the mystical aura of Catholicism.” Note to the world about the next book and my life in general, Protestantism is not so different. May God accept a written confession and prayer, and with any grace, may He share those humble words with those who have gone before me.

This summer during book tour, I waded, swam, drowned, and revived myself as a different person through On the Road, Dharma Bums, and Big Sur. It was love at first read. I’m still enamoured, more with the message than the man, but the concept remains so true.

In the end, I suppose the true power and passion of Jack Kerouac is that he has never been missed. He has always been in the undercurrent of living life to the fullest and inspiring others to experience life, not just exist in it.

And for that, he is one of my heroes.

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars . . . .”

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