Jack Kerouac – Catholicism and his mother – a strange guilt-ridden relationship?
Jack Kerouac is a hero of mine. Reading his books back in my formative years had a big impact on me. He invigorated me and altered my view of life. He revealed an alternative.
I was always intrigued with his relationship with his mother and his life as a Roman Catholic. It seemed to me that he was pulled in all directions and lived in two worlds. I always felt that it was this struggle between two opposing ideologies that drove him to drink and led to his early death.
Jack was brought up in a Roman Catholic background and lived with his mother. It was here, at his mother’s house, that he wrote most of his books. I can just picture him there in that homely environment, tap-tapping away on his old type-write while his mother sat in the other room and cooked him meals, ironed his shirts and looked after him. Not quite the image of the crazed rebel. Yet then he would go wild. He would go off for mad escapades with the characters that featured in his books – Ginsberg, Burroughs, Cassady and Corso. He was drawn to the crazier outsiders, those with the energy and lust for being on the edge. Like iron filing to the magnet of Cassady he was helpless. He saw the excitement and wanted it.
Jack went off to New York and hitched and drove across country To San Francisco, Denver and Mexico on mad adventures full of craziness, promiscuity, drugs, poetry, jazz and madness.
He was turned on by Cassady’s wildness and complete irresponsibility, by Ginsberg’s intensity and passion and Corso’s seeking. On car journeys, sometimes in stolen cars, across the States or to Mexico, dicing with death, driving like lunatics, high on pot or amphetamine, delving into wild Mexican brothels or black Jazz dives, always living life at speed, rapping through the night, pouring out poems, seeking nirvana on mountain tops, sartori in the dynamo of the celestial night and love in the eyes of a Mexican beauty, Jack found he was alive like never before.
But then, when the cheque (from his military service) ran out or the odd jobs dried up he endured the cold and hunger and then returned to his mother. I think he had had his fill.
Unlike the others he had a refuge. After the debauched days of crazy poetry, sex and jazz, there was the repentance and confessions.
I’m not sure what his Mum made of it?
Jack was a Buddhist Catholic with a guilt complex and an alcohol habit.
Jack was not so much a main character in what was going on in the mid fifties so much as a chronicler. Without him there wouldn’t have been a narrative. His stream of consciousness writing captured the rhythm of the poetry and jazz. It was as if he went along as an observer and watched the antics from afar, noting everything and meticulously recording it. His books were not so much novels as memoirs of the mad exploits of his outsider friends on their journeys of exploration and adventure as they reamed the seam of life and sought the answers in the void outside of society. He did partake but mainly he watched so that he could splurge it all back out in one great mammoth regurgitation.
When the sixties arrived it was interesting to see how it panned out. Ginsberg and Cassady embraced it whole-heartedly. Ginsberg teamed up with Dylan and got into the scene, Cassady became the driver for Ken Kesey and hung around with the Grateful Dead. Even Burroughs got into the Rock scene doing spoken word outpourings with the likes of Kurt Cobain from Nirvana. It was Kerouac who remained aloof.
I remember the TV programme of William Buckley’s with a drunken Kerouac being set up by Buckley and ridiculed, and Kerouac rejecting any association with the sixties counter-culture despite Ed Sanders (of the Fugs), another participant, obviously idolising him, all he had done and his contribution to American culture. Jack was distraught at the very idea that he might have been in any way responsible for that sixties rebellion. Yet he was. By chronicling it so well and embracing the craziness he had unleashed an alternative vision.
I see Jack in the same way I see many of the Old Rock ‘n’ Rollers from the Deep South. They too were brought up in a highly religious environment. They were attracted to the Blues and R&B with its hard drinking, womanising and gambling. They were torn. Their upbringing and religious indoctrination pulled them one way and their desire for the wild life pulled them the other. You see it with Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis. They would vacillate between wild excess and pious sobriety. It was this dichotomy that pushed them to excess. It was as if it became so pent up inside that when it came out they pushed it to the extreme. They thought that they were doing the devil’s work, they were damned, so it didn’t matter any more. They might as well be hung for a whole hog as a slice of bacon. Then they’d pull up short, repent and go to the other extreme.
For me American culture is like that; it’s extremes. There’s no going down the middle. If you’re bad you’re the meanest mother on the planet; if you’re good you’re apple pie and sweet as candy.
I think that vacillation in Kerouac was obvious and led to his alcohol problem. He was torn apart by it.
I would like to investigate his relationships with his mother and Catholicism more thoroughly. I think there was a lot going on there.
Interesting supposition. But you know, it’s always the squeaky wheels that get the grease because they’re the loudest. Be they bad or supposed good (though I tend to lump all of them together in the undesirable category at this point). The politicians here would probably agree with you 100%. But I am hoping and praying that the “silent majority” is not a myth and sooner rather than later gets it’s collective arse in gear and shakes the hell out of this country. There are an awful lot of us middlers here and I think we’re finally starting to find our voice. One can only hope. If not, another four or eight years and I believe this country will be toast. (I’m having an Eeyore moment tonight…)
I think the dynamic of America has produced great energy and a ‘Can do’ attitude. There’s a great vitality to it that doesn’t want to be smothered. The extremes are frightening though.
One of the gals I follow posted that her son brought a note home from school (I’m guessing he’s in his teens) saying that “unless she opted out” her son’s name would be passed along to military recruiters. That the government is taking the liberty to do that with kids here scares the crap out of me. That’s the kind of “list” that is so open to abuse down the road. It’s those kind of little under-handed things going on that scare me the most.
That’s scarey.
The President you supported, Obama, its his Government that allowed that to go on, ie names of kids being passed to the Military, if thats the case.
I wouldn’t think it was Obama involved in a campaign on that level. I don’t know anything about it. It may be some State legislation. Who knows? I wouldn’t blame Obama without knowing where it came from or who is doing it.
I like Obama though – he stood for a fairer country, an end to the warmongering in the Middle East, brought in some medical care for the poor and wanted gun control. He was stopped from doing things by the Republicans who stopped all the legislation and prevented things happening. Without the mad Tea Party he would have achieved a lot more. I can’t see why you have such a down on him Anna.
Reblogged this on Opher's World and commented:
An interesting aside.
Here we go again, you really are determined aren’t you to make me say something you so want to hear about Obama. You have hatred for Trump, I disliked Obama found him ineffectual, yet that is not satisfactory with you, well you will wait a long time for the answer you so desperately seek, and don’t come with all the old innocence act, it no longer works. You can never answer a question without turning it back on me trying to force answers you want to hear. I just wonder what it is with you Opher?
I have no idea what you are talking about. What on earth do you think I am after you saying? You found him ineffectual. OK. In some ways I agree. He came in with high hopes, just like Blair, and has failed to carry out most of his objectives. That is ineffectual. But my contention is that it was the Republicans who stymied him every step of the way. He has achieved some good things though.
Kerouac, his Mother and the Catholic Faith, what is it you are hoping to find, to prove. I ask the question as well, would you have been so keen to investigate Kerouac, his Mother and Judaism or Muslim – you just have a “thing” about Catholicism, as you know I am lapse Catholic, the correct term.
No Anna, I don’t think I have a particular thing about Catholicism that I don’t have about other religions. When I cite Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and the rest, they weren’t Catholics. Islam is probably the worst at the moment for indoctrinating children but I think a lot of harm was done by the Catholic Church in trying to brainwash kids. They instilled fear and guilt.
“I think a lot of harm was done by the Catholic Church in trying to brainwash kids. They instilled fear and guilt”. And you would know all about that, since when were you the expert on Catholicism to state “They instilled fear and guilt”. That can be done by anyone who has any form of power, any form.
That is true – a lot of institutions and people operate by instilling fear and guilt. The Catholic church was very good at doing just that. They weren’t alone.
No – I have no ‘thing’ about Catholicism. I think that the orthodox Jews and Muslims are worse at brain-washing kids than the Catholics at present. The Southern Baptists are worse at their ‘Fire and Brimstone’ threats of hellfire. I have a thing about all religions who work on fear, guilt and threats of damnation, who are intolerant of other faiths and who indoctrinate kids.
What was intriguing for me was the relationship of Jack with his mother and his catholic upbringing. It seemed to me that the strict religious upbringing sometimes created a more extreme rebellion and then vacillation back to religion again. I gather he and his mother had an interesting relationship. They drank and cussed together.
So yes – I would have been just as interested if his mother had been orthodox Jewish, Muslim or Baptist.
I love Kerouac and find these essays very interesting! His relationship with his mother was also interesting — I have used it in my argument to prove to friends that Jack was not the misogynist they make him out to be. He had a definite bond to his mother and to Catholicism, although he was an expert Buddhist. His French Canadian background would have also contributed to his Catholic loyalty.
His mother was a bit of a crudester too — according to Joan Haverty, Jack’s 2nd wife, who claimed mother and son would drink like fish together and cuss each other out! Which seems, just weird!
Interesting about southern rock stars. I had just written a piece on Elvis, one of my faves, and I was reminded that, at first, he was really viewed as an out of control sexual deviant. This because of his famous hip shake! But people got used to it…
I find it fascinating to view the relationship of religion with rebellious behaviour. It seems to generate a vacillation between extremes.
Elvis was a revelation. He certainly shocked middle-class America.
The way I see it, religion is an attempt at spiritual freedom (and in its purest form religion should actually BE spiritual freedom.) Rebellious behavior is an objection to the constraints of society which will not allow spiritual freedom. So actually, they are very similar! 🙂
I think the way the strict Southern religion worked was to put strictures on life with the promise of extreme penalties (Hell) if you broke the rules. Once you broke the rules all was loss so you might as well go to an extreme!
On William Burroughs, there is also an unforgettable time working/dancing onstage with Laurie Anderson in her Land of the Brave(?) performances. in the 1990s.
Jack Kerrouac – it was that summer spent fire-watching turned me off him. All he could come up/his great realisation, was ‘everybody are lambies’. That was all he could manage after all that time. Kids could tell you more about the nature of people than that.
I missed that Laurie Anderson thing. Good????
It was ‘On The Road’ that turned me on when I was seventeen.