John Steinbeck in 1939 Born

Influences[edit]

Kerouac's early writing, particularly his first novel The Town and the City, was more conventional, and bore the strong influence of Thomas Wolfe. The technique Kerouac developed that later made him famous was heavily influenced by jazz, especially Bebop, and later, Buddhism, as well as the famous Joan Anderson letter written by Neal Cassady.^[88] The Diamond Sutra was the most important Buddhist text for Kerouac, and "probably one of the three or four most influential things he ever read".^[89] In 1955, he began an intensive study of this sutra, in a repeating weekly cycle, devoting one day to each of the six Pāramitās, and the seventh to the concluding passage on Samādhi. This was his sole reading on Desolation Peak, and he hoped by this means to condition his mind to emptiness, and possibly to have a vision.^[90]

An often overlooked^[91] literary influence on Kerouac was James Joyce, whose work he alludes to more than any other author.^[92] Kerouac had high esteem for Joyce and he often used Joyce's stream-of-consciousness technique.^[92][93] Regarding On the Road, he wrote in a letter to Ginsberg, "I can tell you now as I look back on the flood of language. It is like Ulysses and should be treated with the same gravity."^[94] Additionally, Kerouac admired Joyce's experimental use of language, as seen in his novel Visions of Cody, which uses an unconventional narrative as well as a multiplicity of authorial voices.^[95]

Legacy[edit]

Jack Kerouac and his literary works had a major impact on the popular rock music of the 1960s. Artists including Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Patti Smith, Tom Waits, The Grateful Dead, and The Doors all credit Kerouac as a significant influence on their music and lifestyles. This is especially so with members of the band The Doors, Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek who quote Jack Kerouac and his novel On the Road as one of the band's greatest influences.^[96] In his book Light My Fire: My Life with The Doors, Ray Manzarek (keyboard player of The Doors) wrote "I suppose if Jack Kerouac had never written On the Road, The Doors would never have existed." The alternative rock band 10,000 Maniacs wrote a song bearing his name, "Hey Jack Kerouac" on their 1987 album In My Tribe. The 2000 Barenaked Ladies song, "Baby Seat", from the album Maroon, references Kerouac.^[97] Kerouac’s sensibility and rock ‘n' roll each evolved from African-American influences.

As the critic Juan Arabia has written in relation to Kerouac's work and rock 'n' roll:

In order to vindicate the cultural, ideological and aesthetic advancement in Kerouac’s work and its relevance–and the genesis of rock ‘n' roll–one must first understand the origins of jazz and its offshoots.

The first forms of jazz were formed in New Orleans from a melange of blues, work songs, marches, work songs, African and European music. Bop–the form of jazz that most influenced Kerouac–was created by African-American musicians in New York basements between 1941 and 1945. Bop arose as a reaction to the perception of musical theft perpetrated by white entertainers (e.g., Benny Goodman and his swing band) in an attempt to reclaim the cultural property of the black community which had informed every popular music genre. There has always been an exchange of ideas and musical forms between black and white communities. For example, Elvis sings gospel and blues and white country songs and some black rock n’ roll artists sing in a manner similar to Elvis or borrow elements from European music or folk. Rock n’ roll borrows elements from blues, country-western, boogie, and jazz.

This is the scenario that surrounds the dénouement of Kerouac’s work. It’s in 1948 that he finishes his first novel, The Town and the City; very soon after came the birth–and its explosion of popularity in the 1950s–of rock ‘n' roll.^[98]

In 1974, the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics was opened in his honor by Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman at Naropa University, a private Buddhist university in Boulder, Colorado. The school offers a BA in Writing and Literature, MFAs in Writing & Poetics and Creative Writing, and a summer writing program.^[99]

From 1978 to 1992, Joy Walsh published 28 issues of a magazine devoted to Kerouac, Moody Street Irregulars.



Jack Kerouac Alley in Chinatown, San Francisco

Kerouac's French-Canadian origins inspired a 1987 National Film Board of Canada docudrama, Jack Kerouac's Road: A Franco-American Odyssey, ^[100] directed by Acadian poet Herménégilde Chiasson.^[101]

In the mid-1980s, Kerouac Park was placed in downtown Lowell, Massachusetts.^[102]

A street, rue de Jack Kérouac, is named after him in Quebec City, as well as in the hamlet of Kerouac, Lanmeur, Brittany. An annual Kerouac festival was established in Lanmeur in 2010.^[103] In the 1980s, the city of San Francisco named a one-way street, Jack Kerouac Alley, in his honor in Chinatown.

The character Hank in David Cronenberg's 1991 film Naked Lunch is based on Kerouac.^{[citation needed]}

In 1997, the house on Clouser Avenue where The Dharma Bums was written was purchased by a newly formed non-profit group, The Jack Kerouac Writers in Residence Project of Orlando, Inc. This group provides opportunities for aspiring writers to live in the same house in which Kerouac was inspired, with room and board covered for three months. In 1998, the Chicago Tribune published a story by journalist Oscar J. Corral that described a simmering legal dispute between Kerouac's family and the executor of daughter Jan Kerouac's estate, Gerald Nicosia. The article, citing legal documents, showed that Kerouac's estate, worth only $91 at the time of his death, was worth $10 million in 1998.

In 2007, Kerouac was posthumously awarded a honorary Doctor of Letters degree from the University of Massachusetts Lowell.^[104][105]

In 2009, the movie One Fast Move or I'm Gone – Kerouac's Big Sur was released. It chronicles the time in Kerouac's life that led to his novel Big Sur, with actors, writers, artists, and close friends giving their insight into the book. The movie also describes the people and places on which Kerouac based his characters and settings, including the cabin in Bixby Canyon. An album released to accompany the movie, "One Fast Move or I'm Gone", features Benjamin Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie) and Jay Farrar (Son Volt) performing songs based on Kerouac's Big Sur.

In 2010, during the first weekend of October, the 25th anniversary of the literary festival "Lowell Celebrates Kerouac" was held in Kerouac's birthplace of Lowell, Massachusetts. It featured walking tours, literary seminars, and musical performances focused on Kerouac's work and that of the Beat Generation.

In the 2010s, there was a surge in films based on the Beat Generation. Kerouac has been depicted in the films Howl and Kill Your Darlings. A feature film version of On the Road was released internationally in 2012, and was directed by Walter Salles and produced by Francis Ford Coppola. Independent filmmaker Michael Polish directed Big Sur, based on the novel, with Jean-Marc Barr cast as Kerouac. The film was released in 2013.^[106][107]

A species of Indian platygastrid wasp that is phoretic (hitch-hiking) on grasshoppers is named after him as Mantibaria kerouaci.^[108]

In October 2015, a crater on the planet Mercury was named in his honor.^[109]

Works[edit]

Main article: Jack Kerouac bibliography

Poetry[edit]

While he is best known for his novels, Kerouac is also noted for his poetry. Kerouac said that he wanted "to be considered as a jazz poet blowing a long blues in an afternoon jazz session on Sunday.".^[110] Many of Kerouac's poems follow the style of his free-flowing, uninhibited prose, also incorporating elements of jazz and Buddhism. "Mexico City Blues," a collection of poems published in 1959, is made up of 242 choruses following the rhythms of jazz. In much of his poetry, to achieve a jazz-like rhythm, Kerouac made use of the long dash in place of a period. Several examples of this can be seen in "Mexico City Blues":

Everything
Is Ignorant of its own emptiness—
Anger
Doesnt like to be reminded of fits—

— fragment from 113th Chorus^[111]

Other well-known poems by Kerouac, such as "Bowery Blues," incorporate jazz rhythms with Buddhist themes of Saṃsāra, the cycle of life and death, and Samadhi, the concentration of composing the mind.^[112] Also, following the jazz / blues tradition, Kerouac's poetry features repetition and themes of the troubles and sense of loss experienced in life.