Jack Kerouac, Selected Letters: 1940-1956, v. 1
As I’m convinced of the the utility of “pulling”* from my reading, I found the following gems in some of Kerouac’s letters up till he had to deal with fame after the publication of On the Road. Herein, Jack is touching as he writes his heart out in letters to pals, as we know at the beginning he is a nobody on the way to becoming a somebody with fame, which will lead, alas, to weltschmerz, chagrin, and more drinking. In the following culling from the letters, I’m partial to his positivity and regard for others…
His homage to Mark Van Doren, his teacher at Columbia: he was the only professor I personally knew at Columbia who had the semblance of humility without pretensions—the semblance, but to me, deeply, the reality of humility too. A kind of sufferingly earnest humility like you imagine old Dickens or old Dostoevsky having later in their lives. 147
His anticipation of Beach Boys’ “California Girls” song: Most beautiful girls in the world in Frisco. 338
His cheerleading for friend’s writing: … whatever Neal [Cassady] writes is great because he has as much talent as James Joyce or any other great Irishman writing in the English language… 475
His spiritual reading recommendation to Allen Ginsberg: What you need at once is the DIAMOND SUTRA.
His ardent joy at living in NYC: … what a great city New York is, in the final vision of it. It’s the Paris of the greatest civilization of the time. We are living at just the right time—Johnson and his London, Balzac and his Paris, Socrates and his Athens—the same thing again. 130
His championing of caffeine: Benny, tea, anything I KNOW none as good as coffee for real mental power kicks, 318
His bliss from the printed word: … although I never was so happy in my life than in that splendid attic with the 11th edition Encyclopedia Brittanica…. 350
His encouragement to Neal: You, man, must write exactly as everything rushes into your head, and AT ONCE. The pain of writing is just that…physical cramps in the hand, nothing else, of course. 233
His respect for solitude: Turns out that all my final favorite writers (Dickinson, Blake, Thoreau) ended up their lives in little hermitages… Emily in hr cottage, Blake in his, with wife; and Thoreau his hut… 497
His discovering Buddha: I realized Gautama was the greatest man of them all and wished I’d known him… 550
*Immaculate Heart College Art Department Rules, adapted, to wit: “Pull everything out of your reading”
Allen Ginsberg, “Appreciation is the sacrament.”