It’s been 100 years since Jack Kerouac was born. Commemorative events are being held across the nation, including his home town of Lowell, Massachusetts. Closer to home, the Henry Miller Library is sponsoring an all-day party Sunday, Aug. 28, including a rare showing of photographs from the Beat Museum in North Beach, a talk by Kerouac scholar and retired Unitarian Universalist minister Steve Edington from his forthcoming book The Gospel According To Jack, and a screening of Michael Polish’s 2013 movie Big Sur, based on Kerouac’s novel about his experiences living in Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Bixby Canyon cabin in 1960. A panel discussion is also scheduled with Edington, Polish and Beat Museum Director Jerry Cimino.
Daytrippers of the Kerouac legend might be surprised to learn that the 1962 novel, the last one written before he returned East to live with his mother – he died only nine years later – is in many ways a dark document, dealing with his alcoholism and disenchantment with the Beat fame game.
“I was more of a fan of Big Sur than On The Road,“ Polish says, speaking by phone from Montana, where he is working on another project. “It reminded me of a [Charles] Bukowski situation – someone ending their career as a barfly on the coast.
“This period was the great descent,” Polish adds. “Big Sur is very symbolic. You have the cliffs on one side and the ocean on the other, and you can feel like you’re in purgatory – which is where Jack was a lot of the time.” Kerouac was drinking heavily at the time, and it was catching up with his body and mind.
Unlike other adaptations, he used Kerouac’s own work as the actor’s dialogue. “My idea was to translate it as closely as possible to the book,” he explains. “No one really starts changing Shakespeare’s words when they adapt it.”
Unlike the novel, but in accordance with Kerouac’s wishes, Polish also used the real names (with one exception) of the characters the book was based on: City Lights founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti, beatnik Neal Cassady, and fellow poets Michael McClure, Lew Welch and Lenore Kandel (called “Lenora’’ here). “There was no pushback from anybody,’’ Polish says. “I thought everybody should be revealed. Let’s see the love affair between these two guys. Neal was his muse.”
On The Road became a manifesto. In its aftermath, Kerouac was confronted with the flipside of fame. He drew attention. As Polish describes it, he became frustrated “that ‘I’m very famous – I can’t go out my front door or look out my window, everyone’s looking for a handout.’”
Edington, whose previous work includes a biography of Carmel poet laureate Ric Masten, says despite the challenges of that time, Kerouac as author shines through: “For all his challenges, I see Kerouac as a spirit guide.
“On The Road was a classic coming-of-age novel. Everyone comes to a point in their lives where we need to get out there and figure out who we are, even if it’s not like these two guys.”
The characters Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty were Kerouac’s fictional versions of himself and Cassady, respectively. Edington highlights the undertone of tragedy in the novel. There is a moment Moriarity is left on a New York street corner as Paradise heads off to a Carnegie Hall concert.
“The road can be exuberant and celebratory, but can also leave you cold, alone and stranded,” he says.
“Every aspect of Kerouac’s life – good, bad, or indifferent – is a lesson for so many of us about what he was living in that moment,’’ says Cimino, who founded the Beat Museum with his wife Estelle in Monterey before moving to North Beach near City Lights to be closer to the action. “There are not many writers who’ve been dead for 60 years who can do that.”
JACK KEROUAC 100TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION! takes place from 3-10:30pm on Sunday, Aug. 28. Henry Miller Memorial Library, 48603 Highway 1, Big Sur. $40. 667-2574. Steve Edington speaks on “The Americas of John Steinbeck and Jack Kerouac” at 1:30pm Saturday, Aug. 27 at the National Steinbeck Center, 1 Main St, Salinas. Free. 775-4721, steinbeck.org.