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What Gets Kept

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Re: What Gets Kept

#21

Post by arjie »

keiferski wrote: post #9
huhkerrf wrote: post #7

Maybe it's because I never had my On the Road phase, but this review on Kerouac I always found really strong: > On the Road is a terrible book about terrible people. Jack Kerouac and his terrible friends drive across the US about seven zillion times for no particular reason, getting in car accidents and stealing stuff and screwing women whom they promise to marry and then don’t. > Jack Kerouac’s relationship with Dea…

It must be so exhausting to go through life only enjoying things that match one’s up-to-the-minute current moral views. I guess all biographies of influential people are basically out, as being successful in 1000BC or 1500AD required one to do things considered unethical today. It feels a bit like religious fundamentalism with a different veneer.

Scott Alexander is a smart guy, but not everything needs to match taste. For instance, he describes the writer of the book Sadly, Porn as remarkably erudite and so on. The community he belongs to has the habit of describing each other as very smart, certainly, and particularly having pretensions to Hegel but overall he's quite trustworthy. In any case, on actually reading the book I found it less interestingly smart and more like something the character Salvatore in The Name of The Rose might say.

But text is a serialization of an idea and it's entirely possible I have the wrong deserializer. So that's one thing perhaps you and I now have in common. And I suspect Scott Alexander just lacks the deserializer for Jack Kerouac.

Re: What Gets Kept

#22

Post by [deleted] »

keiferski wrote: post #18
Jtarii wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe try reading the review first before criticising it.

I have, awhile ago. There isn’t much more to it than the quoted section. It’s not really surprising to me that the author didn’t like it; Kerouac is probably the exact opposite person to him. But that doesn’t make it a good review.

[deleted]

Re: What Gets Kept

#23

Post by jstanley »

keiferski wrote: post #16
jodrellblank wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> up-to-the-minute current moral views “You shall not steal” is the eighth commandment from the Bible, two thousand years ago.

So you don't read or enjoy any books about people that have broken any commandments?

You can enjoy a book while still noting that the characters in it are not doing good things.

Re: What Gets Kept

#24

Post by ikr678 »

torben-friis wrote: post #10

I wonder why Keruoac-like personalities are so magnetic, I never felt it click. Maybe it's that people wish they would dare share that freedom? Escapism from boredom? The lifestyle does not at all feel pleasant, at least to me. I don't mean it in the sense of regular comfort; these lines describe a tortured man more than they do a 'happy beggar'. And then there's the chaos the trainwreck leaves behind. I don't believ…

I find the magnetism from these types of people is seeing someone violate your social norms (usually for gain) in ways you had never considered, and getting a tantalising glimpse of what might be possible if only you weren't so timid/proper/responsible/considerate/whatever.

Re: What Gets Kept

#25

Post by thelarrys »

huhkerrf wrote: post #7

Maybe it's because I never had my On the Road phase, but this review on Kerouac I always found really strong: > On the Road is a terrible book about terrible people. Jack Kerouac and his terrible friends drive across the US about seven zillion times for no particular reason, getting in car accidents and stealing stuff and screwing women whom they promise to marry and then don’t. > Jack Kerouac’s relationship with Dea…

The deep pockmarks in Scott Alexander's hands

left from so strongly clutching his pearls

will take an eternity to de-dimple.

Re: What Gets Kept

#26

Post by pjc50 »

huhkerrf wrote: post #7

Maybe it's because I never had my On the Road phase, but this review on Kerouac I always found really strong: > On the Road is a terrible book about terrible people. Jack Kerouac and his terrible friends drive across the US about seven zillion times for no particular reason, getting in car accidents and stealing stuff and screwing women whom they promise to marry and then don’t. > Jack Kerouac’s relationship with Dea…

And in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, they don't even manage to do any motorcycle maintenance!

(I think people have misunderstood the appeal of the book, probably because the psychological conditions of the mid-20th century are unrecognizable. It is significant that the book is from 1957, a whole decade before Easy Rider and the general transition period centered on 1968)

Re: What Gets Kept

#27

Post by bloak »

iammjm wrote: post #5
ktallett wrote: post #3

Jack Kerouac has always felt like a gateway for early 20 year old guys looking to be seen as literary explorers. Similar to how Orwell seems to be commonly found around your mid teens (15-17) and many are seem reading 1984. I guess it's almost a right of passage. I know many will say those are stereotypes or tropes but having worked with people from 15-28 over the course of many years in a range of roles, it's very m…

Orwell is an absolute master of both fiction and non-fiction. This dude lived and got dirty on purpose just to be able to report about it: far-away colonies, lower-class slums, foreign wars against fascists; in the end it even cost him his life. I am SO happy he is an obligatory lecture in many schools and countries; it's probably the best thing kids could be reading. He's been my hero ever since I've read him, and s…

Yes!

"Of the five pay-checks I mentioned above, no less than three are rubber-stamped with the words 'death stoppage'. When a miner is killed at work it is usual for the other miners to make up a subscription, generally of a shilling each, for his widow, and this is collected by the colliery company and automatically deducted from their wages. The significant detail here is the rubber stamp."

Re: What Gets Kept

#28

Post by everdrive »

pjc50 wrote: post #26
huhkerrf wrote: post #7

Maybe it's because I never had my On the Road phase, but this review on Kerouac I always found really strong: > On the Road is a terrible book about terrible people. Jack Kerouac and his terrible friends drive across the US about seven zillion times for no particular reason, getting in car accidents and stealing stuff and screwing women whom they promise to marry and then don’t. > Jack Kerouac’s relationship with Dea…

And in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance , they don't even manage to do any motorcycle maintenance! (I think people have misunderstood the appeal of the book, probably because the psychological conditions of the mid-20th century are unrecognizable. It is significant that the book is from 1957, a whole decade before Easy Rider and the general transition period centered on 1968)

For someone who has read neither, could you expand on this? What makes this book significant from a 1950s-1960s perspective? Is it worth reading today for its own merit outside the historical relevance?

Re: What Gets Kept

#29

Post by mc32 »

keiferski wrote: post #9
huhkerrf wrote: post #7

Maybe it's because I never had my On the Road phase, but this review on Kerouac I always found really strong: > On the Road is a terrible book about terrible people. Jack Kerouac and his terrible friends drive across the US about seven zillion times for no particular reason, getting in car accidents and stealing stuff and screwing women whom they promise to marry and then don’t. > Jack Kerouac’s relationship with Dea…

It must be so exhausting to go through life only enjoying things that match one’s up-to-the-minute current moral views. I guess all biographies of influential people are basically out, as being successful in 1000BC or 1500AD required one to do things considered unethical today. It feels a bit like religious fundamentalism with a different veneer.

It’s true we should not judge people by today’s morals -one can’t be a visionary and predict tomorrows morals; but, that said it seems those people strayed well beyond what was acceptable even back then. So there is room for criticism.

Re: What Gets Kept

#30

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

keiferski wrote: post #13
huhkerrf wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're jumping to some wild conclusions there. This isn't about wokism (if you know the author, that would be clear) or political correctness. It's more: wow these guys are jerks, and they get on my nerves. A protagonist doesn't need to be perfect. But, ultimately, you should be rooting for him.

I wasn't making it about wokism at all. And I don't agree that you should be rooting for protagonist. That's an extremely limited way of looking at literature, much less history. I can think of half a dozen books offhand that have unpleasant or anti-hero type protagonists.

> I can think of half a dozen books offhand that have unpleasant or anti-hero type protagonists.

I was not a fan of Thomas Covenant. What a prick.

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