No closer to any kind of truth

I recently resumed reading Big Sur by Jack Kerouac. And by “resumed,” I mean it’s one of those books I bought months ago, got sidetracked, and am finally getting around to finishing.

What ultimately brought me back to this book is Death Cab for Cutie’s song “Bixby Canyon Bridge,” which was written in dedication to Jack Kerouac. If I have any literary integrity whatsoever, I would have brought myself back sooner.

Written in Kerouac’s glory days of the early '60s (well, I’d hardly consider them “glory,” as Kerouac drinks himself into a port-induced coma almost every night of his writings), Big Sur follows the father of the Beat generation as he bounces around the left coast between his quiet cabin in the calmness of Big Sur and the vivacious boarding houses of Frisco।

I found a bittersweet relationship in reading this book. Despite the sentences that easily turned in to paragraph form (Kerouac calls his writing methods “Spontaneous Prose,” a stream of consciousness so to speak), finding the heart and humor at the core of his writing was worth the constant trudging through run-on sentences and intended typos।

As Kerouac coasts through alcoholism and chronic cravings for company in this dark novel, he finds the simple pleasures and tragedies that dictate his life are, in fact, the governing components of his happiness. Such examples include a letter from his lovesick mother mourning the sudden death of their cat, Tyke, or the violent banging of Stravinsky chords on a piano as old as its western saloon habitat articulates.

CS

Fun Stuff

Unofficial Jack Kerouac biography

Big Sur book review

"Bixby Canyon Bridge" Song Lyrics