ده ستاره می‌دم!

درمورد این کتاب سخت می‌تونم بنویسم. انقدر که چیزهای جالبی برای من داشت. متن روونی داشت، اتفاقات هیجان‌انگیز و تجربه‌نشده بودن، ریتم بالایی داشت، وقتی می‌خوندی حس می‌کردی که داری می‌دویی باهاشون. توصیفات محشری داشت که می‌تونستی جاده‌های آمریکا و جزکلاب‌ها و مهمونیا و بیابونا و مکزیک و جنگل‌هاش رو باهاش تجربه کنی. من این رو خیلی آروم خوندم. هر از گاهی کمی ازش رو می‌خوندم و این خیلی لذت‌بخش بود.
عیش مدام!

توصیه می‌کنم، به همه، که بخوننش و چه بهتر که حین خوندنش درموردش تحقیق هم بکنن. مثلن وقتی از ترانه‌ای نام می‌برد، دانلودش می کردم و حین خوندن اون صفحات گوش می‌دادمش. یا نقشه آمریکا رو نگاه می‌کردم و مسیر حرکت‌شون رو بررسی می‌کردم. کلی اسم و چیز جالب می‌شه توی این کتاب پیدا کرد و در نهایت شما رو عاشق سفر و تجربه می‌کنه.

باید رفت سفر. باید دید و باید مثل جرقه‌های طلایی‌رنگ این کتاب دوید و دوید تا از نفس افتاد!

I decided to re-read this recently, having originally read it too long ago as a 15 year old with a head full of clouds, fluffy ideas and idealism. Happy to report that the clouds and other fluff were replaced with an iron clad lump of cynicism which grows daily.

This time round (more than fifteen years on)I enjoyed it more for the colourful style of writing and use of language which marked it as a book that defined a generation. I also realised that despite his skill as a writer, Kerouac and chums were lazy self-centred free-loading moochers rather than the inspirational live for the moment travellers I originally took them for. They pioneered the sofa surfing econo-chic movement which is having a moment right now.

Ultimately running away is fine and fun for a time too. On the Road is about a group of men on the run. From their families, respectability, employment, responsibility and a sedentary conventional life. Clearly they're never going to outrun themselves though, so what is the end game? In this case it is worth it if you're going to get a world class book out of it and be touted as some sort of inter-generational seer for years to come but the chances of that happening are fairly limited.

Eventually the time comes when we have to stand still while the world turns around us for a moment make a decision about who we are and where we're going (and that doesn't mean just going back to Denver!).

n   **4.25 stars**

“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”n

Beat Generation has always been one of the most controversial and ambivalent topics for heated arguments that I’ve ever known. I was just beginning in my teens when I first heard about the term, and because my parents won’t let me buy any of these books, I began to watch the movie adaptations (and got one of my favourites, Kill Your Darlings in the process) out of the curiosity.

But even the movies were so poorly received, that I began to ponder if it was worth the effort. Just as with this book, I liked all the movies, didn’t quite love most of them, though, for several reasons.

Now let’s get to the book. Even though I liked it, (or else wouldn’t have reread it) there are quite some elements to it for which I was going to rate it 1 star at first. But then I felt one thing, the book is self-conscious about all of that.

Even on a superficial level, anyone can see that at once that all of the characters are either sexist, homophobic, racist or just all of them. Without saying, all of them are careless, selfish, and tiresomely stupid (for some parts at least).

And to be honest, sexism here is on a whole different level. A guy can be in multiple physical relationships all at once, but if ‘one’ of his girlfriends ditch him for someone else (obviously tired of the constant lies or the fact that she’s just being a sex object), she’s a prostitute. One of our characters also says something like this: n   “Now you see, man, there’s real woman for you. Never a harsh word, never a complaint, or modified: her old man can come in any hour of the night with anybody and have talks in the kitchen and drink the beer and leave any old time. This is a man, and that’s his castle.”n

Not that he doesn’t receive hate for this.

n   “For years now you haven’t had any sense of responsibility for anyone. You’ve done so many awful things I don’t know what to say to you.”

And that was the point, and they all sat around looking at Dean with lowered and hating eyes, and he stood on the carpet in the middle of them and giggled - he just giggled. He made a little dance. His bandage was getting dirtier all the time; it began to flop and unroll. I suddenly realized that Dean, by virtue of his enormous series of sins, was becoming the Idiot, the Imbecile, the Saint of the lot.

“You have absolutely no regard for anybody but yourself and your damned kicks. All you think about is what’s hanging between your legs and how much money or fun you can get out of people and then you just throw them aside. Not only that but you’re silly about it. It never occurs to you that life is serious and there are people trying to make something decent out of it instead of just goofing all the time.”

That’s what Dean was, the HOLY GOOF.

“Camille is crying her heart out tonight, but don’t think for a minute she wants you back, she said she never wanted to see you again and she said it was to be final this time. Yet you stand here and make silly faces, and I don’t think there’s a care in your heart.”n

What you will definitely like about the book is its energetic vibe, which keeps up with its consistent tonality. And on a strong disappointment with Truman Capote here, I feel the storytelling is quite brilliant. Again, everyone will not like it because it doesn’t pause at all: the whole novel is like one crazy long ride filled with booze, party and sex but at the same time contains a philosophical quotient to it which keeps up with the vivid, unapologetic delineation.

Also, you may hate or like the characters (it’s totally up to you) but even those of them who are there for a very short time, feels like real person worth thinking about (Big point to make, says the snide voice. You have already read The Original Scroll and you know it’s almost non-fiction ). Hear me out. We all have that one friend (or more).

They are the polar opposite of everything good. And not in a way of ‘two different ideologies can comfortably coexist in the same room but in a morally wrong way, a way where you can never agree with them on anything. You may even despise or hate most of them, as in what defines them as a persona. But you can’t still let go of them.

Dean Moriarty is one of those characters. Now the ironic factor is that though the majority of the characters are sincerely homophobic, there’s still a homoerotic quotient to the story, especially that is at play between Sal Paradise and Dean. Even if we denounce all the Freudian implications at work from the beginning to the end, the sapiosexual quotient that we can find in Allen Ginsberg is also present here.

What else will you call the almost ridiculous amount of indulgence that Sal provides Dean, coming up with excuses for almost all the misdemeanours and selfish acts that Dean pulls off? How else do you define that irresistible attraction he feels for him (and him only) that compelled him to make all those journeys, only to be ditched, again and again?

I don’t know but I feel that sort of love can only exist without any sort of sexual affinity when two people know each other for a while. Or maybe all that is just a figment of perception: Jack Kerouac only explored the age-old thematic of non-sexual intimacies here. But It’s inexplicable for me at least, again probably because it is meant to be.

But I think somehow that sapiosexual orientation must be discussed more, it’s one of the most unaccounted yet essential elements to constitute the backbone of Dark Academia. All in all, despite all its flaws, I think everyone should give it a go. It definitely isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s unashamedly original, and would’ve been so even if it meant by hook or by crook.

n   “…because he had no place he could stay in without getting tired of it and because there was nowhere to go but everywhere, keep rolling under the stars...”n

what

چرا به این چیزها فکر می‌کنی وقتی مزارع طلایی پیشِ رویت است و همه جور حوادث نامنتظره در انتظارت است تا تو را به شگفتی بیاندازند و خوشحالت کنند که زنده ای و چنین چیزی را می‌بینی؟

همیشه از دیدن پروانه‌ها هیجان زده می‌شم و امشب که دارم ریویو رو می‌نویسم یکیشون مهمونم شده. یه پروانه خیلی زیبا که بدون در زدن از پنجره وارد اتاق شده. چند دقیقه بدون ترس رو انگشتام نشست و حالا باهم داریم به فرانک سیناترا گوش میدیم
لینک آهنگ

Let’s forget about tomorrow
فردا رو فراموش کنیم
Let’s forget about tomorrow for tomorrow never comes
بیا فراموشش کنیم چون فردا هیچ وقت نمیاد
Domani, forget domani
فردا! فردا رو فراموش کنیم
Let’s live for now and anyhow who needs domani?
بیا در این لحظه زندگی کنیم. کی نیاز به فردا داره؟
The moonlight, let’s share the moonlight
نور ماه! بیا تا نور ماه رو باهم قسمت کنیم.
Perhaps together we will never be again
شاید دیگه هیچ وقت باهم نباشیم...



نسل بیت یه معنی بیشتر نداره: زنده باد زندگی

جنگ جهانی به پایان رسیده ولی هنوز ترکش هایش آزار دهنده اند. ترکش هایی که روح انسان را زخمی کرده اند. جنگی که انسان را به تمام مدنیت و فرهنگش به شک انداخت و او را سرگردان کرد. حتی نویسنده‌های بزرگ زیر این همه وحشیت نمی‌توانستند پشت راست کنند و دیگر به ادبیات و هنر پشت‌گرم کنند. اما در زمانه سرخوردگی و افسردگی و ناتوانی که انسانِ درمانده نمی دانست چه راهی را در پیش گیرد، نسلی از نویسندگان بوجود آمد به نام "نسلِ بیت" که به تمام معنا زیستن را می‌خواستند تجربه کنند...خوره زندگی و لذت بودند....یعنی همین "زندگی" که خیلی وقت‌ها براحتی ازش بیزار می‌شیم، مقدس‌ترین کلمه برای نسل بیت بود. آنها بی‌پروا و شاعرانه به هرچی که زندگی را تهدید می‌کرد حمله می‌کردند. اینگونه شد که "آلن گینزبرگ" کشورش را هم به گا کشید و یکی از معروف‌ترین شعرهایش را سرود:

آمریکا برو خودت را با بمب اتمت بگا
حالم خوب نیست اذیتم نکن.

نسل بیت قوانین خودشان را داشتند و حتی دزدی را در حد نیاز مشروع می‌دانستند(بمانند سرخپوستان که شکار حیوانات را فقط برای نیاز انجام می‌دادند). اصل مهم‌شان زنده ماندن و لذت بردن از آن است و بخاطر همین تمام قوانین دست و پاگیر را می‌شکنند. نسل بیتی بودن یک زندگی کولی وار است پر از هیجان و هر فرصتی که دست بدهد خود را به راه زدن: راه زندگی است
تنها آدم‌هایی که باهاشان حال می‌کنم دیوانه‌هایند، آدم‌هایی که دیوانه‌ی زندگی‌اند، دیوانه‌ی حرف زدن‌اند، دیوانه‌ی نجات یافتن، در یک آن خوره‌ی همه‌چیز هستند، آدم‌هایی که هیچ‌وقت خمیازه نمی‌کشند و حرف‌های معمولی نمی‌زنند، فقط می‌سوزند، می‌سوزند و می‌سوزند

دنیا به نسل بیت نیاز داشت مثه یک شوک تا دوباره به زندگی برگردد. با این‌حال این نسل عمر کوتاهی داشت و کم کم به قول بوکوفسکی خیلی‌هاشون عاقلتر شدند و کت و شلوار پوشیدند و دست از دزدی و ولگردی و عیاشی کشیند و ساعت 8 ساعت سرکار رفتند. اما یکی از نتایج مهم نسل بیت بوجود آمدن نسل دوم بیت بود که بوکوفسکی سرآمد آنها بود که هیچوقت سرعقل هم نیومد


من هم از پلیس‌ها حالم بهم می‌خوره. در یک کلام چندش آورند:

پلیس آمریکا در حال جنگ روانی علیه آن دسته از امریکایی‌هاست که نمی‌تواند با سند و تهدید بترساندشان. نیروی پلیسِ ویکتوریایی است؛ از پنجره کپک‌زده سرک می‌کشد و می‌خواهد تو همه‌چیز تفحص کند، و اگر به قدر رضایت جرم وجود نداشت، می‌تواند ابداع کند. به قول لویی فردینان سلین «نُه ردیف جرم، یک ردیف ملال.» دین آنقدر دیوانه شده بود که می‌خواست برگردد ویرجینیا و به محض اینکه تفنگ گیر آورد مردک پلیس را بکشد


شبحی به نام تمدن که بمب‌ها روزی آن‌را از بین خواهند بُرد

سرخ‌پوست‌ها از ارتفاعات و پشت کوه‌ها آمده بودند پایین و دست دراز کرده بودند برای چیزی که فکر می‌کردند تمدن می‌تواند به‌شان عرضه کند و هرگز تصور غم و وهمِ درهم شکسته و فقیر تمدن را نمی‌کردند. آن‌ها نمی‌دانستند که بمبی آمده که می‌تواند همه‌ی پل‌ها و جاده‌های‌مان را از هم بپاشد و تبدیل‌شان کند به آت وآشغال، و ما هم روزی به فقیریِ آن‌ها می‌شویم و همین‌جور، دقیقا همین‌جور دست‌مان را دراز خواهیم کرد

It took me over a year to finish this book. I did like it, but for some reason, I could not read more than a little at a time.

The descriptive parts are raw and enticing, and easily my favorite part of the book. I longed for a chance to experience the freedom and insane excitement Sal and Deal relish in, Dean more so than our protagonist. The prose painted the America of the late 40s like a timeless land shrouded in mysticism, its people in a perpetual search for meaning and experience, but riddled by poverty, uncertainty, and debauchery. The massive size of the country also played a pivotal role. East-West, North-South, there are endless landscapes to be seen, people to be met, places to explore.

I can understand the massive impact this book had ever since it was published, and I can't deny I myself was very moved by it. I adored the writing style and imagery. I thought the characters were downright horrible and noxious. Despite my distaste, I believe that flawed, raw characters are essential to the establishment of a realistic picture of the time. "On the Road" is certainly a fearless dive into an uncertain decade, into the dark heart of America, a book which will stay with me for a long time.

n  

n
ا”حالا اگر پسرم (الان که مرور مینویسم سه سالشه) بیست سال بعد بپرسد:
«بابا تو اصلا کوله گردی کردی؟ تو عمرت مفت سواری کردی؟»
با اینکه سیگار نمی‌کشم، پکی به سیگار می‌زنم و نگاهش می‌کنم. به دروغ ولی با اطمینان پاسخ خواهم داد:
ا«آره پسر جون، سه بار عرض آمریکا رو طی کردم و برگشتم.» “ا
n

n  
n

نسلِ سوخته و نسل بیت
برای نسل ترسویی مثل نسل ما (دهه شصت) خواندن این کتاب یادآور آن چیزی است که میان دلهره‌ها و کتاب‌های درسی و مذهبی و بایدها و نبایدها از دست رفت یا در حال از دست رفتن است. آن پاسخی که باید به کائنات داد را ما فراموش کرده بودیم. ما می‌بایست یک جک کراوک می‌داشتیم که ما را هِی کند به جاده و دشت و بیابان. علف می‌زدیم، به دخترها و زن‌ها بند می‌کردیم، موسیقی می‌نوشیدیم و دنیا را بی خیالی طی می‌کردیم. در عوض در مدرسه ماندیم، در صف استخدام ادارات وقت گذراندیم، محدودیت‌ها را تاب آوردیم، عکس-هندی‌هامان را پاره کردیم و شدیم همین نسلی که سرشار است از حسرت و کمبود. چیزی که در نسل‌های بعد کمتر شد. دهه هفتاد-هشتادی‌هایی که ما (دهه شصتی‌ها) به خاطر لذتی که (عموماً) آنها از لحظه‌شان می‌برند ازشان متنفریم و البته برایشان خوشحالیم.

اصلا خود داستان را که کنار بگذاریم فعلا که شیفته ی خود این نویسنده ی جدیدالکشف ام شدم. حالا قلمش بماند. حالا بماند که ترجمه اش چقدر خوب است. داشتم فکر میکردم کاش میشد جک کرواک را از زیر خاک بیرون کشید، زنده اش کرد، با او چند صباحی ول گشت و عصر را در یک کافه ای جایی قهوه خورد. فکر کنم ا�� آن دست پسرهایی می بود که در عین حال که طرز رفتار و زندگی پرهرج و مرجشان به طرز دهشت انگیزی حرصم میدهد، نمی توانم عاشقشان نشوم.
.
از مقدمه: «در راه» را کتاب مقدس نسل ادبی بیت می دانند؛ در کنار شعر بلند زوزه ی الن کینزبرگ که به تعبیری مانیفست این گروه از نویسندگان بعد از جنگ جهانی دوم است. نسلی که چیزی نبود جز حلقه رفقایی که «خوره ی زندگی» بودند و برخلاف نویسندگان عصاقورت داده ی معاصرشان که از آکادمی های ملانقطی بیرون می آمدند، خودآموخته هایی لاقید بودند و تعدادی شان سارق حرفه ای محسوب می شدند و اتفاقا موضوع نوشته هاشان هم چیزی نبود جز همین ماجراهای خود و دوستان شان.

ادبیات جاده ای امریکا هم همواره سنتی قوی بود که بی گمان در راه به تأسی از آن نوشته شده است. می توان رد این آثار را تا تعابیر رمانتیک والت ویتمن از «راه گشوده» پی گرفت تا آثار اولا داکوبامز ، برده ی سیاه پوستی که هزینه ی آزادی خود را پرداخت و به دنبال آن چه خود «امریکایی بودن» می نامید به سفر در امریکا پرداخت و سال 1793 دو کتاب در این باب چاپ کرد.
اما بعد از در راه کرواک و تصویر این رمان از جاده به عنوان محملی برای یافتن سعادت و بینش بود که خیلی هیپی های مفتی سوار راهی جاده ها شدند و آثاری نظیر ذن و فن نگاه داشت موتور سیکلت به نگارش در آمده اند. به پیروی از در راه بود که نویسنده ی دیگری از نسل بیت به نام کن کِسی، نویسنده ی رمان پرواز بر فراز آشیانه ی فاخته، عزم کرد اتوبوسی کهنه را با رنگ های تند مرسوم در دهه ی 1960 رنگ کند و نیل کسیدی، همسفر جک کرواک در رمان در راه را بنشاند پشت فرمان تا امریکا را بگردند.

This book takes me back to that once in a lifetime summer when you sit with your friends and say "we should just hit the road and let it take us anywhere." Over the years you look back and wonder - can you say that you took the road... "I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." But that difference is already faded; the road is covered over with the autumnal leafs of memory - and it is lost. Jack took that road; and I traveled with him in the spirit of that summer long ago.

2nd read, July 2020

Re-reading this I was far more conscious of a growing sense of disillusion in Sal Paradise as he contemplates Dean Moriarty, the epitome of beat: part holy-man, part con-man, the other side of his free-living, restless life is his lack of reliability which Sal experiences first hand when he's sick and abandoned in Mexico.

Kerouac evokes the mythography of American pioneers and lonesome cowboys ('this road,' I told him, 'is also the route of old American outlaws') even as Sal, and even Dean, seem to yearn for some kind of home that always evades them: 'so I went up and there she was, the girl with the pure and innocent dear eyes that I had always searched for'.

And Kerouac's prose is astounding.

-----------------------------------------------
n  

Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.

n
A blazing, youthful book, packed with energy and sadness, rebellion and disaffection: don't read this if you're looking for a plot or some kind of linear storytelling, read it for the evocation of mood, and Kerouac's 'spontaneous writing' that fizzes with vigour and force.

Set in 1947 and based around 4 road trips across the US, Kerouac's alter ego, Sal Paradise, follows his idol Dean Moriarty in an odyssey of wildness: drink, drugs, hook-ups, jazz. The boy-men fall in love again and again, abandoning women across the country because this is a masculine bromance and there's no real place for girls.

Only during the 3rd and 4th trips, a darker element seeps in: Sal realises that Moriarty is a 'holy con-man' and that the other side of freedom is a rootlessness that cuts deep - one of the things that Dean Moriarty is searching for is his lost father, and he duplicates and multiplies that loss as he gets girls pregnant then leaves them, sprinkling fatherless children across the country.

There are moments when we want to reach into the book and shake some sense into Sal, particularly when he sentimentalises what it might mean to be black in 1940s America: 'I was only myself... wishing I could exchange worlds with the happy, true-hearted, ecstatic Negroes of America' - hmm. The casual misogyny and homophobia of the time also have a place here as, apparently, rejection of stifling social conventions only goes so far...

Nevertheless, there's something deeply hypnotic about Kerouac's prose and the final journey when Sal, at least, has started to understand the cost of the road is poignant and close to philosophical:
n  

... the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty.

n

Rarely has it been so difficult, even painful, to come to the end of a text of 400 pages! So let me explain: the version of On The Road by Jack Kerouac is that of the original roll (1951). This role, which did a lot for the legend of Kerouac, was written in just three weeks!
We omit to specify that Kerouac had been working on this novel for two or even three years and that it was in a mad frenzy (doped with coffee!) He wrote this roll in one go after gluing each sheet individually. Of paper to make a single strip, thus assimilating it to the mythical route of Route 66, the one that crosses the USA from east to west; continuous reading, without the shadow of a paragraph, is perhaps a parallel with the monotony of this route 66 but that its text is long, long.
I would only add that this clean text, rendered in a standard format, was published about five years later; the political and economic context of the USA was different then. And the crazy American youth who discovered it then found there may have been different aspirations—those of Kerouac when he was writing this novel.
Kerouac lives alone in New York with his mother after his father died in the story. Disembarks Neal Cassidy, a young thug but irresistible in his appetite to live, I would even say consume his life from all ends. Always with a woman, two or even three, he randomly consumes alcohol, marijuana, and benzedrine sex and moves without stopping !! He will be the black angel of Kerouac, weaving with him during their crazy hikes, with bonds so strong that we can make them believe they are indissoluble.
So in the car, go for a ride, walk, sniff, drink, fuck, in the order you want, separately or simultaneously!
Here we are in Paris with these knocking-off things, little or no adventures, but the road, pubs, drugs, girls, and the text becomes MAGICAL music, jazz, and bebop. But, just for these few pages, the detour is worth it.
So, it was tedious reading. I did not go into Kerouac's speech old-fashioned, but I assume it. Do we have to come to these great states of disrepair to appreciate life? It isn't my conception, the question of age and period. Indeed, I ask myself to say that the text would have aged a little.

Out-of-kilter writer Sal Paradise sort of worships Dean Moriarty, a traveller and an almost mystic-like man who epitomises the 'Beat Generation'; this is the story of their friendship mostly focussed on their journeys across America (east to west, and west to east), their and their fellow travellers' escapades; and the personal growth that they may or may not go through. A roman a clef work that is essentially a quasi-autobiographical take on the American Dream from a non-conventional perspective drenched in sexual comedy, almost widescreen-like travel writing, counter-culture, and evocative recollections of growing up (in America).

Neal Cassady(L) and Jack Kerouac(R)
A book that drips with lyrical writing that feels almost like a 300+ paged unstoppable juggernaut that once entered, enveloped me in what (in 2021?) feels like almost a constructed reality, despite it being drafted from the pages of Kerouac's diaries and notes, and based heavily upon his relationships and times with the likes of Neal Cassady, William S Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. It's a bit of a cliché to say, but I do feel that this book has such a prominent place in 20th century American culture that everyone should read it. 7 out of 12, because after awhile the stories and adventures as 'out there' as they were, did feel a bit repetitive.

2021 read