Interesting because it was written after On the Road, towards the end of his life, and some of the reflections are quite sad, how uninspired he seemed to feel about it all in the end. Some of the prose is really beautiful and the places fascinating, but there was a section in California I found really hard to get through.

"A peaceful sorrow at home is the best I’ll ever be able to offer the world, in the end, and so I told my desolation angels goodbye. A new life for me."

Questi folli e ubriachi poeti e scrittori, che hanno vissuto in un brandello di terra cinquant'anni fa e più, che hanno sovvertito le regole del linguaggio e del comportamento, scambiando obnubilamenti e follie per estasi ed illuminazioni, risultano oltremodo affascinanti e veri. Hanno lasciato dietro di sé bottiglie vuote e sprazzi di onesta gioia; non hanno cambiato il mondo ma lo hanno colorato e investito di una santità nuova; hanno creato una crepa dalla quale guardare aldilà, e di questo non potremo mai ringraziarli abbastanza. Ecco di cosa parla questo libro.
Seconda parte a tratti più profonda, nel Messico, a tratti più noiosa, a tratti più tenera - con la madre in viaggio per la California.

Prima lettura 1985, seconda lettura 2019, non è invecchiato come il suo più famoso, rimane il più bel ricordo di Kerouac che ho in libreria.

I had never heard of Desolation Angels until I happened upon it at the library, but I read it without reading Big Sur or Dharma Bums first, which was a mistake. The first part of the book about Jack Duluoz’s time on desolation peak (which is right where Dharma Bums ends) was really slow for me. It was also hard to keep up with the flashbacks. The metaphors, while powerful & thought provoking, became redundant after awhile. However, I see how they were important in laying the foundation for Jack’s attitude toward his travels and relationships after he came down from the mountain. The book also picks up significantly once Jack comes down from Desolation Peak, and I loved making connections to On the Road. While I have a problem with the way Kerouac talks about women and race, his writing is honest, existential, entertaining, and moving, making it worth the read in the end.

Jack Kerouac and I have gone on a little journey together. Like a lot of people, I read On the Road in college and it was like someone set off a firecracker in my ear. It was startling and focusing and loud, and it stayed with me for a long time afterward. It is a book that appeals especially to young men, which I used to be.

I've read a lot of Kerouac's output since that time, the good and the not-so-good. I've mostly liked it, though there are a few real stinkers in there too. It's been a couple of decades since I was an undergraduate, and reading Kerouac's later work as an older person has a real rightness to it. As in Big Sur (another one I greatly enjoyed), Desolation Angels is from a different Kerouac than On the Road. One who is slower and more worn out, and one whose body is slowly and inexorably being destroyed by alcohol.

At 400 pages, Desolation Angels is a long novel by Kerouac standards, and it gives him time to flesh things out more than in his slimmer volumes. We spent the first part of the novel up all alone with Kerouac on "Desolation Peak" during his stint working for the national park service manning a fire lookout station. Kerouac is lonely and deep inside his own head, meditating on Buddhist koans and nature. When he is alone he wants the company of others; when he is in the fray, he longs to be alone.

When his stretch on the mountain is over, we spend time with Kerouac in San Francisco and Mexico and on a long car trip back to New York. We encounter many familiar faces from other Kerouac work, especially Cody (Neal Cassidy) and also light fictionalizations of Burroughs and Ginsberg.

Kerouac at this time is on the brink of becoming famous, with the publication of On the Road happening as he is writing Desolation Angels. He would never recover from his fame, and the endless parade of beatniks wanting to party with him. He writes in DA with distain for the cool attitude being burnished by the younger people he meets and what he perceives as a lack of authenticity. He is suddenly the president of a club that he hates.

But his writing here is as good as almost anywhere else (excepting as always On the Road, an impossibly high standard). His by now familiar patois of playful linguistic outbursts, extended prose poems, and philosophical asides are melded with a pretty clear-eyed description of the downward drift of himself, his friends, and the whole damn society from how Kerouac seems to see it.

DA avoids the worst self-indulgence of books like Book of Dreams and Visions of Cody while rejoining the main narrative of Jack's life in a way that books like Visions of Gerard do not. Paired with Big Sur, they're quite a statement about aging and deterioration, and what happens after so many years of burning the candle on both ends. Desolation Angels is among Kerouac's best.

My heart is consumed by an unwavering love for Kerouac.

Within the pages of "Desolation Angels," a poignant and pivotal work that unfolds in the wake of his renowned "On the Road," one gains a deeper understanding of Kerouac's essence and the tapestry of events that shaped the Beat Generation. While "On the Road" immerses us in his journeys, friendships, and the shifting cultural landscape of America, this introspective masterpiece focuses solely on the enigmatic character of Kerouac himself.

Here, we encounter a Kerouac stripped bare, a revelation of his unfiltered truth. In "On the Road," Sal Paradise lacked the melancholy and the fractured soul that Kerouac carried with him across the vast expanse of America, from Tangier to Paris, London, and back to his homeland. It is in these pages that we witness his profound bond with his mother, his adoration for the people who populate his world.

Within these pages, the brotherhood between Ginsberg, Orlovsky, and Kerouac emerges, alongside the tender care he holds for Burroughs and the surprising revelations about his thoughts on Corso, for whom he harbored a deep admiration—a truth that shatters preconceived notions of animosity between them.

We are also privy to the emergence of Kerouac's poetic language, a precursor to the heightened prose found later in "On the Road," when he was fueled by opium or marijuana. We witness the impact of newfound fame on his life and his evolving perspective on America. In these early stages of his descent into depression, he grew weary of the so-called "hipster" generation, a movement that he himself, it is said, birthed.

Within the elegant prose "Desolation Angels" captures the essence of Kerouac's soul, laying bare his joys, sorrows, and the profound struggles that colored his existence. It is a testament to his enduring legacy, a poignant exploration that leaves an indelible mark on the reader's consciousness.

For those who wish to delve into the depths of Kerouac's being and witness the genesis of the Beat Generation, "Desolation Angels" is an essential read. It is a tender embrace of vulnerability, a testament to the power of literature to illuminate the innermost recesses of the human spirit.

At the time Jack Kerouac wrote “Desolation Angels”, it was four years before he would die at 47 in Florida after a lifetime of alcoholism, and eight to nine years since he had lived the adventures in the book. It opens with him alone atop Desolation Peak as a fire lookout, follows him through wild times with his friends in San Francisco, New York, Mexico City, and Tangiers, and ends with the publishing of his book “On the Road”, which had been rejected for years.

Despite what seems like would be a triumphant story, at this point Kerouac has been disillusioned on all fronts: with the ennui of solitude, the monotony of his partying, and with the growing popularity of the ‘beat’ movement with the mainstream who were not genuine or true to its roots. One feels through these pages that Kerouac is not much longer for this world, and despite his joy for life, there is a depressing aspect throughout. Kerouac lived his life as he wrote, with abandon, honesty, and a depth of feeling, but at this point he is burnt out and suffering the effects of alcohol and drug abuse.

There are several moments in the book when I cringed and thought “Oh, Jack”, wishing he could have settled down, but at the same time knowing he would not have been who he was had he been able to do that. One of the low points is in Mexico City, and as in the book Tristessa (separately reviewed), I wish he had avoided going down there altogether, although at one point he does explain his motivation, that “these are people who have heart.” However, having him describe sex with a 14 year old prostitute for the equivalent of 24 cents is painful. The book is not always for the faint of heart, but outside of the beginning chapters which are a little slow, it’s a fascinating read.

There is a freedom to Kerouac’s life that is piercing. He rambled through the world without fear of what the next day would bring or how he appeared to others. And he lets it rip in telling the story; it’s full throttle, and with no editing. He doesn’t sugar coat or romanticize his experiences or feelings, yet at the same time displays a tolerance and a purity of heart that is endearing. One of the late chapters explaining his love for his saint of a mother, hardly a “cool” thing to do in an era with the mantra “Don’t trust anyone over 30”, is heart-warming.

He is also keenly attuned to animals and to his friends who are all here, thinly guised under different names: Allan Ginsberg (Irwin Garden), Neal Cassady (Cody Pomeray), Gregory Corso (Raphael Urso), and William S. Burroughs (Bull Hubbard), among others. It’s not a book about the famous people he runs into by any means, but I found his descriptions of meeting with Salvador Dali and William Carlos Williams in the final chapters very interesting. Aside from Joyce Johnson (Alyce Newman), who is an absolute angel (and who writes the introduction), we see all of Kerouac’s friends as deeply flawed, and yet also see a magic time in America, when this rag-tag group of psychedelic mad poets was a decade ahead of its time. We also see why Kerouac loved these people and the life he chose, even though it led to his sadness, and ultimately destroyed him at an early age.

Quotes:
On the environment:
“As far as I can see and as I am concerned, this so-called Forest Service is nothing but a front, on the one hand a vague Totalitarian governmental effort to restrict the use of the forest to people, telling them they cant camp here or piss there … secondly it’s a front for the lumber interests, the net result of the whole thing being, what with Scott Paper Tissue and such companies logging out these woods year after year with the ‘cooperation’ of the Forest Service which boasts so proudly of the number of board feet in the whole Forest … result, net, is people all over the world are wiping their ass with the beautiful trees…”

On fame:
“I was a hardy son of a sun in those days, only 165 pounds and would walk miles with a full pack on my back, and rolled my own cigarettes, and knew how to hide comfortably in riverbottoms or even how to live on dimes and quarters – Nowadays, after all the horror of my literary notoriety, the bathtubs of booze that have passed through my gullet, the years of hiding at home from hundreds of petitioners for my time … I got to look like a Bourgeois, pot belly and all, that expression on my face of mistrust and affluence … But in those days, only five years ago, I looked wild and rough –They surrounded me with two squad cars.
They put spotlights on me standing there in the road in jeans and workclothes, with the big woeful rucksack a-back, and asked: - ‘Where are you going?’ which is precisely what they asked me a year later under Television floodlights in New York, ‘Where are you going?’ – Just as you cant explain to the police, you cant explain to society ‘Looking for peace.’”

“Later I’m back in New York sitting around with Irwin and Simon and Raphael and Lazarus, and now we’re famous writers more or less, but they wonder why I’m sunk now, so unexcited as we sit among all our published books and poems, tho at least, since I lived with Memiere in a house of her own miles from the city, it’s a peaceful sorrow. A peaceful sorrow at home is the best I’ll ever be able to offer the world, in the end, and so I told my Desolation Angels goodbye. A new life for me.”

On freedom:
“Hold still, man, regain your love of life and go down from this mountain and simply be – be –be the infinite fertilities of the one mind of infinity, make no comments, complaints, criticisms, appraisals, avowals, sayings, shooting stars of thought, just flow, flow, be you all, be you what it is … So shut up, live, travel, adventure, bless and dont be sorry.”

On friendship:
“Funny how Cody never comes to poetry readings or any of these formalities, he only came once, to honor Irwin’s first reading, and when Irwin had finished howling the last poem and there was a dead silence in the hall it was Cody, dressed in his Sunday suit, who stepped up and offered his hand to the poet (his buddy Irwin with whom he’d hitch hiked thru the Texases and Apocalypses of 1947) – I always remember that as a typical humble beautiful act of friendship and good taste…”

On love of fellow man, and the human condition:
“…I only know one thing: everybody in the world is an angel, Charley Chaplin and I have seen their wings, you dont have to be a seraphic little girl with a wistful smile of sadness to be an angel, you can be a broadstriped Bigparty Butch sneering in a cave, in a sewer, you can be monstrous itchy Wallace Beery in a dirty undershirt, you can be an Indian woman squatting in the gutter crazy, you can even be a bright beaming believing American Executive with bright eyes, you can even be a nasty intellectual in the capitals of Europe but I see the big sad invisible wings on all the shoulders and I feel bad they’re invisible and of no earthly use and never were and all we’re doing is fighting to our deaths –
Why?”

On lust:
“(The amazing thing about the Arab prostitute is to see her remove her veil from over her nose and then the long Biblical robes, suddenly leaving nothing but a peachy wench with a lascivious leer and high heels and nothing else – yet on the street they look so mournfully holy, those eyes, those dark eyes alone in all that chastest cloth…)”

On meaninglessness:
“All the saints have gone to the grave with the same pout as the murderer and the hater, the dirt doesn’t discriminate, it’ll eat all lips no matter what they did and that’s because nothing matters and we all know it –
But what we gonna do?”

On nature:
“To sleep is like a prayer, but under the stars, if you wake up at night, at 3 A.M., you’ll see what a big beautiful Heavenly Milky Way room you’re sleeping in, cloudy-milk with a hundred thousand myriads of universes, and more, the number is unbelievably milky, no Univac Machine with the brainwash mind can measure that extent of our reward that we see up there –
And the sleep is delicious under stars, even if the ground is humpy you adjust your limbs to it, and you feel the earth-damp but it only lulls you to sleep, it’s the Paleolithic Indian in all of us – The Cro-Magnon or Grimaldi Man, who slept on the ground, naturally, and often in the open, and looked at the stars on his back and tried to calculate the dipankara number of them…”

On non-conformity:
“And also dont think of me as a simple character – A lecher, a ship-jumper, a loafer, a conner of old women, even of queers, an idiot, nay a drunken baby Indian when drinking – Got socked everywhere and never socked back (except when young tough football player) – In fact, I dont even known what I was – Some kind of fevered being different as a snowflake. … In any case, a wondrous mess of contradictions (good enough, said Whitman) but more fit for Holy Russia of 19th century than for this modern America of crew cuts and sullen faces in Pontiacs…”

On porn:
“In the paper store my God a thousand girlie books showing all the fulsome breasts and thighs in eternity – I realize ‘America’s going sex-mad, they cant get enough, something’s wrong, somewhere, pretty soon these girlie books’ll be impossibly tight, they’ll show you every crease and fold except the hole and nipple, they’re crazy’ – Of course I look too, at the rack, with the other sexfiends.”

On reading:
“The best moment of the day was to slip in bed with bedlamp over book, and read facing the open patio windows, the stars and the sea. I could also hear it sighing out there.”

On sadness:
“Sad understanding is what compassion means – I resign from the attempt to be happy.”

On suffering:
“…Raphael and I go walking down Grant Street in the dusk, bound for different destinations as soon as we see a monster movie on Market Street. ‘I dig what you meant Jack about Cody at the races. It was real funny, we’ll go again Friday. Listen! I’m writing a real great new poem – ‘ then suddenly he sees chickens in crates in the inside dark Chinese store, ‘look, look, they’re all gonna die!’ He stops in the street. ‘How can God make a world like that?’
…
And Raphael’s grimace meaks (sic) me a leak-tear right quick, I see it, I suffer, we all suffer, people die in your arms, it’s too much to bear yet you’ve got to go on as though nothing was happening, right? right, readers?”

“That’s what my father told me the night before he died, ‘Life is too long.’”

On travel:
“Why travel if not like a child?”

On virtue:
“And there’s just no hope anywhere because we’re all disunited and ashamed … The only thing to do is be like my mother: patient, believing, careful, bleak, self-protective, glad for little favors, suspicious of great favors, beware of Greeks bearing Fish, make it your own way, hurt no one, mind your own business, and make your compact with God.”

On work:
“When you’re young you work because you think you need the money: when you’re old you already know you dont need anything but death, so why work?”

On writing:
“Sweet, Raphael, great, you’re a greater poet than ever – you’re really going now – great – dont stop – remember to write without stopping, without thinking, just go, I wanta hear what’s in the bottom of your mind.”

“…Simon and I hurry out just as Randall’s begun his first line … and such, some line that I hear, and dont want to hear more, because in it I hear the craft of his carefully arranged thoughts and not the uncontrollable involuntary thoughts themselves, dig…”

“I was simply writing them because I was an ‘Idealist’ and I believed in ‘Life’ and was going about justifying it with my earnest scribblings … a new way of writing about life, no fiction, no craft, no revising afterthoughts, the heartbreaking discipline of the veritable fire ordeal where you cant go back but have made the vow of ‘speak now or forever hold your tongue’”

“In the kitchen Random takes out the Jack Daniels and says ‘How can you get any refined or well gestured thoughts into a spontaneous flow as you call it? It can all end up gibberish.’ And that was no Harvard lie. But I said:
‘If it’s all gibberish, it’s gibberish. There’s a certain amount of control going on like a man telling a story in a bar without interruptions or even one pause.’
…
‘If I had a Poetry University you know what would be written over the entrance arch?’
‘No, what.’
‘Here Learn That Learning is Ignorance! Gentelmen dont burn my ears! Poetry is lamb dust! I prophesy it! I’ll lead schools in exile! I dont Care!’ They werent bringing me to meet Carl Sandburg whom I’d known anyway seven years ago at several parties where he stood before the fireplace in a tuxedo and talked about freight trains in Illinois 1910. And actually threw his arms around me going ‘Ha ha ha! You’re just like me!’”

This book was unique among Keruoac books I've read. It seemed like it was cobbled together by editors in a hurry to sell Keruoac in his post-On the Road fame. It reads as three or four different book projects thrown together into a rather erratic timeline. One: in the Pacific Northwest in solitude, written much more in the style of Big Sur or Dharma Bums spontaneous poetry; Two: shenanigans in San Fransisco with fellow Beats; Three: off in Mexico City (at which point he includes self-reference to the fact that he was writing up the chapters that appear in Part One); Four: adventures in Europe; and Five: an odd cross-country bus journey with his mother from Florida to California, at which point Jack tries to wrap up the wandering central narrative of existential angst the author confronts in his mid-30's. Overall, the amount of material Keruoac (or the publishing company) tried to cram into this one book detracts from the quality and readability of the book in the end.

I actually found I enjoyed this book more when I stopped taking it seriously, for instance, with a few glasses of wine. This book was not Keruoac's best, or at least not my favorite work of his that I've read, but it has some glimmering moments that I really appreciated, which in the end caused me to bump up my rating from 2 to 3 stars. What Keruoac book should I read next? Anyone?

Probably one of the more intention looks into Jack's mind. A must read for any Kerouac enthusiast, just don't keep the gun loaded.

This is what On the Road is supposed to be

Jack Kerouac es uno de los mejores prosistas del Siglo XX. Esto quedó demostrado en aquel legendario rollo de papel que se convirtió en En el camino, la novela que lo consagró y que volvió a la Generación Beat no sólo un tema de discusión para las tardes de borrachera de los bohemios sino en un estilo de vida.
La obra de Kerouac es su vida escrita en prosa, cada letra es un paso en el camino, una mueca, un silbido, un movimiento, el orgasmo de un vagabundo que camina ciegamente por los eternos caminos del dharma. Una vida exquisitamente triste, llena de bellas alegorías que ilustran la desolación de un mundo lleno de hambre y cenizas y drogas y sexo y jazz y vértigo y tristeza y efímeros momentos de felicidad, es cuerpo y alma, yin y yang en constante sucesión, placer y tragedia y tragos y tragos y tragos, tantos tragos y bocanadas de vacío y vitalidad con tantos maravillosos borrachos, que ebrios de alcohol o marihuana o peyote o beatitud –¡Ebrios de Dios! –cuentan historias increíbles, que dementes se hunden en la noche para poder saltar desde la luna. Su vida es su obra y su obra es jazz –¡Bop, Bam, Wham– porque su prosa es un poema sagrado que viene desde la infinita mente del cosmos, es el orgasmo de Dios que no merece ser interrumpido ni editado. Todos estos elementos están más presentes que nunca en Ángeles de Desolación.
Kerouac es un hombre honesto, no le molesta presentarse a sí mismo como imperfecto, como errante, como humano, su obra trata de ser lo más fiel a la experiencia de estar vivo, así comenzamos este viaje, en la soledad de la cima del Pico Desolación, en la frontera entre Estados Unidos y Canadá, donde el protagonista ejerce el trabajo veraniego de guardia forestal(que es por cierto donde nos deja el final de Los Vagabundos del Dharma) frente al pico triple del majestuoso Hozomeem y las solemnes nieves del Monte Baker. Kerouac (Duluoz ) sube ahí buscando la iluminación como lo hicieron los antiguos sabios chinos o los románticos, pero lo que encuentra es vacío, subió buscando a Dios y lo encontró en la majestuosidad de las montañas, pero Dios es vacío, Dios es silencio, ¿Qué es lo que queda para los vivos sino desolación? ¿Qué es la vida sino un largo periodo ininterrumpido de soledad?
A pesar de estar literalmente elevado, está lejos de la totalidad del cosmos, de la perfección del nirvana, del caldo primigenio, del huevo cósmico, del útero universal, no hay escape, arriba en la montaña no hay drogas, ni alcohol, ni amigos, ni mujeres, ni nada. Sólo están él y Dios, que es mudo y cruel. ¿Qué le queda? Sus recuerdos, una radio para hablar con el resto de los ángeles solitarios en las atalayas de los otros montes, un viejo juego imaginario de béisbol con equipos y jugadores que inventó él mismo y escribir, escribir, escribir, escribir sobre la vida que ha llevado recorriendo los caminos, conviviendo con los tipos más locos del mundo, escribir es lo único que le queda, el último escape, la fantasía de los recuerdos, ahí arriba, elevado, como Han Chan, está buscando el acorde trascendental, la palabra sagrada que lo saque del estado de desolación en el que se encuentra su vida y la vida de todos los seres vivos, pero lo único que encuentra es el terrorífico grito del silencio y el ominoso eco de sus pensamientos.
De pronto el verano pasa como un sueño, baja el ángel de nuevo a los abismos terrenales. Vuelve a ser el vagabundo de la carretera haciendo dedo para llegar al Nirvana. Baja del autoexilio en el Pico Desolación donde si bien no logró su objetivo de olvidar el sufrimiento del ciclo infinito de vida, muerte y reencarnación, al menos logró escribir, pero la desolación lo sigue a todos lados, todo es desolación porque como dice la primer verdad noble del Buda: “la vida es sufrimiento” esto lo aterra, Jack sabe lo que tiene que hacer para detener la desolación “el sufrimiento es causado por el apego” pero no está listo para esto, para abandonar todo, necesita saber qué están haciendo sus amigos, los viejos héroes beat, de su miedo surge un rechazo hacia el budismo y un retorno al catolicismo que lleva en los huesos, inclusive al llegar a San Francisco accede a usar una cruz en su cuello regalada por un nuevo ángel beat, Gregory Corso .
Abandona la desolación en soledad y se dirige a toda velocidad a la desolación en el mundo y su cuerpo grita ¡Carne! Así que en una escala del camino en Seattle visita un strip club, de nuevo hay jazz y mujeres y alcohol y humo de cigarrillo, y aquí Kerouac hace la mejor descripción que yo he leído de un congal, aunque su sangre hierbe excitada por los sensuales y sagrados bailes de las strippers, lo único que encuentra allí es nuevamente el ciclo infinito de tristeza que arrasa el universo, el lugar es absurdo, inclusive entre bailes se presentan dos cómicos vestidos de payasos, desolación, desolación, todas las almas están secas, todas buscan un poco de calor en la banalidad absurda de la existencia.
¡San Francisco! De nueva cuenta está en el paraíso beat en un periodo que los historiadores del arte llamaron “El Renacimiento de San Francisco” pero más importante ahí están Gregory Corso y Allen Ginsberg , además a su legendaria aventura se suman nuevos ángeles, Peter Orlovsky , tierno, atento, inteligente, pareja sentimental de Ginsberg, y su hermano Julius , un niño avispado, silencioso, flojo, similar a un gato. ¡En San Francisco está Neal Cassady ! Su viejo compañero de aventuras en el camino a quien está impaciente por ver, llega ahí y los encuentra viejos, aburguesados, circunscritos en el tinglado de la sociedad capitalista que no detiene su madriza perpetua sobre ellos como si fuera una alegoría material de la madriza que les está acomodando a sus almas la Rueda del Samsara, esto lo deprime, no importa el cariño que le muestran, ni sus locas aventuras, ni sus interesantísimas discusiones epistemológicas, ni los poemas en prosa que salen a cada segundo de sus bocas, para él ya no son los mismos, están muriendo, ya no están llenos de la misma vitalidad, Neal está casado y tiene que trabajar para mantener a sus hijos, Allen ya no es el mismo joven Rimbaud que conoció en Nueva York, Peter es tierno pero se ha metido en el lodo de la desolación y ha arrastrado con él a su inocente hermano adolescente, Gregory es insolente y sin buscarlo se ha metido en el camino de la autodestrucción por el que todos ellos transitan, no importa cuantas fiestas hagan o cuantas drogas se metan o a cuantas carreras de caballos vayan o cuantas mujeres se cojan o cuantas cosas geniales piensen o escriban, todos ellos están llenos de desolación y la desolación no la cura ni la locura.
Hay muchas cosas a destacar de esta parada en San Francisco, pero las más interesantes son en primer lugar cuando alguien le cuestiona sobre la prosa espontánea, preguntándole “¿Pero qué pasa si lo que estás escribiendo es una estupidez?” A lo que el responde: “No importa, es como cuando alguien está contando una historia en un bar, no se detiene, no se edita, cuenta todo bajo un flujo único, bajo el ritmo que le dictan sus pensamientos”, aquí Kerouac nos propone que la prosa (así como la vida) debería ser como el jazz, se parte de una base y se improvisa como va saliendo, no hay manera de regresar al pasado a corregir los errores y las estupideces de la vida, lo mismo en la prosa.
También hay que destacar el encuentro que tiene en un restaurante con Salvador Dalí y Marlon Brando, a Jack le gusta Dalí, le gusta que le diga que es más guapo que Marlon Brando , le gusta que muestre interés por el movimiento Beat, le gusta que le exponga su conocida teoría capitalista del arte, en el fondo le gustaría ser como él, pero no se atreve a aceptarlo, se queda con su vida madreada, con su vida de poeta maldito, aquí vuelve a salir en él el espíritu católico, tan alejado del budismo que había pretendido seguir en los años pasados, a fin de cuentas ¿Qué es su escritura sino un frenesí espiritual? Sino el sudor y la sangre del Cristo crucificado colgado en cada iglesia, en cada pared, en cada cuello.
También hay que mencionar la descripción que hace de una noche de jazz en el Cellar donde describe majestuosamente la escena beat en San Francisco, “¡Ahora es jazz!” en donde la prosa se vuelve vertical como en aquellos viejos días en el camino, en este fragmento describe a la Generación Beat extática en medio del frenesí del jazz con una prosa deliciosa, única, todo es musical, Kerouac encuentra la partitura invisible en la hoja en blanco y lanza su canción al viento, a que rebote contra nuestros cráneos y cimbre nuestras mentes, como una canción de Charlie Parker, Su estilo es jazz puro, sin límites, sin márgenes, ni formas, ni direcciones, todo es un poema muy largo, la tragedia de la vida es un poema muy largo, la tristeza es sagrada, como las caras tristes de los ángeles beat en el frenesí del mundo que se les abre como una ostra mística cuando retumba el jazz por todas partes. En esta escena el narrador se vuelve prácticamente omnisciente, en esta escena finalmente alcanza al presente y se da cuenta que en realidad el presente es la conjunción de los tiempos, el verdadero presente es atemporal, es una mezcolanza de pasado y futuro, es místico y misterioso como las vidas que se encuentran frente a sus ojos y que él casi alcanza a tocar con su prosa.
Después decide mandar toda esta vida de locura, alcohol, drogas y decadencia a la mierda y retirarse a una nueva soledad, para ello deberá volver a su viejo amigo el camino, se despide de Neal en el fantasma de medianoche , no lo volverá a ver en mucho tiempo, después de esto el máximo héroe del panteón beat pasaría unos años en la cárcel.
Jack regresa a México, a la casa en la Roma donde vive Bill Garver , un viejo homosexual severamente sumido en la heroína, en esa casa, como en cualquier casa de un heroinómano que se respete todo es quietud, Garver encuentra la paz mirando las paredes con las venas llenas de heroína y Kerouac la encuentra escribiendo, allí escribirá un par de novelas y varios poemas libres, la paz sólo se ve interrumpida por las turbias idas a las farmacias a buscar codeína o a buscar heroína con los dealers de Garibaldi, que siguen ahí hasta hoy en día, para conseguir droga para Garver, Jack se reencuentra con la serenidad cantando su blues por las tristes calles de la Roma, y de repente como un cataclismo llegan a visitarlo Ginsberg, Corso y los hermanos Orlovsky y la paz muere entre las febriles aventuras turísticas que tienen en México, a destacar la tarde que se tomaron aquella famosa foto en el Parque Luis Cabrera y su visita a Teotihuacan donde heroicamente se fuman un porro en la cima de la Pirámide del Sol, ahí en el pináculo del mundo indígena vuelve a encontrar la desolación, ve al mundo moderno devorando inmisericordemente al mundo antiguo, la enorme serpiente de piedra que habita dentro de la tierra del presente abriendo sus fauces para devorar el pasado, éste es el movimiento perenne del cosmos. La eterna persecución del presente que Neal y él hicieron en el camino no importa, nada importa, el presente, al igual que el futuro, no existe, el tiempo destruye todo, hasta el infinito será devorado por el tiempo. Jack aprecia la compañía, pero ve interrumpida su paz creativa, así que cuando acaba el tour de sus amigos decide regresar con ellos a Nueva York, se despide de Garver, que enfermo le pide que no se vaya, no lo volverá a ver, hacia el final del libro nos enteramos de su muerte, desolación en todas partes.
Tras un camino interesante lleno de divertidas peripecias paseándose como un maniaco zen, teniendo locas borracheras en casas de escritores y editores llega a Nueva York, donde todo vuelve a ser frío como en aquellos inviernos entre los viajes en la carretera descritos en su obra más famosa, Ginsberg lo convence de acercarse al mundo de los editores en el cual él ya ha penetrado, Kerouac logra publicar y se lanza a una nueva aventura, esta vez en un nuevo continente, va a visitar a su viejo amigo William S. Burroughs en Tánger. Ahí, bajo el sol del desierto, Kerouac se sume junto con su amigo en el abismo del hachís y del opio entre pensamientos oscuros y dispersos, Burroughs es un hombre consumido por la pena, sufriendo por el afamado asesinato de su esposa y por sus intentos fallidos de establecer una relación sexual con Ginsberg, ahí sumidos en este extraño sueño oscuro contemplan la profundidad primigenia del alma del desierto, a su rescate llegan nuevamente sus amigos, los ángeles de desolación, inclusive él y Ginsberg logran alejar a Burroughs de la heroína y lo ayudan a escribir lo que se convertiría en El Almuerzo Desnudo, a mi juicio uno de los mejores libros de vanguardia de todos los tiempos.
Al salir de ese abismo, a Jack sólo le queda huir, después de un paso lleno de niebla mental por París y Londres, donde ocurren algunas cosas interesantes, pero poco relevantes para la trama regresa una vez más a América. Desolación, desolación, desolación en todo el mundo. No hay Nirvana, sólo el infierno de la vida terrenal judeocristiana, no hay salvación, la existencia es un ciclo eterno de vacío y sufrimiento.
Y es aquí cuando llegamos al capítulo final de la novela en la que Jack nos presenta a la verdadera heroína de todas sus historias, su madre, este es sin duda la parte más tierna del libro, la prosa se vuelve dulce cuando habla de su madre, quien no comparte su filosofía de vida, pero aún así le permite vivir su vida como él quiere sin cuestionarlo y le brinda amor incondicional, es por eso que buscando consuelo de la desolación que lo persigue por todo el mundo, vuelve a los brazos de su madre, vuelve a ser Ti Jean , y con el dinero que ha ganado por la publicación de sus libros decide llevársela a vivir con él a San Francisco, esto conlleva un viaje sinuoso y chusco en el que cruza los viejos caminos de América una vez más pero esta vez con su madre, una mujer mayor que viaja con todas sus cosas (muebles incluidos) esta vez las locas aventuras en el camino son sustituidas por anécdotas tiernas, el momento más intenso es el éxtasis religioso que ambos experimentan cuando Jack lleva a su madre a conocer Ciudad Juárez y ambos explotan en una fiebre religiosa al ver a una mujer indígena hacer penitencia, Kerouac encuentra el éxtasis seráfico que buscaba en una iglesia mexicana.
Al final tras muchas peripecias llegan a California, pero la cosa no va bien, a las tres semanas la madre no soporta el estilo de vida de San Francisco y regresa a la costa este, por su parte Jack cierra su novela una vez más en Nueva York donde está con sus viejos amigos que han dejado de ser los ángeles de desolación para convertirse en autores más o menos famosos, Jack cree que es el inicio de una nueva vida en la que puede dejar atrás la desolación.
Los libros de Kerouac hablan del viaje del alma, en este libro su alma está muy lejos de la de aquel niño travieso de América buscando aventuras (o, en sus palabras, buscando a dios) de En el camino, de la del idealista zen de Los vagabundos del dharma y de la del necio loco, alcohólico y enfermo de Big Sur, el libro está escrito con franqueza, con ternura, con agonía, reconociendo la debilidad, la carnalidad, la mortalidad del hombre que la escribe.
Me parece que la lectura de Kerouac sigue siendo relevante, ya que muchas de las inquietudes que él expone y padece en sus libros son inquietudes que sentimos y padecemos los jóvenes en el presente, la incertidumbre total, la falta de oportunidades, la pobreza, la desesperación y la angustia son temas recurrentes en las generaciones jóvenes, en las nuevas generaciones madreadas.

I could deal with Kerouac's spontaneous writing—especially in the first part of the book—only through spontaneous reading. Sensations and images arose in me, bringing back that air of freedom I used to breath those days in the Adirondacks, hiking, skinny-dipping, canoeing, sleeping in lean-tos, sometimes in pitch-black nights, animal calls suddenly bursting and echoing in the inscrutable stillness.
Anyway, I'd rather dub this writing and reading style lazy writing and reading and think that some editing would have made the descriptions much more enjoyable.
The writing style improves though, as the story continues, but not Kerouac's mood. He keeps looking for adventure and meaning, keeps trying to live but, as he passes through, only sees Desolation at the end, despite good will, faith, and love.