I wouldn't trade it for the World

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	• Desolation Angels Jack Kerouac Riverhead Books, 1995 - 409 pages average customer review:based on 37 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Gives You Much to Think About

There is a lot in this book to enjoy and think about. Why it wasn't included in the syllabus for Post Modernist Fiction when I took it at Columbia in the 1970's is puzzling. Why read "Ulysses" or "The Sound and the Fury," two "classics" that leave you empty and frustrated, when you could read this book and at least walk away somewhat empowered? Why read two uninteresting drunks when you can read an interesting one? Maybe Kerouac might motivate you to take over Low Library or, better yet, drop out of Columbia and get a life. There must have been some reason.

Kerouac was apparently schizophrenic and I tend to prefer the thinker to the party animal, especially now that there are more party animals than there are parties to house them. What makes Kerouac interesting, though, is the way these two aspects of his personality interacted with each other. Scorn for the status quo, popularized in the "60's", whatever on earth the "60's" connotates in God's mind, can be traced back at least to the French symbolists, was then manipulated by 20th century national socialists, then rediscovered by the Beats and finally morphed itself into its opposite (the status quo) by the hippie-yuppie-military-Madison-Avenue-God-knows-what-else establishment we are currently enslaved by... I think I've run out of sentence. Ask Dennis Hopper when he's not making a commercial for Wall Street. Anyway, Kerouac gets this insanity at some very lucid level and it sets him apart from his peers, who were less (not?) able to view themselves, or their "generation," very critically. This all helps one muster up the (courage?) to deal with the current train wreck we're witnessing, with car after car mindlessly piling up on the smoldering heap. Not that Jack didn't add much to the smoldering heap. In fact, without the schizo element, it would be hard to believe that the same could get as heavy as he does in this book.

You can mindlessly read the first section of "Desolation Angels" on Desolation Peak. Kerouac seems like a normal, oversensitive guy and the section has a nice brevity and completeness about it. His existentialism is more current than Sartre or Camus and he is a better writer in many ways. He doesn't need to fictionalize because he sees that life provides the best material, so why muddy the water with a bunch of "lies?" Kerouac's only real "lies" are his bop prosodist excursions, during which his natural writing talents are short-circuited by his need to be "cool" and mimick Joyce and the other masters of confusion and tedium. The fact that Kerouac contradicts himself philosophically and morally almost constantly throughout is not a problem: he's B-E-A-T remember, like with a stick. And you're supposed to be as wasted as he is when you cognate, so what's the problem? It only matters when his stomach suddenly starts hemorraging in 1968, and then only to him really. He's like a star NFL quarterback, easily replaced once some 350 pound goon turns him into nursing home material. In "Desolation Angels," we get to witness the end of humanity as it was once known and Kerouac takes entire centuries of thought and sensibility with him to the grave.

But, Kerouac has two things going for him: he remains lucid enough, for the most part anyway, because he is documenting "simple life," as he might describe it. And, hence, secondly, he is able to convey greater complexities because he generally avoids the rhetorical stream-of-consciousness trap. It's like a Don Johnson "Miami Vice" shoot-out scene taking place in a library, with Don protecting himself from a stray bullet with a copy of Malraux, then opening to a page and reading an excerpt. If you're not laughing at least once every page, you're not reading closely.

Personally, I'd rather read Gauguin or van Gogh because they saw it coming. The issues were the same: freedom vs. modernity. Kerouac has many of their insights, but he thinks America, the open road, and guys who don't bathe regularly are going to save him and, by the time he finds out that they're going to kill him, it's too late. Apparently, like all blue-blooded Americans, he could be a pretty mean drunk. Fortunately, succeeding generations dropped their souls like Neanderthal Man dropped his tail and, so, there is no existential problem anymore. But, as Mr. Bowie notes on "Heathen," some of us "stay behind." For him it's 1982. Why 1982, I couldn't tell you. For me, it's 1903, the the year Gauguin died. For Jack, it was probably 1957, or therabouts. Either way, this book takes you back to a space that is now nowhere to be found, only recalled with pangs.

Of all parties mentioned, only Gauguin really completed his mission, as he had the sense to get out of Western Civilization before it turned him into one of those pickling cucumbers you stare at in horror at the grocery store, as it rots before your very eyes. No, Gauguin paints some beautiful pictures of the savage life that is dying, calls Schuffenecker an "idiot" and then, fulfilled, quietly dies. For Kerouac, this option was attempted (the Buckley interview was it?), but not really possible. However, it is most likely what he needed to do to complete the Duluoz legend. Unfortunately, Lowell, MA is his idea of the tropics. Ultimately, Jack's rucksack got full of too many sins, omissions and Americanisms to get him very far, so he ends up on a Greyhound bus with Memere too drunk to make out the next stop on the bus ticket.

All of this is much easier to comprehend if you view it as classic comedy, which is something Americans were once very good at making.

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Mature and well written

I read this book while travelling in India. I was amazed and touched. I haven't thought that Kerouac could write any better or even at the level of Onthe Road and The Subterraneans, I was wrong. If you like Keorouac, not to say a fan, buy this book.

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Timid Before God

Jack Kerouac's 'Desolation Angels', written about a period of his life roughly 10 years before his death, acts as a nice bridge between 'On The Road' (which was awaiting publication during the course of events described in "Angels") and a subsequent publication, Big Sur, both of which I've read.

During his two month self-imposed exile to work as a fire ranger on Desolation Peak, Jack Kerouac was forced to confront many of his pre-existing or emerging demons. The location for this period of his life is especially apropos for the 'desolation' surrounding Kerouac, much of which was self-created, as he sank further into depression and alcoholism.

The book covers more of his life than just the two months on Desolation Peak, but as Jack re-emerges into society, you get the sense that this 'loner' was only comfortable being 'alone' amongst others...that while he could see, smell, and wander amongst others, and feel tolerably 'isolated'...he could not stand the true isolation he could achieve, to remove himself from society altogether.

Jack wanders from the American Northwest to Florida, to Mexico, to Tangiers, to California with his mother in tow, and eventually back to Florida, when his mother grows further depressed with their cross-country move after only a month.

Many players from Kerouac's former novels appear in this one as well, albeit with different names...the poet 'Gregory Corso,' to whom Kerouac lost 'Mardou Fox' in "Subterraneans" is called 'Raphael Urso' in "Angels"...'Dean Moriarty,' from "On The Road" is 'Cody' in this incarnation.

Kerouac's detachment from the Beat Generation, his status as their reigning 'king', his fame, and his Buddhist beliefs all come into focus during this novel, one of his finest, in my opinion. If you rode shotgun with Kerouac for On The Road, explore his life further, and you will uncover far more about this dark, troubled, but fascinating author.

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the death of sal paradise

Somewhere in the 409 pages of this book you'll find buried a truly great work of American literature. It is hard to fault Kerouac for his devotion to spontaneous and unedited writing; though these methods imposed limitations on what he could accomplish as a writer, they also contributed to what makes his books so fascinating. If Jack had lived in Hemingway's time, he would have submitted Desolation Angels to the publisher and would have been handed back a 300 page masterpiece.

The most problematic section is the first one, "Desolation in Solitude." I understand that Kerouac wanted to convey the sheer insanity of his isolation as a lookout, but considering that he already devoted about 30 pages to this in Dharma Bums, he essentially retreads the same mystic nonsense for another 70 pages without giving much new insight into his experience. The one interesting bit that comes out of the whole ordeal is the gradual dissatisfaction that Kerouac feels for Buddhism (which, through his interpretation, seems to fall a bit close to nihilism) and his reacceptance of Christianity.

But after this first section, things pick up and Kerouac delivers one painfully sad and and transcendentally beautiful insight after another (one of my favorites: his frustration at receiving a $3 jaywalking ticket on the way to a job, costing him half his day's pay-- but you have to read the way he puts it to understand, of couse). It is worth noting that Desolation Angels really is two different books written almost 5 years apart. The first half he wrote while in Mexico City (during events he describes in the second half, Passing Through), while the second half was written in Florida (I think) while he lived with his mother. Thus, Kerouac's interpretation of life radically shifts when you begin the 2nd half. He also suddenly becomes a lot more candid, talking about his life as a writer, his use of drugs, and the homosexuality of his peers in a lot more detail and honesty than he could manage before. It is also important to understand that "Desolation Angels" (part 1) was written BEFORE On the Road was published, while "Passing Through" (part 2) was written AFTER. His sudden brush with fame can probably account for this shift in perspective.

I don't want to go into too much detail about the multitude of spiritual revelations within the book, as its better to hear it out of the mouth of the mystic. Reading the book, one can't help but notice that Kerouac, even when past his literary and spiritual peak, was not the embittered and impotent wreck that he's usually considered-- not based on his touching insights in "Passing Through." He clearly has a lot of faith in humanity, and of the necessity that people act out of love and respect rather than hate and fear. Many critics quickly dismiss Desolation Angels as a "lesser work," but I think that if you're willing the persist through the dense opening section, the rewards are nearly as profound as those of his more famous novels.

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I wouldn't trade it for the World

Kerouac at his best. Like the former reviewer, I agree that it times it can be thorny. However, if you take these "lull" moments for what they really are, you will see that much can be gained from reading them and not taking them as another Kerouac run-on. This novel, which I read third in the sequence of On the Road, Dharma Bums, and then Desolation Angels picks up nicely from the conclusion of Bums, and provides a great trilogy for those getting into Jack. Perfect character descriptions, encounters with his fellow beats, and the absolute wallowing of Kerouac into his Self...this being the best part of the novel, which the other two lacked. 5 Stars. Take your time with it, this is a beautiful piece of work.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

The classic novel from the definitive voice of the Beat Generation, Desolation Angels is the story of Kerouac's life just before the publication of On the Road--as told through his fictional self--Jack Duluoz. As he hitches, walks, and talks his way across the world, Duluoz perceives the angel that is in everything. It is life as he sees it.

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