Kerouac's "Lonesome Traveler" (1960)is a collection of eight travel essays, several of which had been published earlier. Kerouac offers insights into the collection in his introduction. He states that he "always considered writing my duty on earth. Also the preachment of universal kindness, which hysterical critics have failed to notice beneath frenetic activity of my true-story novels about the 'beat'generation. -- Am actually not 'beat' but strange solitary crazy Catholic mystic." The essays in "Lonesome Traveler" support Kerouac's comments about his work, which has frequently been misinterpreted or sensationalized. The subject of the collection Kerouac aptly describes as "railroad work, sea work, mysticism, mountain work, lasciviousness, solepsism, self-indulgence, bullfights, drugs, churches, art museums, streets of cities, a mishmosh of life as lived by an independent educated penniless rake going nowhere."I read much of this book sitting alone in a park on a Saturday afternoon, and it was a fitting companion to my own reflections. There is an intimacy of tone in Kerouac's book that made me feel at times that I was with him and sharing his experiences. Kerouac's spontaneous prose, with its long, strangly, and rhhythmic sentences is an erratic instrument indeed. But when it works, it is moving.There is a continuity in these essays as Kerouac takes his reader back and forth across the United States, to Mexico, and to North Africa and Europe. Kerouac's vision tends to be highly particularized and specific. He is at his best in describing a lonely room in a San Francisco apartment, a night walk on a pier awaiting a ship, and evening's drinking with a friend and, especially, the sights and places of 'beat' New York City. Many of the scenes in the book show Kerouac sedentary -- in a cheap room or in a fire lookout on Desolation Peak -- while others show a fascination with travel, with ships and the sea and even more with railroads.The first essay "Piers of the Homeless Night" shows Kerouac wandering on a dock in San Pedro in what becomes a failed effort at securing employment on a ship. "Mexico Fellaheen" describes the trip to Mexico he took immediately thereafter, with scenes in a drug den, a bullfight, and a church. "The Railroad Earth" is a lengthy chapter in which Kerouac details his experience working as a brakeman, and how "railroading gets in yr blood", as a character says at the end. In "Slobs of the Kitchen Sea" Kerouac describes his experience working on a ship -- before he gets fired. "New York Scenes" includes the finest writing in the collection, as Kerouac takes his reader on an intimate tour of the New York City he clearly knows and loves. "Alone on a Mountaintop" is a reflective chapter about the summer Kerouac spent as a watchman on Desolation Peak. The "Big Trip to Europe" includes William Burroughs as a character and describes Kerouac's experiences in Tangiers, with women, in Paris, with art museums, and in England, with hostile police. The final essay, "The Vanishing American Hobo" is a nostalgic tribute to those wanderers, such as Kerouac himself, who once graced the American and the world landscape.Besides the descriptive writing, there is a sense of mystical pantheism in this book. Kerouac's thought is notoriously difficult to describe. The book is replete with religious metaphor, both Buddhist and Christian. For all the vagaries of his life, Kerouac the writer has something to teach. The book teaches of the need to accept and love one's experiences and to let go --- expanding upon what Kerouac himself says in his introduction. Life is to be loved and cherished, regardless of one's circumstances.Thus, at the end of "Mexico Fellaheen", following a visit to a church, Kerouac observes: "I bow to all this, kneel at my pew entryway, and go out, taking one last look at St. Antoine de Padue (St. Anthony) Santo Antonio de Padua. -- Everything is perfect on the street again, the world is permeated with roses of happiness all the time, but none of us know it. The happiness consists in realizing that it is all a great strange dream."Kerouac offers a great deal of reflection in the essay "Alone on a Mountaintop." Sitting in the fire observation tower, he comes to realize that "no matter where I am, whether in a little room full of thought, or in this endless universe of stars and mountains, it's all in my mind. There's no need for solitude. So love life for what it is, and form no preconceptions whatever in your mind." As he leaves his summer in the fire tower, Kerouac states that he "turned and blessed Desolation Peak and the little pagoda on top and thanked them for the shelter and the lesson I'd been taught."There is much in journeying with Kerouac in this book that can inspire still.Robin Friedman
I'm still at a point where I don't think I will be tired of reading any Kerouac book soon because of this strong connection to his writings -- about the uncertainties in life and the need to move. Lonesome Traveler is a compilation of narratives that has one common theme: travel. Although others have stated that Kerouac's dependence on his mother and at times, his aunt for financial support as he was writing his novels is less than commendable, I find his persistence in continuing to move quite inspiring. I may not be the type who would be doing railroad work at this time, or hitchike for that matter, but the drive to keep on going, to find more things and what we can do with life is a great deal to carry.Among the essays included in this collection, my favorite one would have to be "Alone on a Mountaintop". This piece is all about finding solitude, and what better location to achieve this than up in the mountains? I see this work is a salute to Henry David Thoreau whose penchant for nature and being surrounded with green all around gave him peace and satisfaction. For me, being inside the Diliman campus somehow provides me that sense of peace, that solitude that he was describing. There is variety in the way Kerouac presented the theme, from cities to railroads, to people and places, even the earth and the sea. Perhaps traveling and writing go perfectly hand in hand because both areas are solitary pursuits, and loneliness is a feature that comes and goes as one goes through all these experiences.
What do You think about Lonesome Traveler (2000)?
It took me a couple of chapters to get into this book, once Jack started writing about working on trains, you could really feel his love for trains and I was able to get into the story then. This is a collection of stories from Jack's travels, featuring America, Mexico, Morocco, Paris and London. I was looking forward to reading about his time in Europe, I wanted to compare his experience to Henry Miller and George Orwell, but it was very different, it was all very spiritual for him, all those old churches and old paintings.One of the chapters is about his experiences as a fire watcher on mount desolation, which happens at the end of the Dharma Bums novel. It was really interesting to revisit this experience.The book is written in his usual stream of consciousness style so I would avoid the book if you didn't like on the road.
—Jason
Forget On the Road, this is the book to read of Kerouac. "On the Road" is fine, but is hampered by Kerouac's thinly disguised hankering after Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady in real life). If Kerouac would have wrote about that elephant in the room it would have been a better book. The whole book I was going "Hey, Sal, the guys a sociopath, get over it!".In any case, those problems aren't in this collection of essays on the traveling life Kerouac had in the late 40's and 50's. Thank God he is lonesome for the most part so we don't have read his obsessions with Cassady or a Mexican whore. Rather we get the beat prose on being a hobo, a railman, a solitary guy in a fire lookout, a traveler in Morocco and Europe. There really is no other prose writer like this, and you kinda forgive him for the outrageousness because the rhythms and images just come one after another in a gushing torrent!
—Jim Leckband
Автобиография на Джак Керуак, в която гари и влакове, американски улици и пейзажи, кораби и автобуси, океани, равнини и планини, горещи мексикански момичета, симпатични френски ученички, индианци, просяци, мексиканци, бродяги, араби, моряци, Уилям Бъроуз и Хенри Милър, опиум, марихуана и шамани, Танжер, Франция и Англия, писатели, поети и художници, самотни хижи, приюти и хотели, музика, алкохол и храна, барове, закусвални и ресторанти са животът му - едно самотно пътешествие не само по света, но и в неговото битническо време. Особен и трудно поносим от всеки стил на писане. Живи описания и моменти, в които се случва много, редувани с кратки, накъсани фрази и безглаголни изречения. Спокоен разказ, омесен с напушено бълнуване и делириумни спомени.
—Diana
