Jack Kerouac: On the Road

The hippies of the 1960's would not have existed without the "Beat Generation" of the 1950's. But what is a Beatnik? Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) was one of the most influential contributors to the "Beat Generation", a group of iconoclastic writers whose controversial works included references to promiscuous sex, drug use and a rejection of materialism and traditional values.  Kerouac's most well-known novel, On the Road, is regarded as one of the most influential novels of the 20th Century and a pure expression of the Beatnik lifestyle.

Before I read On the Road I already knew about its cultural significance.  In its day, this short novel shocked society with its explicit sex and drug use.  Reading it today it does not feel that offensive.  However, realizing that most of this semi-autobiographical tale takes place around 1947-48 is quite amazing to me.  This feels like 1968, not 1948, so I can see what it was influential for its time. 

The story is told from the point of view of Salvatore "Sal" Paradise, who is filling the autobiographical role of Jack Keruoac.  The other main character is the free-spirited, reckless (and slightly bi-polar) Dean Moriarty, who Keruoac based on his friend Neal Casssady.  A large cast of other characters interact with Sal and Dean as they travel back and forth across the country from New York, Chicago, Denver, Texas and California. 

Dean Moriarty is the quintessential care-free spirit who loves to "dig" life, people and places.  However, he cannot hold any long-term commitments to his girlfriends, wives, children or friends. In fact, at the end of the novel he eventually even abondons his travel companion Sal who has fallen ill in Mexico with dysentery.  Sal seems enthralled by Dean, since even he cannot resist his overwhelming energy and enthusiasm for life - although he feels himself reluctantly carried on by Dean's impulsive, frenetic activities. 

Traveling across the country in the late 1940's was very different than today and I enjoyed the visual depictions of the scenery as much as the story.  I think we have all seen people who were possessed by angels and demons like Dean Moriarty; people who captivate us and pulled us into their world.  Even at the end of the book, when Sal sees once again the true "Dean Moriarty" he still feels a longing to be around his crazy friend.   

Dickens: Great Expectations

Charles Dickens wrote some of the greatest novels in the English language: Oliver Twist, Little Dorrit, Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities and David Copperfield.  However, many regard Great Expectations as his best work.  This is the first novel of Charles Dickens I have read (living up to my blog title).   Partially an autobiographical tale, Great Expectations follows the life of Pip, a boy of humble origins who comes into great wealth and must adapt to his new circumstances.

Pip grows up on the marshy grounds east of London in the early part of the 19th century.  He is destined to be a member of the "lower class" working as a blacksmith, something that Pip feels is beneath him.  Suddenly an unknown benefactor decides to bestow Pip with great wealth and turn him into a gentleman.  As Pip pivots from pauper to prince his relationships with friends, family and acquaintances changes and Pip becomes haughty and supercilious.  This sets him up well the hubric shock that comes at the latter part of the novel.

Dickens throws at  us the themes of guilt, justice, social mobility and feelings of self-loathing.  I have read that the characters in this novel are somewhat one-dimensional, but I never thought that.  However, I do think Dickens overloaded this book with descriptions of places and settings - that is both his gift and his vice. 

One the great things for me is seeing the convict Magwich and the wealthy, old recluse Miss Havisham both try to turn their charges into representations of their desire for revenge.  Magwich wants to prove that he can make anyone noble and Miss Havisham wants to destroy the egos and hearts of men, as her heart was once broken.  It is also a story a redemption, with several characters mending their ways after undergoing their trials.

The character of Pip is one of my favorites.  Watching him change from a boy to a man in Dickens's autobiographical way is enlightening.  Pip is one of the few characters I have read who actively engages is self-reflection and he tries to improve himself constantly throughout the book.  However, he struggles against his own wealth and "expectations" which causes him to treat people as less than equal.  It is an important message that we sometimes may get what we wish for, but we may not like the person we become when we get there.

Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse-five

Slaughterhouse-five follows the life of Billy Pilgrim, an American soldier who is captured in the Battle of the Bulge in WW2 and transferred to the eastern Germany city of Dresden.  Here he observes the horrific loss of life and destruction which occurs during the fire-bombing of Dresden.  After the war, Billy becomes a successful optometrist, marries a wealthy but plain woman, and has several children. 

Then on the night of Billy's daughter's wedding, Billy is captured by aliens called the "Tralfamadorians" and is kept in their zoo.

It is never clear to me if the Tralfamadorians really exist or if they are just a way for Billy to deal with the aftermath of the war, the meaninglessness of life or some pre-existing mental condition.  After the war, Billy starts reading science fiction novels and reflecting on his own experiences during the war. Therefore I'm guessing that the creation of the Tralmadorians may be a coping mechanism to help Billy understand his own post-traumatic stress and the seemingly pointless loss of life and destruction he has seen. 

A typical Tralfamdorian

The Tralfamadorians capture Billy, but do not hold him prisoner. In fact, they show Billy how to travel through time.  The Tralfamadorians live life in 4-D, meaning they see life not as a linear series of events, but they observe everything simultaneously.  This ability allows Billy to at one moment be at his daughter's wedding, the next be back in Dresden during WW2, and the next seeing the moment of his own death decades later.  Billy is "unstuck" in time. Consequently, the story in this novel constantly jumps forward and backward in time, which allows Vonnegut to put together related events separated by many years.

So what happens when you live life in 4-D?

Seeing everything happen at once, Billy learns that he cannot change anything.  It's not because he would not want to, but because everything has already happened.  The decisions have already been made and he is just a passive observer along for the ride.  The deaths, the births, the weddings...it is all just going to happen.  Billy watches war movies forwards and backwards, but they always turn out the same.  The rest of us see life as a series of cause-and-effect decisions.  However, Billy knows that everything is already predestined to occur and causality is just an illusion we use to understand our world.  As the Tralfamadorians tell Billy, "free will" is an Earthling concept and is a delusion unique to our species.  Of course living in 4-D seemingly removes us from personal responsibility.  Why do we care what our actions are if they do not matter? 

"So it goes"

After the bombing of Dresden, an American soldier named Edgar Derby is accused of looting a teapot from a burned out cellar. He is subsequently executed by the Germans.  Experiences like this in the novel highlight the absurdity of our existence. To survive the Battle of the Bulge, the Bombing of Dresden and to then be killed for taking a teapot trivializes Derby's life.  This theme is repeated in Slaughterhouse-five and is often followed by the phrase "So it goes", as if there was no other way for things to turn out. This is probably the most popular phrase written in any book by Vonnegut, because it sums up so much in just three words.  Really bad things are going to happen in life; and really good things may also happen.   You cannot always explain or understand why these things occur. They are just going to happen, so deal with it.  That is life.  So it goes.

Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) was an American writer and left-leaning intellectual.  He was known for being an outspoken supporter of human rights and vehemently opponent of war - especially the recent war in Iraq.  Part of this may be because Vonnegut served in the American army during WW2 and was captured during the Battle of the Bulge.  He was transfered to a prisoner of war camp in eastern Germany, near Dresden.  Here he witnessed one the of the most destructive events of WW2 - the Bombing of Dresden.

It is estimated that up to 135,000 people died in the fire bombing of Dresden and it is regarded by many as a war crime committed by the Americans and British.  Dresden was declared an Open City, it had no significant military value and the bombing was done just months before the end of the WW2.   Kurt Vonnegut survived the bombing because the prisoners he was with were in the basement of a slaughterhouse (Schlachthof) outside the city.  Ironically those in the slaughterhouse were safe, while those outside were slaughtered. 

Dresden destroyed

Vonnegut and his fellow prisoners were ordered by the Germans to collect the dead and decaying bodies from the rubble of the city, clawing their way through bomb shelters and cellars to collect rotting and incinerated corpses.  Eventually there proved to be just too many bodies, so the Germans began cremating corpses on the spot.  A few months later Soviet troops entered the city and the war was over. Vonnegut's experience in WW2, and witnessing the Bombing of Dresden, became the inspiration for his book Slaughterhouse-five, Vonnegut's most well-known novel.

Dresden was called the "Florence on the Elbe", the most beautiful city in Germany.  Seeing such pointless destruction and massive loss of life at the very end of the war left a profound mark on Vonnegut.  Slaughterhouse-five directly tackles the meaninglessness of life when we are confronted by situations beyond our control.  In affect, everything is beyond our control, but we must find a way to accept that live a meaningful existence.

Catch-22

Catch-22 has a rich supply of characters and they are impossible to detail in a short blog post.  The main character, Captain John Yossarian, is a bombardier who desperately tries to avoid flying missions by feigning illnesses.  He is haunted throughout the novel by the death of his squadron gunner, Snowden, who is fatally wounded on a mission. Yossarian tries to save him but patches the wrong wound. Later, throughout the book, Yossarian seems far more concerned with self-preservation and satisfying immediate needs. In some ways Yossarian reminds me of Meursault from Camus's book The Stranger, since they both live in the moment. Of course in war it is difficult to plan for the future and the moment may be all you may have. 

The other characters deal with the war in their own unique way.  There are warmongers like Colonel Cathgart who keeps raising the number of missions men must fly before they are done.  Likewise General Peckem is more concerned about outshining and defeating his fellow General Dreedle (who he calls the real enemy).  Opportunists also flourish, like Milo Minderbinder who starts up a syndicate distributing goods throughout Europe and the Mediterranean (essentially war profiteering).  There are also idealists like Lieutenant Nately who believes the war is just and that his prostitute girlfriend is a modern Dulcinea (ala Don Quixote).  There is a building tension with the escalating mission numbers called for my Colonel Cathgart, the increase in erratic and desperate behavior in the airmen and the continuing deaths which highlight every one's mortality as they climb back into the plane for one more mission.

One of my favorite moments in the books is when Yossarian is asked by a doctor to pretend he is a dying soldier for a family that has come to visit their son, Giuseppe. The son has already died, but the doctor does not want to disappoint them. He therefore tells Yossarian to fill in. Yossarian insists on being called by his name and not Giuseppe. Despite this, the family treats him like their son and brother.  The critical question is: does it really matter who they see?  After all, "he's dying" just like everyone else.  Their son is already dead - would they rather see his remains? Giuseppe's mother eventually says "What difference does it make?"

Joseph Heller and Catch-22

Joseph Heller (1923-1999) was an American author most well-known for his novel “Catch-22”, a book which contributed a new term to our cultural lexicon.  A "Catch-22" is an unsolvable dilemma in which an individual cannot avoid failure because of contradictions in the rules. In the novel Catch-22, this is initially presented in the case of a U.S. Army Air Forces bombardier who wants to be grounded from combat flight.  This will only happen if the flight surgeon deems him "unfit to fly", and any pilot who wants to keep flying such dangerous missions is certainly crazy and "unfit".  However, to request an evaluation the person must be sane, therefore they cannot be declared "unfit". Thus, it is impossible to be called "unfit".  This is called by the doctor the catch,  "Catch-22". 

The events in the novel Catch-22 occur during WW2, near the Italian Front, and involve units in the U.S. Army Air Corps.  Like many authors Heller wrote from experience. He served in the U.S. Army Air Corp in WW2 as a B-25 bombardier on the Italian Front, flying over 60 missions just like the main character in the book, John Yossarian.

Catch-22 could be characterized as an anti-war novel since it presents the meaninglessness of war for the average Joe, the capricious and illogical reason of generals and commanders and the tortuous bureaurocratic ineptitude of the entire war-making machinery.   The characters in this novel are particularly interesting and I imagine they are drawn from Heller's own experience. However, Heller has stretched the attributes and idiosyncrasies of these individuals to the point of absurdity, but that works great in a novel like Catch-22 where the central theme is absurdity. 

LSAT

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden





Yesterday I took the Law School Admission Test (LSAT).  I have been studying about 10-20 hours a week for the last 10 weeks and I took 17 practice tests.  Basically this was my only "hobby" for the last three months and I had very little time to read anything worth blogging about.  I am anxious to get back on my reading schedule now that I do not have this exam looming over me. 

Although there are many factors involved, reading the Great Books of the Western World, especially the recent series on Law and Government, has influenced my decision to study law.  It seems ironic that I have not had time to keep reading the GBWW because these books encouraged me to spend time studying for a law school entrance exam.  Furthermore, if I do go to law school, I doubt I will have any time to read the GBWW for at least 3 years.  However, I still find it interesting how reading a few books can significantly affect your life.

Camus and the Absurd

Death makes life absurd. For Camus, the Absurd is a philosophical concept to understand the conflict between the rational mind and the large, uncaring universe. It is difficult for us to accept that we do not matter, that Good is not always rewarded, Evil is not always punished, and that we will eventually be wiped clean from the surface of the earth - like we never existed.  The absurd doesn't exist because there is no God, it would exist even if there was a God.

For Camus, understanding the Absurd is to confront the meaninglessness of life.  Death is a certainty, but we must act as though life has meaning.   Our only salvation from this despair and nihilism comes through taking responsibility for our lives.   Living the Absurd comes down to these tenets:

1.  To confront the meaninglessness of life
2.  Recognizing it is cowardly to kill oneself (we must live between hope and suicide)
3.  We must act as if life had meaning (with "clown-like" distractions)
4.  Continue walking the tightrope between these extremes and we accept full responsibility for our lives

Life without meaning


Camus said that "Life will be more fully lived in so far as it has no meaning". Now man can "live out his adventure within the confines of his own lifetime" and recognize the "optimism without hope".

We are not abandoning ourselves to despair, but recognizing the futility of our existence.  We are in a sense living a much more fulfilled life.  To illustrate these, Camus uses the the Myth of Sisyphus.

Sisyphus was condemned by the gods to roll a stone endlessly up to the top of a hill, only to have it roll back down and to start his task all over again. Camus thought about the "pause" when Sisyphuss has to go back down the hill to collect the stone.  It is at this moment when Sisyphus confronts the consciousness of his fate and acceptance begins.  Even though his task is pointless (futile), this is Sisyphus's greatest strength and he has become a master of his own fate. The worst torture would be "the hope of succeeding". 

Living the Absurd, above all, "means a total lack of hope (not the same as despair), a permanent rejection (not renunciation), and a conscious dissatisfaction (not a juvenile anxiety)"

If life has no meaning, why do we keep living? 

Camus said, "There is only only really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide."

For Camus, to reconcile with the irrational, to commit suicide, "is a lack of understanding".

In the absence of a god (a divine judge) a human being becomes both the accussed as well as his own judge and has the right to condemn himself.  A suicide "is prepared in the silence of the heart in the same manner as a great work of art".  To die by one's own hand means recognizing "the lack of any serious reason for living...and the futility of suffering." However, living means "keeping the absurd alive. Keeping it alive is basically a question of observing it."  Therefore, if one commits suicide they have chosen to reject the fact that they are living, which is irrational since only a living individual can commit suicide.  Furthermore, they have not understood that the "meaning" of life is to live a "meaningless" life, living for the sake of living.