Jack Kerouac – Desolation Angels
January 31, 2009
Desolation Angels is the fourth of Jack Kerouac’s novels I’ve read. Each of the previous three, On the Road, Dharma Bums, and Big Sur, could be uniquely classified by an aspect of Kerouac’s growth as a person. In On the Road, the reader is with Kerouac as he develops his taste for the freedom that can be achieved by stepping outside of the boundaries of the average American life. Dharma Bums shows Kerouac taking important strides in his spiritual growth, and Big Sur, a depressing novel, provides the reader a first hand view of a man’s struggle with alcoholism.
Desolation Angels takes place after On the Road and Dharma Bums, but before Big Sur. It tells the story of the time Kerouac spent in solitude working as a fire-lookout on Desolation Peak and his subsequent reentry into the 1950’s beat movement. Due to the fact that Kerouac is alone for the novel’s first section, the reader spends quite a bit of time inside the author’s head. Kerouac’s thoughts are those of a man struggling with isolation. Kerouac enters into his time on Desolation Peak thinking the time alone with nature will provide him a sense of clarity and will contribute to his spiritual growth. However, he struggles mightily and dreams of social, emotional, and physical interaction with the world he’s left below.
When Kerouac returns to San Francisco he lacks the excitement that was ever-present in On the Road and Dharma Bums. He is still filled with affection for art, jazz, and his friends, but age has changed him. He is more mature, and can no longer identify with the unrealistic ideals of his youth. Furthermore, while the Buddhist spirituality he became so in touch with in Dharma Bums still plays an important role in his life, he seems to have a more realistic view of the constraints American culture can put on a person’s spirituality. At times his spirituality seems to be a burden he bears simply because it keeps him out of the constrains of middle-class America.
This sense of realism extends further than just Kerouac’s time in San Francisco. The time he spends traveling in the second half of Desolation Angels seems drastically different than the time he spent traveling in On the Road. He is no longer filled with wonder. He travels the world, but the reader can no longer feel the joy in his words as he describes the different people he experiences throughout his journeys. He complains to the reader about the hardships of travel for the first time, and at one point is moved to tears.
Desolation Angels is a novel about struggling to cope with growing up. I’m reminded of Hanif Kureishi’s novel The Buddha of Suburbia, in which a middle aged woman explains to a friend’s son “The worst thing you can do to Kerouac is reread him at forty.” At some point Kerouac looks around and all of his friends have found their place in the world. The frightening aspect of it is just how close to the norm these places in society are. His friends have settled, and he battles his urges to do the same. With that said, I found it interesting that the one time Kerouac is happy for an extended period of time in the novel is when he is traveling across the country with his mother. He spends the last thirty pages of the novel marveling at how glorious of a person his mother is. Eventually, one has to consider if he finds such happiness in her presence because she enables him to feel like a child again, hidden from the responsibilities and realities of the world he has prided himself so much in not being a part of.
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