Seeking the Spirit of Beat

8/8/2019 Seeking the Spirit of Beat

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Review: Seeking the Spirit of Beat: The Call for Interdisciplinary ScholarshipAuthor(s): Nancy M. GraceSource: Contemporary Literature, Vol. 43, No. 4 (Winter, 2002), pp. 811-821Published by: University of Wisconsin PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1209045

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NANCY M. GRACESeekingthe Spiritof Beat:TheCallfor

Interdisciplinarycholarship

BenGiamo,Kerouac,he Word nd theWay:ProseArtistasSpiritualQuester.Car-bondale, IL:Southern Illinois University Press, 2000. xxi + 246 pp. $39.95.JohnLardas,TheBopApocalypse:heReligiousVisionsofKerouac,Ginsberg,ndBurroughs.Urbana, IL:University of Illinois Press, 2001. x + 316 pp. $39.95.

t seems as though we can't get enough of the Beats. Fiftyyears after the Beat generation entered the national con-sciousness, we continue to turn to their lives and art astouchstones for something in our nascent twenty-first-cen-

tury consciousness that seeks affirmation. Perhaps it's an atavisticimpulse to counter conformity, containment, and quiescence. Per-haps it's a nationalistic itch to remind ourselves that joy and graceand the promise of progress aren't such hateful and embarrassingideals after all. Perhaps it's an unconscious desire for a fetish uponwhich we can meditate to discern what constitutes an Americanand a human being. Whatever it is, it's kept Beat alive and well inour cultural imagination.Since those glory days in the fifties when the media lens firstcaptured the Beats, the focus of much Beat press, both popular andscholarly, has been on the sociological, psychological, and histori-cal: studies of the psyche and culture of the underground, the hobo,the sexual deviant, and the drug addict; interviews with and bio-graphies of the primary players; and memoirs of second- and third-generation Beats. It's taken us much longer to fix our critical eyeon the art itself, which is extremely diverse and resistant to easy
















ContemporaryiteratureXLIII,4 0010-7484/02/0004-0811? 2002 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin SystemContemporaryiteratureXLIII,4 0010-7484/02/0004-0811? 2002 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin SystemContemporaryiteratureXLIII,4 0010-7484/02/0004-0811? 2002 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin SystemContemporaryiteratureXLIII,4 0010-7484/02/0004-0811? 2002 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System


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G R A C E ? 813R A C E ? 813R A C E ? 813R A C E ? 813BopApocalypse, erforms a valuable service for Beat scholarship byrendering an informed explication of Spengler's philosophy andan interpretation of how Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs ma-nipulated Spengler to fit their personalities and purposes.The first chapter convincingly positions Spengler's Decline inmid-twentieth-century U.S. intellectual history, succinctly present-ing Spengler's vision of Western culture as a neo-Romantic,Ameri-can "jeremiad"-a Faustian struggle without spiritual sustenance.Lardasargues that Spengler's belief in the organic unity of the uni-versal and the human, which he extended into "the absolute lawsof historical cycles . . ., a resigned condemnation of the presentstate of decline, and a call for redemption" (64),struck a chord withKerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs, who found Spengler useful asthey worked out a theology of experience compatible with theirartistic impulses. In the second chapter, Lardas addresses Speng-ler's conception of art as an activity of religious devotion thatbridged the body and the world, a belief that Kerouac, Ginsberg,and Burroughs put into practice through experimentation with andwriting about drug use, sexuality, jazz, and the body as a religiousmetaphor. Particularly helpful is Lardas's discussion of Kerouac'sconcept of "It"from On the Roadas a working out of Spengler'snotion of cosmic harmony: "It"becomes moments when "the mi-crocosmic wall [between the individual and the universal] is oblit-erated" (110).Equally insightful is Lardas's treatment of Spengler'sconcept of the fellaheen, those "on the margins of Civilization anduncorrupted by Faustian decline" (124). He convincingly arguesthat Burroughs's friendship with the Times Squarehipster HerbertHuncke provided Burroughswith a living embodiment of the fella-heen, whose culture he subsequently experienced through druguse and addiction. Lardasthen presents Kerouacand Ginsberg as astudy in contrast;instead of Huncke, their fellah was the conman/cowboy/car thief Neal Cassady, whom they transformed into aliterary archetype and personal talisman.The third and fourth chapters turn to language and narrativeconstructions, and here Lardas contends that Kerouac, Ginsberg,and Burroughsfollowed the Spenglerian tenet that writing is a rev-olutionary religious act with the potential for personal and culturaltransformation. ForKerouac and Ginsberg, this meant believing in

BopApocalypse, erforms a valuable service for Beat scholarship byrendering an informed explication of Spengler's philosophy andan interpretation of how Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs ma-nipulated Spengler to fit their personalities and purposes.The first chapter convincingly positions Spengler's Decline inmid-twentieth-century U.S. intellectual history, succinctly present-ing Spengler's vision of Western culture as a neo-Romantic,Ameri-can "jeremiad"-a Faustian struggle without spiritual sustenance.Lardasargues that Spengler's belief in the organic unity of the uni-versal and the human, which he extended into "the absolute lawsof historical cycles . . ., a resigned condemnation of the presentstate of decline, and a call for redemption" (64),struck a chord withKerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs, who found Spengler useful asthey worked out a theology of experience compatible with theirartistic impulses. In the second chapter, Lardas addresses Speng-ler's conception of art as an activity of religious devotion thatbridged the body and the world, a belief that Kerouac, Ginsberg,and Burroughs put into practice through experimentation with andwriting about drug use, sexuality, jazz, and the body as a religiousmetaphor. Particularly helpful is Lardas's discussion of Kerouac'sconcept of "It"from On the Roadas a working out of Spengler'snotion of cosmic harmony: "It"becomes moments when "the mi-crocosmic wall [between the individual and the universal] is oblit-erated" (110).Equally insightful is Lardas's treatment of Spengler'sconcept of the fellaheen, those "on the margins of Civilization anduncorrupted by Faustian decline" (124). He convincingly arguesthat Burroughs's friendship with the Times Squarehipster HerbertHuncke provided Burroughswith a living embodiment of the fella-heen, whose culture he subsequently experienced through druguse and addiction. Lardasthen presents Kerouacand Ginsberg as astudy in contrast;instead of Huncke, their fellah was the conman/cowboy/car thief Neal Cassady, whom they transformed into aliterary archetype and personal talisman.The third and fourth chapters turn to language and narrativeconstructions, and here Lardas contends that Kerouac, Ginsberg,and Burroughsfollowed the Spenglerian tenet that writing is a rev-olutionary religious act with the potential for personal and culturaltransformation. ForKerouac and Ginsberg, this meant believing in




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814 * C O N T E M P O R A R Y L I T E R A T U R E14 * C O N T E M P O R A R Y L I T E R A T U R E14 * C O N T E M P O R A R Y L I T E R A T U R E14 * C O N T E M P O R A R Y L I T E R A T U R Ethe transcendent capacities of language. For Burroughs, it meantstripping away the conventions of language to reveal the Faustianstruggle at its ugliest, a method for, and precursorof, salvation andthe revelation of larger cosmic forces. Lardas concludes that Beatactions and symbols-including sexual experimentation, drug use,criminality, traveling, and madness-emerged as enactments of re-ligious representations of the world forged through a Spenglerianmachine, all of which makes considerable sense. Lardas's sensitiv-ity to and respect for the text that Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Bur-roughs identified as a seminal influence better our understandingof all three writers as intellectual, systematic thinkers-a worthyantidote to the still prevalent belief that they were know-nothingbohemians.Lardas's case breaks down, however, when he leaves the safetyof Spenglerian territory.And the book quickly does so. It's almostas if Lardasreally wanted to write about Spengler, but an adviseror editor told him that Spengler wasn't meaty enough for a book.So we get Spengler mixed with the jeremiad, Reichian sexual psy-chology, Korzybski's general semantics, L. Ron Hubbard's Sci-entology, a smattering of references to Catholicism and Buddhism,and even the new physics. It's an odd concoction, and while thediscrete components remain relevant to the subject, the threadsnever form a whole fabric.Korzybskiand Hubbard work with Bur-roughs but have little relevance for Kerouacand Ginsberg. Kerou-ac's deeply rooted Catholic consciousness is treatedonly in relationto his reading of Spengler, and the Romantics as early spiritualinfluences are invisible, as is Ginsberg's Jewish heritage. The jere-miad, which sturdily grounds the book's introduction, disappearssoon thereafter,Reich is given short shrift, and the Spenglerian ar-gument loses its vitality, forcing Lardas into false comparisons andsuspect linkages. Even the discussion of the new physics seems tobe more obligatory postmodern boilerplate discourse than any-thing else. Lardas confuses quantum mechanics with the generaltheory of relativity, writing in the vaguest of terms about nonline-arity, space-time, and the random nature of particle movement asmanifested in Beat poetics.Lardas's attempts to use literary criticism to bolster the thesisreveal deeper problems. While he speaks rather eloquently about

the transcendent capacities of language. For Burroughs, it meantstripping away the conventions of language to reveal the Faustianstruggle at its ugliest, a method for, and precursorof, salvation andthe revelation of larger cosmic forces. Lardas concludes that Beatactions and symbols-including sexual experimentation, drug use,criminality, traveling, and madness-emerged as enactments of re-ligious representations of the world forged through a Spenglerianmachine, all of which makes considerable sense. Lardas's sensitiv-ity to and respect for the text that Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Bur-roughs identified as a seminal influence better our understandingof all three writers as intellectual, systematic thinkers-a worthyantidote to the still prevalent belief that they were know-nothingbohemians.Lardas's case breaks down, however, when he leaves the safetyof Spenglerian territory.And the book quickly does so. It's almostas if Lardasreally wanted to write about Spengler, but an adviseror editor told him that Spengler wasn't meaty enough for a book.So we get Spengler mixed with the jeremiad, Reichian sexual psy-chology, Korzybski's general semantics, L. Ron Hubbard's Sci-entology, a smattering of references to Catholicism and Buddhism,and even the new physics. It's an odd concoction, and while thediscrete components remain relevant to the subject, the threadsnever form a whole fabric.Korzybskiand Hubbard work with Bur-roughs but have little relevance for Kerouacand Ginsberg. Kerou-ac's deeply rooted Catholic consciousness is treatedonly in relationto his reading of Spengler, and the Romantics as early spiritualinfluences are invisible, as is Ginsberg's Jewish heritage. The jere-miad, which sturdily grounds the book's introduction, disappearssoon thereafter,Reich is given short shrift, and the Spenglerian ar-gument loses its vitality, forcing Lardas into false comparisons andsuspect linkages. Even the discussion of the new physics seems tobe more obligatory postmodern boilerplate discourse than any-thing else. Lardas confuses quantum mechanics with the generaltheory of relativity, writing in the vaguest of terms about nonline-arity, space-time, and the random nature of particle movement asmanifested in Beat poetics.Lardas's attempts to use literary criticism to bolster the thesisreveal deeper problems. While he speaks rather eloquently about




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G R A C E * 815the prose and poetry as historical documents, Lardasarrives at sus-pect conclusions about them as literarytexts. At times, he blundersinto what I can only call inaccuratereadings, when the textual evi-dence doesn't support his claims. For instance, he argues that theform and content of Ginsberg's poem "The Termsin Which I Thinkof Reality" speak to flux, challenging the Newtonian concept oflinear time. The "disjointedsyntax,"he contends, reveals this mod-ern perception. Well, no, it doesn't, because the syntax is not dis-jointed: all six stanzas that Lardas reproduces consist of well-shaped, complete sentences, with commas, semicolons, and colonused correctly to join clauses and introduce appositives. Perhapshe was referringto line breaks,but line breaks in and of themselvesdo not constitute disjointed syntax. The stanzas move smoothly,following the rhythms of prose speech. In content as well, Gins-berg's poem refutes Lardas's contention, the speaker presentingtime as an absolute ("ultimate and immovable") upon which hecan predict change ("Carsare always / going down the street, /lamps go off and on" [105]) while simultaneously believing thattime is a present-tense spatial construction, "a great flat plain" onwhich "we can see everything" (105).An example of aporia or neg-ative capability, the speaker's vision reflects the very human realityof believing contradictory claims.Occasional research errorsalso marthe text, such as the misstate-ment that CarlSolomon and Ginsberg spent eight months in Rock-land State Mental Hospital (134),instead of the Columbia Presbyte-rian Psychiatric Institute, a fact that's readily available in manyBeat sources and that Lardas reports correctly on page 216. Suchsloppiness is compounded by obvious and irritating marks of thegraduate student struggling to become a member of the profession:dense jargon, needless name-dropping, turgid repetition of "I willargue" and "I will contend," and the flashing of flaccid sabers tostake out criticalterritory.This last leads Lardas to silly pronounce-ments, including the claim that "ifone apprehends [Kerouac,Gins-berg, and Burroughs's] religious world on its own terms, the Beatsare no longer the property of sociologists or the mute objects ofliterary criticism" (16). Sociology done well and literary criticismdone well, like history done well, bring literature and personalitiesto life, and each discipline has its own legitimate agenda-none is





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816 - C O N T E M P O R A R Y L I T E R A T U R E16 - C O N T E M P O R A R Y L I T E R A T U R E16 - C O N T E M P O R A R Y L I T E R A T U R E16 - C O N T E M P O R A R Y L I T E R A T U R Ea failure or a detestation merely because it doesn't see the worldthrough another's eyes.Lastly, Lardas'spersistent use of the term "the Beats" to refer toKerouac,Ginsberg, and Burroughscreates a serious misperceptionof the community of artists that included more individuals thanthese three. Lardas defends the definite pronoun in an endnote,contending that his focus is a specific historical moment and thatto include others in the phrase would do them a "disservice" bycontextualizing their art "in terms of their more famous friends"(259). But Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs did not considerthemselves "the Beats." As John Clellon Holmes made clear in"This Is the Beat Generation," published in The New York TimesMagazine in 1952, "Beat" describes the generation that livedthrough World War II.1Other writers were associated with theterm "Beat"and considered themselves as such, including Holmes,Diane di Prima, Joyce Johnson, Gregory Corso, William Everson,and LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka),even though they did not sharethe same Spenglerian background. Their literature from and aboutthat period-most dramaticallydi Prima'smultigenre text Dinnersand Nightmares(1961), Holmes's novel Go (1952), and Johnson'snovel ComeandJointhe Dance(1962)-provide explicit evidence oftheir Beat status independent of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Bur-roughs. To call these three "the Beats" is historically and philo-sophically inaccurate.A more attentive editor, or graduate adviser, could have eradi-cated many of these problems, making BopApocalypse more vigor-ous and readable book. As it stands, there's a paucity of Beat joyin BopApocalypse ut a fair amount of Beatwisdom. It's quite inter-esting to read Ben Giamo's Kerouac,heWordandtheWayafter Lar-das's book, because Giamo advances, unintentionally of course,Lardas'sproject. Kerouac, he Wordand the Waytackles both a reli-gious biography of Kerouac and a systematic discussion of the artreflecting Kerouac's efforts from 1950 to 1961to shape that biogra-phy, which he called "the Duluoz Legend." And Giamo does so

1. John Clellon Holmes, "This Is the Beat Generation," 1952. Rpt. in Beat Down toYour Soul:WhatWasthe BeatGeneration?, d. Ann Charters (New York:Penguin-Putnam,2001).

a failure or a detestation merely because it doesn't see the worldthrough another's eyes.Lastly, Lardas'spersistent use of the term "the Beats" to refer toKerouac,Ginsberg, and Burroughscreates a serious misperceptionof the community of artists that included more individuals thanthese three. Lardas defends the definite pronoun in an endnote,contending that his focus is a specific historical moment and thatto include others in the phrase would do them a "disservice" bycontextualizing their art "in terms of their more famous friends"(259). But Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs did not considerthemselves "the Beats." As John Clellon Holmes made clear in"This Is the Beat Generation," published in The New York TimesMagazine in 1952, "Beat" describes the generation that livedthrough World War II.1Other writers were associated with theterm "Beat"and considered themselves as such, including Holmes,Diane di Prima, Joyce Johnson, Gregory Corso, William Everson,and LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka),even though they did not sharethe same Spenglerian background. Their literature from and aboutthat period-most dramaticallydi Prima'smultigenre text Dinnersand Nightmares(1961), Holmes's novel Go (1952), and Johnson'snovel ComeandJointhe Dance(1962)-provide explicit evidence oftheir Beat status independent of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Bur-roughs. To call these three "the Beats" is historically and philo-sophically inaccurate.A more attentive editor, or graduate adviser, could have eradi-cated many of these problems, making BopApocalypse more vigor-ous and readable book. As it stands, there's a paucity of Beat joyin BopApocalypse ut a fair amount of Beatwisdom. It's quite inter-esting to read Ben Giamo's Kerouac,heWordandtheWayafter Lar-das's book, because Giamo advances, unintentionally of course,Lardas'sproject. Kerouac, he Wordand the Waytackles both a reli-gious biography of Kerouac and a systematic discussion of the artreflecting Kerouac's efforts from 1950 to 1961to shape that biogra-phy, which he called "the Duluoz Legend." And Giamo does so







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G R A C E ? 817R A C E ? 817R A C E ? 817R A C E ? 817without taking potshots at other disciplines or scholars. Instead,he works confidently from the perspective of a reader with a deeppersonal fondness for and a need to make sense of the Legend.Giamo, an associate professor of American studies at the Univer-sity of Notre Dame, combines close readings with personal reflec-tion (what he calls "modulation of perspective" [xix]) to craft a hu-morous and lyrical voice that promises to bring both Kerouac andcriticism to life for Beat fans and scholars.

Kerouac,heWordandtheWaydelivers on that promise in severalrespects. First, it traces Kerouac's studies and practice of Catholi-cism and Buddhism from his first novel, The Town and the City(1950), through On theRoad,Visionsof Cody,DoctorSax,TheSubter-raneans,MexicoCity Blues, Tristessa,Visionsof Gerard,The DharmaBums,DesolationAngels,and Big Sur-an impressive sweep of textsthat represents Kerouac's development as an experimental, post-modern writer. Such serious attention to the fiction and poetry israre in Kerouac studies; I found it heartening to read a book thathappily establishes as its center the literature itself. Giamo's sys-tematic and chronological treatment of these texts illuminates thedialectical nature of the Legend, in which religion is continuallytransformed into art and art into religion.Some of the ensuing discussions are quite interesting. While con-centrating on articulating Kerouac's modulations of "It," Giamoidentifies and discusses what he calls "foundational themes, spiri-tual struggles, and stylistic shifts" (xix) in the Legend that neatlyforeground Kerouac's mysticism, bohemian impulses, and ser-monic proclivities. Without relying on jargonor technically narrowlanguage, he reveals Kerouac's development of an understandingof "It"as a "protean god-term for the transcendental impulse inhuman affairs"(214)."It" s integrally bound to time, which in Ker-ouacian terms is located in consciousness, rather than conscious-ness being subordinate to time-a deft way of presenting the newphysics. Giamo smoothly connects the tropes of "It" and time toKerouac's sketching method, which developed into his theory andpractice of spontaneous composition. Giamo's detailed descrip-tions of Visionsof Codyand subsequent works clarify the processesby which Kerouac's method of sketching functioned to allow himto act out religious and aesthetic impulses.

without taking potshots at other disciplines or scholars. Instead,he works confidently from the perspective of a reader with a deeppersonal fondness for and a need to make sense of the Legend.Giamo, an associate professor of American studies at the Univer-sity of Notre Dame, combines close readings with personal reflec-tion (what he calls "modulation of perspective" [xix]) to craft a hu-morous and lyrical voice that promises to bring both Kerouac andcriticism to life for Beat fans and scholars.Kerouac,heWordandtheWaydelivers on that promise in several

respects. First, it traces Kerouac's studies and practice of Catholi-cism and Buddhism from his first novel, The Town and the City(1950), through On theRoad,Visionsof Cody,DoctorSax,TheSubter-raneans,MexicoCity Blues, Tristessa,Visionsof Gerard,The DharmaBums,DesolationAngels,and Big Sur-an impressive sweep of textsthat represents Kerouac's development as an experimental, post-modern writer. Such serious attention to the fiction and poetry israre in Kerouac studies; I found it heartening to read a book thathappily establishes as its center the literature itself. Giamo's sys-tematic and chronological treatment of these texts illuminates thedialectical nature of the Legend, in which religion is continuallytransformed into art and art into religion.Some of the ensuing discussions are quite interesting. While con-centrating on articulating Kerouac's modulations of "It," Giamoidentifies and discusses what he calls "foundational themes, spiri-tual struggles, and stylistic shifts" (xix) in the Legend that neatlyforeground Kerouac's mysticism, bohemian impulses, and ser-monic proclivities. Without relying on jargonor technically narrowlanguage, he reveals Kerouac's development of an understandingof "It"as a "protean god-term for the transcendental impulse inhuman affairs"(214)."It" s integrally bound to time, which in Ker-ouacian terms is located in consciousness, rather than conscious-ness being subordinate to time-a deft way of presenting the newphysics. Giamo smoothly connects the tropes of "It" and time toKerouac's sketching method, which developed into his theory andpractice of spontaneous composition. Giamo's detailed descrip-tions of Visionsof Codyand subsequent works clarify the processesby which Kerouac's method of sketching functioned to allow himto act out religious and aesthetic impulses.






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818 . C O N T E M P O R A R Y L I T E R A T U R E18 . C O N T E M P O R A R Y L I T E R A T U R E18 . C O N T E M P O R A R Y L I T E R A T U R E18 . C O N T E M P O R A R Y L I T E R A T U R ESince Kerouacnovels such as Visionsof Codyand Doctor Sax arenot nearly as well known as On the Road,Giamo's overviews ofthese stylistically divergent texts will no doubt be useful to readerswho want to get a jump-starton their Kerouac studies. But despitethe value of the coverage provided in Kerouac,he Wordand theWay,Giamo's habit of summarizing the narrativesbecomes nonproduc-tive for experienced Beat scholars (even readers less familiar withKerouac don't need his lengthy summary of On theRoad).There'sa Cliffs Notes quality to the book that confounds a coherent and

complex argument. Ultimately, Giamo confuses summarizing withclose reading, dishing out long paraphrases of plot rather than in-terpretationsof it. He will also state a claim and then follow it withnothing more than a passage (sometimes several hundred wordslong) quoted from the text, inappropriately assuming either thetransparency of the text or the skill and generosity of his readersto do the interpretive work for him.I am not championing a Cleanth Brooks approach to close read-ing, but a distinct method of explication-even a discussion ofirony, metaphor, images, and tone-would have improved manyof the discussions. The good ones are undermined by too manythat are at best superficial. For instance, the chapter on DoctorSax,Kerouac's French-Canadiansuperhero fantasy set in his hometownof Lowell, Massachusetts, begins as a Jansenistic analysis, but Gi-amo never clarifies the link between Jansenism,a seventeenth-cen-tury Catholic doctrine, and the specific French-Canadian Catholictradition in which Kerouac was raised. Furthermore,he fails to usethe historical tool to probe the fiction;we get little more than whatKerouac himself wrote. The chapter on The DharmaBums,Kerou-ac's most Buddhist novel, suffers likewise. While Giamo carefullyenumerates the subtle characteristicsof Japhy Ryder, the narrator'sZen Buddhist guide, based on Gary Snyder, the chapternever pre-sents a sustained discussion of the text from the perspective of aninformed understanding of Buddhism. What, for instance, are thedifferences between the Mahayanaand Hinayana branches of Bud-dhism to which the narrator refers, and how does Kerouac treatthese differences artistically?Does Kerouac's fictional representa-tion of koans reflect their use in actual Buddhist practice? Is histreatment of the sexual practice called yabyum accurate? And if

Since Kerouacnovels such as Visionsof Codyand Doctor Sax arenot nearly as well known as On the Road,Giamo's overviews ofthese stylistically divergent texts will no doubt be useful to readerswho want to get a jump-starton their Kerouac studies. But despitethe value of the coverage provided in Kerouac,he Wordand theWay,Giamo's habit of summarizing the narrativesbecomes nonproduc-tive for experienced Beat scholars (even readers less familiar withKerouac don't need his lengthy summary of On theRoad).There'sa Cliffs Notes quality to the book that confounds a coherent andcomplex argument. Ultimately, Giamo confuses summarizing withclose reading, dishing out long paraphrases of plot rather than in-terpretationsof it. He will also state a claim and then follow it withnothing more than a passage (sometimes several hundred wordslong) quoted from the text, inappropriately assuming either thetransparency of the text or the skill and generosity of his readersto do the interpretive work for him.I am not championing a Cleanth Brooks approach to close read-ing, but a distinct method of explication-even a discussion ofirony, metaphor, images, and tone-would have improved manyof the discussions. The good ones are undermined by too manythat are at best superficial. For instance, the chapter on DoctorSax,Kerouac's French-Canadiansuperhero fantasy set in his hometownof Lowell, Massachusetts, begins as a Jansenistic analysis, but Gi-amo never clarifies the link between Jansenism,a seventeenth-cen-tury Catholic doctrine, and the specific French-Canadian Catholictradition in which Kerouac was raised. Furthermore,he fails to usethe historical tool to probe the fiction;we get little more than whatKerouac himself wrote. The chapter on The DharmaBums,Kerou-ac's most Buddhist novel, suffers likewise. While Giamo carefullyenumerates the subtle characteristicsof Japhy Ryder, the narrator'sZen Buddhist guide, based on Gary Snyder, the chapternever pre-sents a sustained discussion of the text from the perspective of aninformed understanding of Buddhism. What, for instance, are thedifferences between the Mahayanaand Hinayana branches of Bud-dhism to which the narrator refers, and how does Kerouac treatthese differences artistically?Does Kerouac's fictional representa-tion of koans reflect their use in actual Buddhist practice? Is histreatment of the sexual practice called yabyum accurate? And if




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G R A C E ? 819R A C E ? 819R A C E ? 819R A C E ? 819so, just what is yabyum?2Giamo never tells us. His obvious andadmirable love for the Duluoz Legend is not strong enough to com-pensate for the lack of sufficient information about Catholicism orBuddhism needed to explicate Kerouac beyond what writers in-cluding Ann Charters, Gerald Nicosia, and James Fisher have al-ready done. He ignores the role played by the Romanticpoets, Dos-toyevsky, and Tolstoy in Kerouac'sreligious journey, and he couldhave benefited from time spent reading Spengler.Giamo also disregards the importance of the interplay of gender,race, and ethnicity in the Legend, especially in TheSubterraneansand Tristessa,which tell the story of romances that Kerouac hadwith an African American woman and a Hispanic-Aztec woman,respectively. While Giamo is right to discuss how Kerouac usedthese women as literarydevices, ignoring Kerouac'sstruggles withthese sociopolitical categories produces a reading that negates oneof the most compelling features of Kerouac's fictive autobiogra-phy-his efforts to make sense of his own racial, ethnic, and sexualmakeup. A more nuanced reading of the characters of Mardou Foxin TheSubterraneansnd Tristessain Tristessawould takeadvantageof recent feminist, gender, and postcolonial criticism to reveal howKerouac artistically manipulated his memories of real women tochallenge the regulatory character of the masculine self as a cul-tural formation.Most disappointing is Giamo's analysis of Visionsof Cody(1972),Kerouac's posthumously published study of Neal Cassady. Cody,as Giamo notes, does indeed "tear time up" (48). It is Kerouac atthe height of his experimental powers, which, as Ronna Johnsonhas argued, distinguishes him as a practitionerof postmodernism.3Giamo lists various techniques that mark Codyas a postmodertext, such as the collaging of dream, memoir, and tape-recordedconversations, but he goes no further,his discussion ending with-out explicating how Kerouac's language and narrative form turnreality inside out.

2. For an excellent discussion of the Tibetan concept of "Yab-Yum,"the divine maleand female in embrace, see Joseph Campbell, "Letter to the Editor: The Great Delightand the Big Lie," EvergreenReview Sept.-Oct. 1960: 155-59.3. Ronna C. Johnson, "'You're Putting Me On': Jack Kerouac and the PostmoderEmergence," CollegeLiterature27.1 (2000): 22-38.

so, just what is yabyum?2Giamo never tells us. His obvious andadmirable love for the Duluoz Legend is not strong enough to com-pensate for the lack of sufficient information about Catholicism orBuddhism needed to explicate Kerouac beyond what writers in-cluding Ann Charters, Gerald Nicosia, and James Fisher have al-ready done. He ignores the role played by the Romanticpoets, Dos-toyevsky, and Tolstoy in Kerouac'sreligious journey, and he couldhave benefited from time spent reading Spengler.Giamo also disregards the importance of the interplay of gender,race, and ethnicity in the Legend, especially in TheSubterraneansand Tristessa,which tell the story of romances that Kerouac hadwith an African American woman and a Hispanic-Aztec woman,respectively. While Giamo is right to discuss how Kerouac usedthese women as literarydevices, ignoring Kerouac'sstruggles withthese sociopolitical categories produces a reading that negates oneof the most compelling features of Kerouac's fictive autobiogra-phy-his efforts to make sense of his own racial, ethnic, and sexualmakeup. A more nuanced reading of the characters of Mardou Foxin TheSubterraneansnd Tristessain Tristessawould takeadvantageof recent feminist, gender, and postcolonial criticism to reveal howKerouac artistically manipulated his memories of real women tochallenge the regulatory character of the masculine self as a cul-tural formation.Most disappointing is Giamo's analysis of Visionsof Cody(1972),Kerouac's posthumously published study of Neal Cassady. Cody,as Giamo notes, does indeed "tear time up" (48). It is Kerouac atthe height of his experimental powers, which, as Ronna Johnsonhas argued, distinguishes him as a practitionerof postmodernism.3Giamo lists various techniques that mark Codyas a postmodertext, such as the collaging of dream, memoir, and tape-recordedconversations, but he goes no further,his discussion ending with-out explicating how Kerouac's language and narrative form turnreality inside out.







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GRACE ? 821The poet, as Emerson writes (and Lardas quotes), may "[turn]the world to glass" (3) to help us see, but that glass-the poemitself-is not a crystal through which we see untutored. We haveto learn how to look through it-how to read its (and its author's)abstractions, connotations, and symbologies. This is the job of theliterary critic, or the interdisciplinarianwho chooses to work withliterary texts. With respect to the Beats as spiritual questers, it willtake an interdisciplinary scholar-someone trained in and com-fortable with literary criticism, historiography, religious studies,and the new physics-before darkness is made visible.TheCollegeof Wooster




Seeking the Spirit of Beat

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