Preplitanja zatvorenih i otvorenih prostora u romanima Džeka Keruaka

Abstract

Jack Kerouac (1922 – 1969) is one of many American writers whose conspicuously mythologized and romanticized life story/biography on the one hand, and the fame of one work of art on the other, have succeeded in overwhelming his reputation to such an extent that his wider readership recognize him, almost exclusively, as the most prominent representative of the so-called Beat Generation, the author of On the Road (1957), and the man whose life ended too soon due to alcohol-induced health complications. Thus, from the very onset, Kerouac seems to be enclosed within the space of a few labels, narrowed down to a couple of bullet points, which can by no means be considered a slight contribution to the field of American literature at large. Kerouac’s travel map greatly contributed to the formation of 1960s American cultural mythologies. The Beat generation chooses to focus on what is spontaneous, open, organic, a process, a moment, paradox, improvisation, and alternative states of mind, as opposed to anything rigid, closed, pre-planned, linear or traditional. The highway is, in fact, a double metaphor: a sign which unites the American continent, but which simultaneously decentralizes its subjects, as Roy Kozlovsky asserts. To drive fast means to opt for the spatial over the social/societal, the car as a means of self-expression, and a particular kind of masculinity, rather than a status symbol. The highway and the city are kindred open spaces, antipodes to a family closed life. Traditionally, home is a feminine space, while the car embodies a space of male bonding disentangled from family shackles and norms. Kerouac’s fictionalized male outsiders, exiled and mobile, enchanted by movement itself as well as goallessness with no promises and commitment, support the American mythology of deviant and ambivalent behaviour. All in all, Kerouac’s nomadic lifestyle epitomizes placelessness and existence with no limits, where one road never ends, where there is a Whitmanian understanding of the West as one giant space with multiple possibilities. Jack Kerouac remains a lonesome traveler, for the most part enclosed within his own mind, a writer of a particular lyric responsiveness to soul and language matters.