Jack Kerouac – A Commentary

Author Douglas Brinkley describes
the book's cover as "the handsome
Kerouac on an East Village fire
escape, gazing out over a sea of
New York buildings."
(Note:  The photo was taken by
Allen Ginsburg.)

His reputation as a famous American writer was cemented with the release of his second book, On the Road.   It was written after The Town and the City, a poignant biographical account of his life in Lowell, Massachusetts, followed by the time when he entered Columbia University on a football scholarship.

Jack Kerouac, acknowledged as the founder of the Beat Generation, was a fellow traveler with his other soul mates Allen Ginsburg, William Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and other writers of that ilk during a period spanning roughly from the late 1940’s into the 1960’s.

I have a library of Kerouac’s books, but, until recently, had not read “Windblown World,” a collection of Kerouac’s post-war journals (1947-1954) edited by the eminent American historian, Douglas Brinkley.

After listening to Brinkley discuss the book on a morning talk show, I ordered a copy from Amazon.  When I opened the shipping box and examined the book, my hand fell serendipitously upon a paragraph which I’d like to share with you:


“The earth will always be the same – only cities and history will change, even nations will change, governments and governors will go, the things made by men’s hands will go, buildings will always crumble – only the earth will remain the same, there will always be men on the earth in the morning, there will always be the things made by God’s hand – and all this history of cities and congresses now will go, all modern history is only a glittering Babylon smoking under the sun, delaying the day when men again will have to return to the earth, to the earth of life and God – “ 

Not bad for a young guy!  That one-sentence, 105- word paragraph was penned by a newly-minted 25-year old American writer who entered it into his journal in June, 1947. 

Incisive and prophetic, isn’t it?    There are not merely a few major issues in our present world that could be described as  “smoking under the sun.”

Thanks for reading.  Enjoy your summer.

(Click on the image for an enhanced view.)