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Page 8PBy DANIEL COTTERSuti Wire EditorKEROUAC. By Ann Charters. 419 pages. Straigh Arrow Books. Illustrated.AAs founder of the so-called beat generation” and underground cult hero in the eyes of the LSD legions, Jack Kerouac met his violent death in October, 1969. And because hejourneyed to the other world at the height of the drug movement, Kerouac became a legend. His published works and close friends Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary eulogized the existence of the boy■ ' lt;V. VV .’. .\\v *. • ‘.'AVAVA. ,- « » • - • ' • • %*«,.. ..... .. li .'i ......... ttt.t.B.li . I. .... r * A . . . . . .A . .. .from Lowell, Massachusetts.Kerouac was 47 years-old at the time of his death. The life he pursued racked his body, his health and his spirit, emptying the hopeshe had once carried in hisyouthful sprints of frustration.Biographer Ann Charters, a Kerouac acquaintance and collector-historian, refuses to allow the freedom in her writing that was so much a part of Jack's life. Her show building, often bland anticlimaxes complicate the drudgery of detailing an intimate, stark personality. The reading hits astandstill at mid-point that remains nearly hopeless to the concluding chapter.In striving to let no angle of Kerouac’s person be overlooked, the boredom of reading can zoom nearly 50 pages at a time, fromhighlight to highlight.South MkisMppi |^||^Bi]Needlessly unnoted was that Kerouac was a just human being, with quite normal functions, fears and performances. His halo shone brightly at fews points of his life, the most brillantly on publication of the now famous On theRoad.no different than the guy next door.Kerouac lived with and thought through Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassidy, two of his closest relations. They helped to mold each other in the wildness that surfaced followingouac, but was ne ver repaid the courtes* in one of Jack’s wot cs. In 1961Like an average male Jack carried severe qualms about being tied down to one person or one place, dreading the closed-in feeling, and fearing the total loss of his boyhood world which he often tried to recapture. Ann Charters treats the Kerouac fantasies as an abnormality, a great reawakening of man, but all in all they areWorld War II, experimenting with marijuana and be-nezidrene, carrying out their homosexual love for each other.Ginsberg, in his dedication of his first known poem Howl, expressed hiB deep feelings for Ker-Leary convi ced Jack totry LSD wit! uncomfortable results. A.terwards his life became a constant battle to write, to produce a book worthy of its readers, although he had written over twenty. His final manuscript written in 1969 and published in 1971 titled Pic” is an epic of Kerouac’s suffering.Kerouac would have made the grade had it not been so intertwined with galling trifles of intricate unimportance. Historians may view the book for reference, but for best seller fans the adventure is stifling.Russianpoetbouncesback into official favorMOSCOW (UPI) — Poet Yevgeny A. Yevtushenko, censured three months ago for defending exiled author Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn, bounced back into official favor Wednesday by publishing an ode to a truck factory.The strictly orthodoxwork by the 40-year-old Yevtushenko, once the darling young man of Soviet liberals, was published in Literaturnaya Gazeta, the Writers Union newspaper which had accused him seeking scandalous popularity” in his defense of Solzhenitsyn.Yevtushenko has a long history of climbing back into favor after acts of rebellion that bring him wide publicity abroad and criticism at home.In a telegram Feb. 12 to Communist party General Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev, Yevtushenko defended Solzhenitsyn for having raised the issue of the Stalinist purges in his latest book.The poet sent the telegram after learning that Solzhenitsyn had been arrested that day following publication abroad of the book, The Gulag Archipe-lao. The author was expelled to West Germany the following day.Authorities retaliated by canceling a radio and television concert based on Yevtushenko’s works and the Writers Union called him in and criticized him. In March, he was attacked in its newspaper.In an introduction to his new poem, Yevtushenko said Literaturnaya Gazeta had sent him to the truck plant, a new facility along the Kama River, to produce the work.Entitled There is no poet outside the people. he said the poem was dedicated to the working class and he place of the poet among the workers.Yevtushenko, a frequent visitor to the United Statesand other Western nations, ganed worldwide fame in 19hl with a poem, Babi Yar, on the taboo subject of Soviet anti-semitism.In 1968 he protested the So viet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia, but his career surived that act of rebellion too. He has made no public comment on Solzhenitsyn since his telegram. .GULF CO AMVS ; Nr q SUGAR AW SPlCF f* THERE WA2 A*liTTCE GUM. iSUSA* AW SPlCF4 ^ COLOR jX, 4A* MT AT . r Mr jot /jy mtPLUS44WHOCOCK ROBINIfADULTS ONLYCOLORGULF COAST• • *• MM .! 435 2656M ,s * - • * ' • s • ;Country music notesMuskrat Ramble” was written as a jazz tune by one of the earlier practitioners of New Orleans jazz, Kid Ory. It has probably been played more than any jazz classic during the past 50 or so years. Even so, it is not alien in a country setting.It is one of the selections in The Atkins and Travis Traveling Show (RCA APL1-0479). Co-starring Chet Atkins and Merle Travis, the album is a fine endeavor by tow of the best known guitarists in the country.In the beginning of the two guitar version of Muskrat Ranble, there is an emptiness becauseof the absence of the traditional jazz horns but Atkins and Travis build up steam and end the selection on a positive note.Other good tunes are Cannonball Rag,” Who’s Sorry Now” and “I’ll See You In My Dreams.”ALL KRISTOFFERSONSpooky Lady's Sideshow” by Kris Kristofferson (Monument PZ 32914) might be called a 1974 version of countty and western because of its format. But Kristofferson has come up with some excellent * lyrics that put his album in a special category.All of the songs, which were composed by Kristofferson, appeal to the mind as well as to the ear. The cynicism in “Broken Freedom Song gives it a bitter taste. But the bitterness does not linger as Kristofferson has ulready set the mood for what is to follow.^ GUSSTEVENS■presentsJUSTINWILSONTheLOUISIANA. CAJUN ^Friday SaturdayMay 31 and June 1Z.'ictck'k ★★★★★★★★★★★ ^Theselocahavedisco44pulling-pcadvertising
Newspaper Details
South Mississippi Sun
Biloxi, Mississippi, US
Fri, May 24, 1974
Page 8
Full Page
Clipped by
University O.
MN, USA 12 Apr 2020
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