Week 3, and we get further into this book and Kerouac’s spiral. Last week I propelled a lot of questions out in regards to why he does this to himself and why we as readers should care, why this book deserves a place in Literary history, or in the hands of modern readers. So….. Where are the gems for you all as readers? Where is Kerouac teaching you something, having you maybe think about your own life and how you see things, moments and people, around you?
Kerouac knows what he’s doing, which raises the question of awareness in this novel and of and in his character; the alcohol, the old habits, and the ambitions of a former “Beatnik”. He’s frustrated as a character, and as readers we can only sympathize, or even empathize with his character’s angst, but at the same time we may find ourselves becoming frustrated with him and his actions and words throughout this novel… And the obsession with Cody, comparing him to a Greek God in one scene, and showing us there’s always something or someone or a collection of someone’s he’s following. We could call him “sick”, Duluoz, and in many ways he is. But the focus should be on recovery, or the possibility of recovery, getting better, standing up straight (as many times he mentions himself on the ground, ‘groaning’).
And more struggles with belief in something, “…I conceived of myself as a special solitary angel sent down as a messenger from Heaven to tell everybody or show everybody by example that their peeking society was actually the Satanic Society and they were all on the wrong track.” Interesting, this notion of the peekers, which puts in a moody perspective Mr. Kerouac’s/Duluoz’s paranoia, and lack of estimation in Humanity.
So, for today, we return to the notion of, 1, Personhood (wholeness of the individual; at peace), 2, Spirituality of Kerouac or lack thereof, and 3, the feel of the text. How does the text itself feel and how does it make you feel as a reader?
So for today:
Let’s write
Let’s find evidence
Let’s talk about the text and about what Kerouac is showing us, and TELLING us (maybe telling us to do something with our own lives, regardless of time or era, or generation…)
Let’s discuss areas of focus going forward in the book, for example ‘his writing style’, ‘mood’, ‘imagery’, ‘general tone’, ‘the autobiographical dimension to this novel’, of you would call it a novel. Then, UNIVERSALITY! What makes any book immune to time and reader laziness…
10 min – writing
5 min – open mic
20 min – discussion
20 min – group
20 min – cooking of focus areas; questions
10 min – In class reading…
10 min – close, WAW’s…
HW: Read from 113 (ch 24) through 142 (ch 30)
-No typed reaction due; scribble intently in your Comp Books; make the topic your own, look further into his character; start forming your conclusions.
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