by Jack Kerouac
Another matter, touching in some degree on the larger, final area of any study whether it be philological or not:—it concerns a Celtic legend and the striking relationship of that legend with a thought recently entertained by your distinguished scribbler (a Celt by blood,) (if you do not believe that Kerouac is Celtic, consider the name of old Kynyr Keinvarvawe, who said his “son’s heart will always be cold and there will be no warmth in his hands.”):—
The legend is of Bran the Blessed, who counsels his chiefs to bury his head in the White Mount in London with the face towards France. “And the head (will be) with you uncorrupted, until you open the door that looks towards Aber Henleven and towards Cornwall.” Everything is joyous for the chiefs, the birds of Rhiannon singing unto them the while, until one day Heilya said: “Evil betide me if I do not open the door to know if that is true which is said concerning it.” “So he opened the door and looked towards Cornwall and Aber Henleven. And when they had looked, they were as conscious of all the evils they had ever sustained, and of all the friends and companions they had lost, and of all the misery that had befallen them, as if all had happened in that very spot; and especially the fate of their lord.”
Sitting in the park the other day, musing on something that might modernly be called spiritual relativity, I saw that insofar as one point of reference is as good or true as another, therefore the door that might open on melancholy was neither truer nor better—in spite of all worldly circumstance—than the door that opened on joy:—in all factual reality. I saw the doors—the doors of Bran, if you will. One was a dark door and one was a golden door, and I could open either one.
The Gaelic “dorch” means dark. The Dutch “door” means fool. The French “d’or” of course means of gold (but the last is facetious). The Golden Horn of Constantinople, the Golden Gate of ’Frisco, the Golden Door of the Sistine Chapel.
No doubt the legend of Bran, with its immense door-like hint, is concerned somewhere with the phenomena of inward renunciation and inward resurrection . . . what I called mood when I first innocently approached the subject.
You’ve heard of “body and soul”—but it appears that its earlier version was “body and bones.” Which indicates the depth of the bone, and throws light on Ginsberg’s skeleton that laments, “You can do anything to my flesh, my eyes, my love, my et ceteras—but leave my bones alone.” Here the bones is the soul, dem golden bones.
An old spiritual:—
“De head bone’s connected to de ear bone
Jes’ to hear de word of God.”
“Lawdy dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones.”
And what about the door-bone? And roll dem bones, the dice, go roll your own bones. In a letter Lucien refers to his girl “woman-bone.”
In Chaucer bone is “boon”:—
“We stryve, as dide the houndes for the boon.”
And in Chaucer “bone” is PRAYER, from boon as we know it now. So that when the spiritual emphasizes bone, or prayer, and Lucien chants “bone bone bone bone . . . BONE!,” there is prayer. The god-bone, to which all other bones are connected.
But can I ever investigate bone the way Hopkins investigated horn?—and the reason “horn” does not appeal to me yet is due to poetic immaturity, perhaps.
“And in a Dongeon deep him threw without remorse.” This is what I crave now—the sound of terror—no vague horns; that and the Sweet Poetrie (“O that I were there, to helpen the Laydes their Maybush beare!”)
Admiring or regarding are not so strong as admirant and regardant. It is the poet who bends language to his own use who deserves the name, as Shakespeare did; and admirable Joyce began to do, till it bent him; or did it bend him?
What of these divine lines in Chaucer’s “Prologue”—
“So priketh hem nature in hir corages:
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrymages—”
This demonstrates the pity of removing the strong “Y” in English, along with the lolling French “L” and purring “R” (extant in Irish washerwomanhood) and, most dearly, the soft “G”—for if you read the above as it should be, French-like, the glory of pure English, which is so French, dims our present “advanced” English. We now make words like “junket” for pilgrymage; “junket” sounds like a Model T Ford; soon, therefore, we will invent a 1950 BUICK word, a speedy word, one with eyes like the snarling headlamp-eyes on new cars, with radiator-sharkfangs. Jaunt?
Here’s how that Chaucer-line reads to me, in sounds:—(in spite of the “silent E” rule):—
“Sau priketh ’em natzur en our cor-rā-jez
Then loa-gen fok to goan on pill-gree-mā-jez.”
—with that wonderful heaviness on the “ā’s.”
If I were “translating” I’d do this:
SO PRICK’D ALL THINGS IN NATURE’S
COURAGING DAY:
THEN LONG’D ALL FOLK TO PILGRIMAGE AWAY.
But what a farce. (Prick’d as preen’d, see?)
For some reason, also, last night, on the brink of “anguished” (for ANGUISHED SILENCE) I chose, rather, “agonized”—AGONIZED SILENCE. This is not important in itself, except insofar as I did it; I wonder why? Rhythm, yes. But what else?
Right now I’m looking for universal images so that I may speak to everybody directly beneath their education-cant. This is in the Mystique of Cities at the end of the first chapter of On the Road—in a thing like:—
“Miami, sea, dishes, sink, star—”
“Bakersfield, boxcars, palms, moon, watermelon, gin, woman.” Or are these mere American Universals?
How about:—
“rain, manure, night-hay, the Wabash River—”
Well, I guess they’re just American, except that in Joyce the juxtapositions, while Irish, are certainly Irishly Universal to this reader, and finally, therefore, purely universal—like in:—
“Before Nelson’s pillar trams slowed, shunted, changed trolley, started for Blackrock, Kingstown, and Dalkey, Clonksea, Rathgar and Terenure . . . Rathmount, Sandymount Green, and Ringsend.”
Do you think Joyce was only being cute when he listed these Dublinisms, these Dublin-names & Dublin-sounds and these Myth of the Dublin Day? It was because he knew . . . (secrets of humanity).
So I, also knowing this, have:—for ’Frisco:—
“Oakland, waterfront dive, sawdust floor, red lamps, Bay Bridge; Turk, Jones, O’Farrell and Annie Street; Fog, Coit Tower, Tarantino’s, steak, wine, White Russian Hill.”
Why? Is it apparent anyway? “Red lamps” in any case is All Universal, first off . . . I learned this from Alain-Fournier’s obviously finely thought-out “naphtha flares” in The Wanderer, a perfection of deep image. But “fog” and “Coit Tower” are as one, whether you’ve seen the Tower or not, for, if I said, “Coit Fog,” I think you’d understand. “Turk” is just a street-name; it follows red lamps and a bridge; could not do anything else. “Tarantino’s” is only the name of a restaurant, but it is a winey name (because Italian) and a white name because of “AN,” as in blanc, thus goes with a white hill, one called “Russian,” which is a snowy country, and has a Ukraine, and a history of its own in settling ’Frisco. See?
Chauntecleer Chaucer was French too.
Popular, romantic songs, even poetry, sings—
“The mist around your eyes.”
But crazy American satirists like Spike Jones come back with:—
“The bags under your eye-balls.”
This too is poetry, since it recognizes the poetry of the original; a brilliant counter-poetry.—
Listen to this: I had no idea what FIRKIN meant, yet while writing a line in “The Rose of the Rainy Night” I used it because nothing else satisfied me as soon as it inexplicably and implacably entered my bean. “The rose of the rain falls open, / and dropping lights the sky / with firkins of softest dew. / ” I felt this word was perfect, like Whitman’s sudden use of KELSON somewhere, so strange and mysteriously perfect. So I used “firkin” without looking it up; it wa
s so right I was convinced the meaning of the word would melt for my purposes.
Well—it’s a barrel-measurement, is “firkin,” from Old Dutch vierkin. Why can’t God empty rain from old Dutch barrels, hey? Oh I myself have melted—too many of these sweet things have happened now.
I know now that I “remembered” the word from Melville’s great passage on Dutch whaling-vessels in Moby Dick, but this has no connection with my choice of the word (not to say that it is a great choice). Only the sound determined me. Why is that? Because:—I wanted something “filling,” that is, which would resound with a fat “F,” to indicate abundance of rain—yet soft, soft. “Soft firkin” goes together in itself.
What a strange word I heard today—in connection with Albert Schweitzer’s influence on modern theology—“ESCHATOLOGICAL,” meaning pertaining to final things: death, judgment, heaven, hell. “Life’s final enigma” as “the only important activity on earth,” I said was the great contribution of Jesus—years after Schweitzer and 1,000 pale theologians in seminars. Ah well, great minds obviously run the same course. Now, of course, it will be necessary for me to work out a new idea.
Neal and I invented a word for the lost and hidden thread-ends of thought that are still remembered but with no name, and these are TUCKAWAYS.
How to atone for one’s sins? By being sorry. What is it to be decent like this? A matter of form. When do we break out of forms? When we know what form is for.
This is a philosophical philologizing, flibbergibbet.
I have found wonderful tidbits in Herman Charles Bosman’s excellent novel about a prison in South Africa—Cold Stone Jug. (Or that is, Robt. Giroux found them).
Here is a list of terms American and terms South African dealing with “underworld” matters:—
In America it is understood that marijuana is smoked by degraded sex-fiends in dens, by Negroes and Mexicans, and members of the hip generation, and jazz musicians, making them crazy.
In Johannesburg and South Africa generally it is understood that dagga is smoked by members of the white underworld, by the most degraded city-natives, and by the Bushmen in the Swaziland Bush, and that it drives them mad.
Translation of parts of Finnegans Wake, by “N.R.F.”
From James Joyce Yearbook, 1949, Transition Press, Paris
“O, dis-moi tout d’Anna Livie! Je veux tout savoir d’Anna Livie! Eh bien! tu connais Anna Livie? Bien sûr, tout le monde connait Anna Livie. Dis-moi tout, dis-moi vite. C’est à en crever! Alors, tu sais, quand le vieux gaillarda fit krach et fit ce que tu sais . . .”
“Raccontami di Anna Livia. Tutto vo’ sapere di Anna Livia. Beh, la conosci Anna Livia? Altro che, conosciamo tutte Anna Livia. Dimmi tutto, e presto presto. Roba d’altro mondo! Beh, sai allorché il messercalzone andò in rovina e fe’ ciò che fe’ . . .”
JOYCE-SETTANNI.
“Oh! Erzähle mir alles über Anna Livia! Alles will ich von Anna Livia wissen! Du kennst doch Anna Livia? Aber natürlich, wir alle kennen Anna Livia. Erzähle mir alles, erzähl’s mir sofort. Lachst dich kaputt, wenn du es hörst. Na, du weisst doch, als der alte Holdrio hopps qins und tat, was du weisst . . .”
GOYERT.
“. . . . Je me sens vieille comme mon orme même. Un conte conté de Shaun ou Shem? De Livie tous les fillefis. Sombre faucons écoutent l’ombre. Nuit, Nuit. Ma taute tête tombe. Je me sens lourde comme ma pierrestone. Conte moi de John ou Shaun. Qui furent Shem et Shaun en vie les fils ou filles de. Là-dessus nuit. Dis-mor, dis-mor, dis-mor, orme. Nuit, nuit! Contemoiconte soit tronc ou pierre. Tant rivierantes ondes de, couretcourantes ondes de. Nuit.— . . . Par la terre et le nuageux, mais c’est que j’ai bougrement besoing d’une flancterge flambant neuf, pauvre de moite oui pour sur et dodu avec çà.”
“Et c’est vieux et vieux et c’est triste et vieux, c’est triste et lourd je retourne vers vous, mon père froid, mon froid père fou, mon froid père fou et terrible, jusqu’à ce que la proche vue de sa grandeur, ses môles et ses vagues, grognant et grognantes m’aient rendu boue de la mer raide de sel, et je me précipite, mon unique, entre vos bras. . . .”
BUTOR
JOYCE:—“Loonely in me loneness.”
BUTOR:—“Absurdement en moi solitude.” (!) (Sic)
J.L.K.:—“Foulie dans mon isolement.” (?)
JOYCE:—“In the name of the former and of the latter and of their holocaust. Allmen.”
J.L.K.:—“Dans le nom du premier et du dernier et de leur épris sang. Aumône.”
JOYCE:—“By the watch, what is the time, pace?”
J.L.K.:—“En passant-partout, quelle heure est-il, s’il vous paix?”
The mad have unkind hearts; there’s madness, right there. Paranoia blooms in such aridities.
What comes goes.
*New recent song: “When it rains it’s time to love again.”
: —— Odd Notes —— :
March 1950
THE night is atonement for the sins of the day—in America. That is why they want “the end of the night”—complete purgation from sloppy decadent pursuits of noon. Only the hardworking riveter sleeps at night—the television adman gets drunk. The time has come to pursue the day in honest ways.
[Have Champa Gavin wake up in middle of night, much like the Elizur-preacher, wanting “out” from his sins which he cannot name—and talks (confesses he feels like a slob).] And there is love.
* * *
I think the greatness of Dostoevsky lies in his recognition of human love. Shakespeare himself has not penetrated so deep beneath his pride, which is all our prides. Dostoevsky is really an ambassador of Christ, and for me the modern Gospel. His religious fervor sees through the very facts and details of our everyday life, so that he doesn’t have to concentrate his attention on flowers and birds like St. Francis, or on finances like Balzac, but on anything . . . the most ordinary things. There alone is proof about the sparrow that falls. It is the crowning glory of such a man as Spengler that he recognizes Dostoevsky to be a saint.
The vision of Dostoevsky is the vision of Christ translated in modern terms. The fact that he is barred in Soviet Russia implies the weakness of that state. Dostoevsky’s vision is that which we all dream at night, and sense in the day, and it is the Truth . . . merely that we love one another whether we like it or not, i.e., we recognize the other’s existence—and the Christ in us is the premium mobile of that recognition. Christ is at our shoulders, and is “our conscious in God’s university” as Cleo says . . . he is the recognizer in us. His “idea” is.
The reason “television admen” get drunk at night, as above, is only because the nature of their pursuits shuts them off from meek love of man, which is what we all want. D. H. Lawrence is mere masturbation of self. Consider: tonight I went to Lou’s house, looking suave and well-contained in my suit, and spoke to him “confidently” about my new plans. Nevertheless I was nervous, and could not help noticing his pale melancholy, even as his mother laughed and chatted with us. Everything I told him—everything that happened—is for me overshadowed by the fact that I writhed before this man (famous-young-author-soon-to-be-wealthy notwithstanding, also prophet-of-American-strength notwithstanding) and that this was because I recognized his existence with love and fear, and could not bear the mortification of my own senses receiving the grace of his being. Lou is only an intensification of this feeling which I have for everyone; he is a dramatic example of mankind. Nevertheless I could not bear seeing him every day, for fear of boredom, or the fear of boredom—perhaps fear of losing the fear & trembling which is a dramatization of my being alive. When I left I sighed . . . “It’s always the same . . . My position with one like that will never change . . . A relationship is established for eternity . . . This world we walk in is only the scene, the temporal scene, of eternal realities; this sidewalk only exists for souls to walk on.”
Further than a “dramatization of my being alive” is that such a recognition of fear and love—or the fear and love itself—simply the
love—is our existence, and mine too, and yours, and we try to avoid it more than anything else in the world. Thus, tonight, reading my new books, I find that Kafka avoids it in a dream of himself; Lawrence avoids it by masturbating (same thing); and Scott Fitzgerald, though closer to recognition of love, only wrote his story to make money and omitted certain things (in “Crazy Sunday”). Then I read Dusty and it was all there. There is no truth like the truth of the earthly prophet.
I want to become, and pray to be, an earthly prophet.
All the diplomats and statesmen who are obstructing peace and progress today, and have been doing so for so long, are simply avoiding the recognition of human love more than anything else in the world. It is even possible that America the organic body loves Russia the organic body—allegorically linking them as two living beings on the same dark plain. A war between the two will only result in further wars of imaginary supremacy . . . positions of pride in the world. The time to stop war is simply now, 3:19 A.M., Wednesday March 1st, 1950—just as easy as that—by some bold yet strangely meek decision to merely recognize each other’s existence with honest eyes. But war is not the real curse. The curse is the reluctance to admit the love human beings have for one another and even for plants, animals, and objects. It’s all exceeding simple. What the United Nations need is one bold man who, like Napoleon, realizes there is always something dared to be done and no one accepts the dare out of sheer wonderment at the gateways of light . . . specifically out of fear of leaving the lowing herd. In the herd are individuals of love; but the mass of it is a blind propulsion like a storm, without direction.
I don’t think “peace” is the solution because of certain terrible laws—[I start with a study of man then on to the state]—The laws are that militant nationalism is the only thing that makes a nation “strong,” pacifistic internationalism courts destruction. But if we apply that to individuals?—we have to ask, “courts what destruction?—only a destruction of one’s system of pride.” Proud men are strong destroyers; nationalistic nations have systems of pride, and can lick the humble nation. The thing is to “abolish” the system of prides in nations . . . which is impossible, for the first one bereft of pride will fall. But fall where? All the nations will “fall” eventually into a family of earth.