A couple things I’m noticing with Kerouac: If I go to copy and type out an excerpt I cannot remember the short grouping of words accurately, and find myself "rewriting" what he’s written. Odd, because in all the posts of show and tell on other authors I’ve been able to carry the phrase, sentence, whatever, complete with author’s punctuation, from reading to typing in that brief moment of read, look up and type. (I’m usually on the couch with the laptop and trying to keep the book open in that position–and distance from my middle-aged eyes–doesn’t always work.) This would seem to indicate that my use of language is very different than this particular author’s.
The other thing I’ve noticed is that the story is told in a way reminiscent of…well…someone on pot. It’s that big buildup, the giggling, the importance of nothing that smokers employ. I’ve once had an hour-long conversation with two people about the eraser on a pencil. Unfortunately, I wasn’t high so I wasn’t quite getting the obvious import of this discovery of which the others were so thoroughly convinced.
Kerouac’s like that. Many of his related escapades leave me either a) intimidated, or thinking b) Yeah, so?
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology