Orpheus Emerged, written by Jack Kerouac in 1944/45 was only published posthumously in 2002 following the death of his wife. Friend, Poet and contemporary Robert Creeley wrote in his introduction that this was an momentous occasion, the rediscovery and publication of a lost classic by the ‘voice of a generation’ Beat author Jack Kerouac. Yet despite the positive reviews printed on the dust covers the book was near universally panned by the critics. Dull. Achingly Stiff. Pretentious. Immature. Pedantic. Critics clearly did not like it.
This was the second time I had read this novella, and for the second time I managed to finish it in a couple of hours. And for the second time I was left wondering what was it I had just read. I had my ideas, but I felt somehow cheated that I had read a book, somebody elses creation which was yet so ambigous that its value and meaning depended upon my interpretation of it, as though it were in fact my book. My greatest dissappointment though (first time round) was, like the critics, reserved for the fact that it just wasnt anywhere near as good as Kerouac’s seminal work ‘On The Road‘. Looking for some guidance, and some hint of what it all meant I ploughed the internet for literary criticisms. All I found, as you can see from the perjorative descriptions listed above, were equally confused and disappointed readers.
Orpheus Emerged is the story of a group of young bohemian intellectuals studying at university. It is a chronicle of their passions, conflicts and dreams, and ultimately is a record of their search for truth through art and philosophy.
Michael is the artist, desperately seeking happiness, and wallowing in his own artistic model of the aesthete. He is a bohemian whose poetry infers an experimentation with drugs, a dabbling with mystical religion, and sexual experimentation. Paul (whose relation to Michael is unknown, see later on for my theory) is an out of town bum, with little money, an intellectual who annoys everyone he touches, and yet with whom that cannot do without. He is not registered as a student, but he attends lectures anyway, and the professors politely ignore him until he speaks up and makes his contributions in a class on Nietszche. Arthur, Leo, Anthony and Julius are ensemble characters who weave through the story. Arthur is a budding poet who aspires to Michael’s aesthetic heights. Leo likewise is in awe of Michaels work, but is critically aware of deeper trains of thought. Julius is an observer, and a shrewd one at that, described by the others as a ’super-voyeur’ he alone guesses at the complex relationship between Michael and Paul. Arthur is an emotional wreck, an alcoholic and a wife beater, married to Marie, who being a more dominant character cares not about the violence, loves Anthony dearly, but seeks to explore her own sexuality in an affair with Michael. Finally Maureen is Michael’s mistress in her late twenties, seeking commintment and security from the young bohemian, she is mature, wise and singularly uninterested in the pretentious artsy world of Michael and his friends.
When you read the book, set over a couple of weeks, nothing much happens, and there is no coherent plot or exploration of character. Chance meetings are always just around the corner and everything seems so utterly contrived. They meet, they eat, they drink copiously, they hold a party, they attend lectures, they talk pretentious waffle about art and philosophy, often subconsciously aware that they dont know what they are talking about. They conduct affairs, they gossip, they suffer emotional crises, they seek oblivian in drink and plumb the depths of despair and talk of suicide.
It is easy considering all this, the shallowness of the characters, the pretentious rubbish that they spout, the numerous references to Nietszche, Rimbaud and other counter-cultural figures in literature, the meandering pace of the plot, to simply say ‘who cares?’
Then I had a revelation. Within the book was hidden a kernel of truth, within the very motif of the search for truth. Michael the poet is frustrated with the aesthetic life, Paul mocks him relentlessly as a failure. Michael is aware of the pretentiousness of much of his work, yet recognises the need to continue as a prophet for the sake of Arthur and Leo (at least). Michael is troubled by his amoral nature in conducting his affair (destroying his relationship with Maureen and near killing Anthony who drinks himself to oblivion), yet as Paul hints at, by being troubled he is clearly not amoral.
Throughout the novel there is one continous battle, between Michael the aesthete and Paul the iconoclast. Michael feels the need to touch God, and to impart in his long winded poetry an essence of the divine. Paul ridicules his work, calls him a failure, enrages him, goads him, steals his work and threatens to burn it. The two of them are constantly at daggers drawn. Michael attacks him with a lampstand, then later when blind drunk and contemplating suicide decides to murder Paul at the same time.
In the novel, which is set in no particular time or place (it could easily be here and now) Kerouac is himself searching for truth. He is looking to find his voice, the voice of a generation. This book is the beginning of the genesis of the beat movement. He wrote it at the end of the second world war, at columbia university shortly after he met Allan Ginsberg, Lucien Carr and the other artists who would become the leaders of the beat movement. It is an early postmodern work of art, it is an existential masterpiece of self-analysis. The movement that was to spawn rock and roll, the hippy movement, pacifism, the anti-war generation and free love, was born out of this novel, this chronicle of existential angst. Dissillusionment with the war and the world, the rejection of authority and conventional morality.
No wonder Orpheus Emerged reads so badly, it is unfinished, its merely a particle of the developing Kerouac. Too caught up in the real world who has been there to teach Kerouac how to write? Nobody has, he has had to develop all by himself, find his own voice, his own identity. As he says of Wagner in the novel, he has had to spend years sorting out his intellectual grounding before he can produce his art.
Who is Paul? My reading is that he is the alter-ego of Michael, his shadowself. He has a ghostly ethereal character to him. When Michael disappears for a week (conducting his affair) Paul leaves town and ’sleeps on the grass and eats fruit for breakfast’. When Michael reappears so does Paul. When one goads the other, the other always responds ready for a fight. When Michael falls ill with a fever (at the climax of the novel) so too does Paul. Michael never attends lectures, but Paul does. And the greatest hint, when Michael resolves to commit suicide he decides he can only do so after killing Paul. In the end, Michael storms to Pauls apartment, wherein is the mythical ‘Helen’ a character about whom we know nothing about, other than she is the love of both of them. Helen and Paul are seen catching the streetcar and leaving town. This scene witnessed by Arthur, Leo and Julius concludes the novel, and they like the reader are left uncertain who the man is, Michael or Paul? The shrew observer Julius, earlier concludes that Paul must be Michaels brother, so we can assume some physical resemblance between the two.
In conclusion I see that the book is much deeper than many critics give it credit for. Yes it is poor in comparison to his other works, but it is meant to be, it is an existential biography in which Kerouac embarks on a sincere quest to find his own voice.
Michael, the artist-man, wants to achieve literary perfection, Paul his shadowself mocks and scorns his efforts, such perfection cannot be achieved by affecting the habits and manners of great artists, it can only be found in self-discovery. The search for truth can only be resolved by being true to oneself. Michael and Paul are meant to be the same character, shadows of each other, Michael and Paul are Jack Kerouac. Their struggles are his struggles. This work is the chronicle of his existential journey. It is through this existential journey, through writing this book, that Kerouac can begin to find his true voice. Jack Kerouac is Orpheus Emerged, and once he has found himself the mature writer, the writer for whom the critics are full of praise, can finally emerge.
Taking no more than two hours, its an easy read. But (and it took me a long period of contemplation) you may feel as though you have witnessed nothing of any import. I cannot recommend this book on its own merit. But can recommend it as a source for contemplative guidance in the existential sense. Michael and Paul remind me very much of me at the same age.
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