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4.0étoiles sur 5
Dropping names in rhythm, Aoû 6 2003
Good men who live have karma of a dove. It is 242 choruses, 242 poems. As is everything written by Kerouac, it is autobiographical. How can Mexico have a positive association in Beat history when William Burroughs killed his wife there in a William Tell experiment? Anything by Kerouac was edited and promoted by Allen Ginsberg and for that reason alone a book of poems with Mexico in the title is of interest. Thinking of comfortable thoughts is what modern society has branded loafing is a line in one of the poems. Zen provides much of the impetus for the collection of poems. Kerouac's work manages to create an atmosphere of tropical vegetation and light. The work is free-form and jazz-like. Automatic writing? Well, maybe not automatic writing precisely. Certainly the word-play and the fluidity remind the reader of Gertrude Stein. (Mention Gertrude Stein and here we are at chorus 31.) I like the prose better, but I like the idea of the book and the arrangement. The Beats stood for blessedness and freedom. MEXICO CITY BLUES is an appropriate manifestation of Beat ideology. Fifty first Chorus says America is a permisible dream, a Whitmanesque expression. This is a celebration of other people. I count Gregory Corso, William Carlos Williams, Oscar Wilde, Alexander Pope, Benjamin Franklin, William Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, the aforesaid Gertrude Stein, Charley Parker, Nin and Ma, Pa or Leo Alcide Kerouac, brother Gerard, Thurber, Baudelaire, Jolson, Miles, Sarah Vaughn, Chagall, Whitman, Melville, Mark Twain, Einstein, Plato, Moses, Aristotle, Joe Louis, Spinoza, James Huneker, Alfred Knopf, H.L. Mencken, David, Picasso, Jesus, Proust, Freud, Glenn Miller, Allen Ginsberg, St. Francis, Siddhartha, Virgin Mary.
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