kerouac, frazier, and lavin linked by literary gods

 

COMMENTS:

 

readers of this blog, your comments on any book you are reading are welcome. here's one from an e-mail conversation with a.l. in new orleans: "The Valazquez book is interesting. It's full of information and gives great context for Valazquez and his work, but without any personal sources except for his paintings, the book gets a little dry."

 

and here's one from my chicago daughter on facebook about my new murder mystery:

'Maud tagged you in a post. Maud wrote: "I just finished reading my mother's latest mystery Eloquent Tattoo, and I want to report there's _sex_ and _drugs_ in it. Mo-om! *shaking head from side to side* Audrey Lavin"' BOOKS: almost every culture has gods and goddesses of writing. listed here are a few of them:  The Greek god Hermes is the patron god of high arcane literature. - Thoth is the Egyptian god of scribes and writing. - The Hindu god Ganesha is the patron god of writers. & saraswati, hindu goddess , is patron of writers, artists, poets there must be something to these gods and goddesses. they are still influencing our choices. why else would i be reading jack kerouac's "the dharma bums" at the same time i picked up charles frazier's "nightwoods" from the library. the correspondence between the two novels is startling and vividly apparent. the 1958 "dharma bums" preceded the 2011 "nightwoods" by physical, emotional, cultural, and generational times, but both books are infused with the same ethos, though not with the same amount of alcohol. to give credit where credit is due, walt whitman encompassed the same dominant assumptions of the two novels even earlier, mid-nineteenth century. frazier borrowed the title of his earlier novel "cold mountain" from "the dharma bums" which in turn took some of its inspiration and that cold mountain phrase from the japanese poet han shan. i haven't finished either novel yet, so am withholding final comment, but i did cheat and read the last page of "nightwoods" because i couldn't figure out what the author would do with the individualistic characters he had created. he couldn't put them out in the wide, wide world. and he doesn't. what he does do in the penultimate paragraph of the book is have two good people, stubblefield and luce, be seen reading a book,'Something about beatniks climbing mountains." that's a five-word synopsis of "the dharma bums" for you. i knew there was a connection. in checking this out on the internet, i find that frazier recommends "the dharma bums" to readers and says, The Dharma Bums By Jack Kerouac "On the Road is the one I respect, a great American novel that will live as long as people care to read books, but this is the one I love. I read it every few years to revisit the sweet, sad narrative voice and the goofy literary backpacking trip in the Cascades. I made pretty much the same trip years ago, but Kerouac's vision lives stronger in my mind than my own memories."

WRITING HINTS:

 

submit your work. you are not a writer until you have been rejected. often. once in a while, you'll get a rejection with a comment that will make you re-read and re-write your work. in the main, you will have to accept a rejection as that same message. try to read your work from an editor's point of view. see what you should change. or, just maybe, you are submitting to the wrong type of journal. look for your specific audiences.

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS;

 

the cuyahoga county public library invites you to meet poet george bilgere, monday 16 april, at 7 p.m.

 

 

audreylavin.com http://bit.ly/OhAudrey