Kerouac Jack: Satori u Parizu

Jack Kerouac: Satori in Paris

"Satori in Paris" is the result of a trip to France that Kerouac undertook in the spring of 1965 with the intention of investigating his origins. He planned to visit Brittany, Cornwall, Amsterdam and Germany. However, after only a week of drinking and whoring in Paris, he spent all his savings and had to return to Florida. After his return, since his friend and drinking companion was absent, he spent seven consecutive days and nights recollecting and recording his story. The result is this short and peculiar novel. "Samples in Paris" is conceived as a story in which the adventures of a French Canadian who inquires about his origins and explores his roots. In fact, it is the modern equivalent of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a great medieval chivalric poem that Kerouac had read a year earlier. The Knight of the Round Table, Sir Gawain, becomes a victim because of his pride, but is saved from death by the sacrifice of Christ. The real theme of this story is "the complete inability of the most brilliant of Arthur's knights to help himself". The novel's title, which includes the Zen Buddhist term for enlightenment, "satori", only further emphasizes the universality of Kerouac's religious experience. Kerouac is in search of the Grail, which he does not find, and cannot find, but instead he encounters the kindness, goodness and understanding of certain people, and his perception of their goodness represents "satori" for him. Thus, it turns out that the narrator, whose main goal is to find written documents about the roots of his ancestors, finally realizes that he belongs to the brotherhood of all people, the brotherhood of people among whom everyone's life represents something priceless. Kerouac's shift from Buddhism back to Christianity is most obviously reflected in his insistence that life is real. If life is not a dream, then there is a possibility for a person to get closer to other people - communicating with them and helping them. "Satori in Paris" is the penultimate work that Kerouac was able to publish during his lifetime. In 1968, with his health completely impaired, he published his last masterpiece, the novel "Vanity of Duluoz". Just a few months later, on October 21, 1969, after 26 blood transfusions, Jean Louis Kerouac died of internal esophageal bleeding, a common cause of death in chronic drunkards.