Jack Kerouac · 1958 · road
Jack Kerouac's 1958 novel, written straight after On the Road and pointing in a different direction. Ray Smith rides freight trains up the California coast, falls in with a mountaineer-poet who reads Chinese hermits and climbs seriously, and works his way from Bay Area parties toward two months alone in a fire lookout in the North Cascades.
- 1Los Angeles
Ray Smith hops a freight out of Los Angeles heading up the coast, sharing his wine and provisions with an old hobo who carries a printed prayer - the opening image of a book about travelling light and what that might actually mean.
- 2San Francisco
In the Bay Area he falls in with Japhy Ryder, who translates Han Shan, splits wood, climbs mountains properly and treats Buddhism as something to be done rather than discussed - and the poetry readings and parties run all night.
- 3Matterhorn Peak
They climb Matterhorn Peak in the Sierra Nevada, and the book finds its centre on the scree near the summit - Japhy going up whooping, Ray frozen with fear on the rock, and then coming down in enormous bounds, unable to fall.
- 4Desolation Peak
He takes a fire lookout on Desolation Peak in the North Cascades and spends sixty-three days alone above the clouds, which is what all the travelling has been for - and comes down again to find he still has to live in the world.