Kerouac - Orpheus Emerged - Comment.

 

Orpheus is a literary artefact that is intriguing as it reveals a writer at the beginning of his career, concerned with topics and issues that Kerouac would explore for the rest of his life. Although not in the familiar `spontaneous prose' style and endless stream of consciousness, often taken as difficult to follow and understand by some readers, this novella is written in the third person and well structured. As it is a short piece, the characters are not fleshed-out as they could be, which is really only possible in a full-length novel. That said, however, the two lead characters, Michael and Paul, are developed enough to sustain the plot. Overall, Orpheus is an absorbing tale about the nature of the artist or poet in their search for truth and purity of artistic vision.

Kerouac's Orpheus is the merging of two types of individuals, archetypes if you will: Michael is the tortured genius, with an imagination conducive to writing poetry, however, he is so serious and self-absorbed, single minded, that he is incapable of being happy. A young man with a fine-tuned conscience, when he transgresses, he feels tremendous guilt and wallows in self-pity. Michael's relationships with the older woman, Maureen, lacks spark, and his affair with Maria, falls flat because Michael cannot feel true love for himself or anybody else.

Paul is Michael's opposite, a roving poet-vagabond, in love with knowledge and life. Kerouac characterizes him as a "genius "of love and life. Paul's actions are spontaneous, humorous and driven by a devil-may-care attitude to just about everything. One day, after an altercation with Michael, he disappears for a week, and tells his friend's that he has been "Lying on the wet grass eating only fruit", which personifies the carefree, romantic wandering poet.

Written during that early time at Columbia University, when the young Kerouac first meets Alan Ginsberg and William Burroughs, we can perceive these men in some of the characters in Orpheus: enthusiastic bohemian types, learning philosophy, writing poetry and prose, listening to Brahms and drinking copious amounts of wine.

The novel ultimately is about the artist/man in search of a genuine aesthetic vision, a `new vision' and the attainment of wholeness as the artist/man - there is a merging of types, and the success of this goal is the attainment of `wholeness plus vision' the `ideal' of the true artist.

This novella was by no means a disappointment, because, although a young work, Kerouac and his lifelong concerns are all included here.

Recommended to all Kerouac readers and students.