Benjamin Nelken
English Teacher
English Teacher
On the Road
by Jack Kerouac I read this novel in a Beat Generation course at the Univ. of Michigan and it changed everything for me. Here was a writer who celebrated not being special. He was just going to write. And travel and meet everyone and be cool about it -- not bring anyone down. Even though he kind of ran out on a lover who was destitute. He left behind some friends too -- but they weren't hip so they deserved it! Kerouac helped me learn to love America without loving the injustices embedded in its government or military. Growing up in New Haven, I knew there were a lot of people who were very fine, decent folk, who no one seemed to pay attention to. Kerouac's novel taught me these people were real and you can find them in many American cities, being ignored. And when you're ignored, that doesn't mean that you can't love deeply and dream of better days. Days and nights spent with friends, with good music and poetry and whatever else that makes you feel good. I decided that I would become a fiction writer myself. If Jack could just roll out those long, descriptive sentences without paying heed to the grammar gods who want to exclude small writers, then so could I. When I graduated Michigan I retreated to the border of Mexico and wrote my own American Opus. One hundred and twenty five single spaced pages about my first decisions and interests as an adult. With lots of run on sentences and tributes to my friends from college and a special lover. When I returned in April to Ann Arbor, I showed my lover this book that I had dedicated to her and she hated it. So I threw it in the trash before her in a dramatic show (saved the file) and continued on with my life. We were over with and I returned home to become an English teacher. |
You Can't Go Home Again
by Thomas Wolfe I have come home to work where I grew up as a kid, despite what Wolfe suggests. But he was right that I shouldn't have expected things to be the same as when I was a boy. People and times change. I changed. Nostalgia will tell you that your home is special, that you will always be loved and remembered there. But I found that those people who were still camped out in nostalgia, and had never left New Haven, were rotting. You must move on, you must refresh your life with new visions. You can return home, but it will be a new place and you should not try to force it into its old clothing. Accept change, keep reading new books, and keep the old home in a safe place in your heart to return to when needed. |