So begins the last chapter of "Dharma Bums," by Jack Kerouac. Full text at the link. Now, I've finished it. I read it because it came up in the context of notes that people leave at the top of mountains, blogged here.
No, I don't know what "groomian" means, but somehow the Jello made me feel grounded. The word "groom" does appear elsewhere in the book. Maybe that's a clue. It's in this description of colleges as "nothing but grooming schools for the middle-class non-identity which usually finds its perfect
expression on the outskirts of the campus in rows of well-to-do houses with lawns and
television sets in each living room with everybody looking at the same thing and thinking the
same thing at the same time while the Japhies of the world go prowling in the wilderness to
hear the voice crying in the wilderness, to find the ecstasy of the stars, to find the dark
mysterious secret of the origin of faceless wonderless crapulous civilization."
"Crapulous" is a good word. It goes back to the 1500s. It means "Characterized by gross excess in drinking or eating; intemperate, debauched" (OED).
"Japhy" is a character based on the poet Gary Snyder. Looking up that link, I was happy to see that Gary Snyder is still alive. He's 94.
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12 comments:
Groomian is not cromulent.
You see; like man, the winds of infinity are like represented by laminar flow. And each molecule of air moves at the same speed, so no one molecule can catch up with or push on, the other molecules. So there is an incomprehensive nature that allows all to flow into perpetutity; infinitely and also without end. Giving each element anonymity.
from Google: ""A voice crying in the wilderness" is a biblical phrase, originally from the Book of Isaiah and later used by John the Baptist to describe his own ministry. It refers to someone proclaiming a message, often one of repentance or warning, in a seemingly desolate or unheeding environment."
Isaiah 40 (King James Version):
1.Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.
2 Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins.
3 The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:
5 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
6 The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:
7 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass.
8 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.
It is also the motto of Dartmouth College, which was founded as a school for Indians up in the wilds of New Hampshire.
Auger the drain before the inauguration rain
"to the west, raging mad, hard iron fools wrestling in the groomian gloom"
Poetic.
Geez, you would think that Kerouac would know the meaning of "crapulous." And that Althouse would have a problem with its misuse.
Google keeps changing "groomian" to "grooming." Then it offers me the option of searching for "groomian meaning." The only place that leads is back here. I guess the word is onomatopoeic, suggesting some vague, possible meaning by the sound. The passage sounds like some drug experience, so who's to say that a made-up word or not word like "groomian" isn't out of place?
Has anybody heard the word "onomatopoeia" since high school? Five years out of high school one could still use the word effortlessly. Many years later, it seems like a ragged Japanese soldier stumbling out of the jungle years after the war.
How does he know the inner lives of those 'non-identity middle-class people'? Just another mouthy snob so high on LSD that he thinks he sees transcendence in a bowl of raspberry Jello. There is nothing more dull, or less transcendent.
I believe it was Capote who said "that's not writing, that's typing."
Green or orange jello are the choices of the proletariat. Only snobs eat the raspberry.
Oh, damn, I'm a snob.
Capote was referring to "on the road". Not the Dharma Bums. BTW, i doubt capote ever read either book. Like most writers, he was very big on "style". And if you think this book is typing, well thank God Keroauc had a typewriter.
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