The Paris Review boasts a terrific archive of interviews. Moments ago, I finished the ’92 & ’93 interview with Ken Kesey, author of great works and taker of strong drugs. While I must shamefully admit to being largely unfamiliar with his written words, I have read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe, which documents the adventures of the Merry Pranksters and the sweeping influence of their energy. As I mentioned in my previous post, I am a fan of the beats–I sincerely believe that, if they were alive, Kerouac, Ginsberg and I would have gotten on famously– and while Kesey wasn’t part of that initial clan, his currents propelled their energies furthur.
Ken created his own world, the cult following occurred organically. Per Wolfe’s account, Kesey regularly returned to the pranksters to their ongoing movie–a social experiment in documentation positing life as altogether cinematic–which became a medium for the posse to interpret the world around them. As I read the Acid Test, I was most struck by the endlessly expansive nature of their ventures, whether that meant physical or mental propulsion. While LSD played no small part in the events of Kesey’s life and in the culture of the 60s, it certainly wasnt the driving force. Neal Cassady, literally, drove the bus. Whether with the pranksters, or Jack (and therein inspiring the opus that is On The Road), Conductor Cassady struck out the road to discovery. The drive to seek something deeper in both the individual and the universe, or as Kesey so neatly dubbed it “The Intrepid Search for Inner Space,” rocketed this generation into greatness. Drugs simply suited their needs.
During his Paris Review interview, Kesey snubs the idea of using drugs as a tool to facilitate writing, but rather simply seems to view them as an implement with which one can better understand him or herself. I really dig his whole understanding of the universe, or at least how he characterizes his understanding of the universe some 25 years after the madness of the pranksters.
Neal plays a prominent role among the pranksters, as himself. This man was motion: all accounts depict him as an endlessly cascading enunciation, and a catalyst in the ever changing world around him. Cassady seems like a hell of a guy, but I honestly lack the patience for his autobiography The First Third (although, to be fair, it technically an incomplete work). Nonetheless I am fascinated by the influence he wielded and his unyielding character. Kesey and the beats all had distinctive ideas and personas, but it seems as though Neal was in a league of his own.
The interconnectivity of literature sustains my interest in the written world. I suppose I have strayed a fair bit from the initial topic of an interview with Kesey, but hey, so it goes.
Caro
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