Jack Kerouac and the Battle of Borodino

[mallorys_camera]

First day of spring.

A fair amount has been going on in my tiny little cell in the bee hive, but I've been too lazy to write. It's so much easier to veg. I don't think that's a good thing. I think in this stripped down life I'm living, this holding pattern I'm maintaining, my voice is really the only home I have. And really, writing is no more difficult than sitting down at a [piece of paper]/[MS Word template] and writing. But I don't do it.

Maybe Max is right. Maybe I am clinically depressed.

But I don't feel depressed. What I feel is more like panic. Over the increasing irrelevance of anything I have to say about or contribute to the world around me. More a spiritual crisis than a psychological crisis, in other words.

I ran across this Jack Kerouac quote the other day:

Then I suddenly had the most tremendous feeling of the pitifulness of human beings, whatever they were, their faces, pained mouths, personalities, attempts to be gay, little petulances, feelings of loss, their dull and empty witticisms so soon forgotten: Ah, for what? […] Suppose we suddenly wake up and see that what we thought to be this and that, ain’t this and that at all? I staggered up the hill, greeted by birds, and looked at all the huddled sleeping figures on the floor. Who were these strange ghosts rooted to the silly little adventure of earth with me? And who was I?

I've had the essence of that same epiphany often enough, though for me it expresses itself sans judgementalness. For me it expresses itself more as, My God! Your inner life is just as important to you as my inner life is to me, and what does that mean about the significance or uniqueness of my inner life?

The quote is from The Dharma Bums, which parenthetically is the only Kerouac novel I've ever been able to get through. I find Kerouac unreadable. I like reading Kerouac biographies though, grappling with the thought that this strange little band of marginal outsiders – Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Lucien Carr – were able to have such a profound effect on American culture, an effect that, indeed, may out last a century. Though probably not five centuries.

###

I watched the 1956 version of War and Peace last night. I wonder what Audrey Hepburn looked like in real life. Her face seems to have been bioengineered for the camera.

A billion years or so ago when I worked for People Magazine, I interviewed Julia Roberts. Julia Roberts was not yet a Big Star (which is why I got to interview her) but she was probably at the height of her physical appeal, and I am telling you in person she was not beautiful at all. She kind of looked like a ferret. She had this long bony face and protuberant eyes and a slightly crooked nose and oversized lips, and she was pretty, yes. But beautiful? No. I was shocked.

What she had was that clichéd magic something that cameras love.

I wonder if Audrey Hepburn was the same way.

Anyway, the first time I saw War and Peace – approximately two billion years ago – I was mesmerized by the Natasha/Prince Andre love story.

This time, though, I was mesmerized by the Battle of Borodino.

How accurate was the movie, I wonder?

There is one scene when the French are charging the Russian troops who are encamped along some earthworks on a hillside. The French are led by a corps of soldiers who are all beating these big drums. All action stops as the French maneuver into place. The Russians don't shoot; the French don't shoot. It's like a time out in Capture the Flag.

When the French assume their positions, about 30 yards away from the Russians, then the battle starts.

This was just so fucking strange! Is it because long distance firearms hadn't been invented yet? Or were there some strange formalized codes of military engagement that every army adhered to despite the fact that there were clear strategic advantages to be gained acting otherwise?

Seventy thousand men died that day on the battlefield. Napoleon won – but of course, it was the classic Pyrrhic victory since it cut off his supply lines and his men either starved to death or froze to death during the subsequent invasion.

The Battle of Borodino was the big militaristic conquest of its day. As significant to the inner lives and subsequent pontifications of the strange little people who lived in Europe in the early years of the 19th century as the Iraq Invasion is to the inner lives and subsequent pontifications of the strange little people who live in the U.S. in the early years of the 21st century.

But who even thinks about the Battle of Borodino anymore?

And who will think about the Iraq Invasion in 200 years?

Absolutely no one.

It's just so random what the collective consciousness holds on to. Assuming it holds on to anything.

Comments

[robby.livejournal.com]

That formalized European warfare evolved in the era of muskets, when groups would fire volleys at close range in the general direction of the mass of enemy troops. Troops and cannons were moved around like chess pieces. In the American Revolutionary war, many of the Patriots were experienced hunters, with more accurate rifles. They could hide behind stone walls and hit a British soldier at a distance, even though this was bad form from the British perspective. The British uniform consisted of a bright red coat, crossed in the front with white straps forming an X- the perfect target.

I was an extra in the movie "Basic Instinct" and Sharon Stone looked rather plain, even mousy on the set, but the camera loved her as well, and somehow on film she was gorgeous.

[katestine.livejournal.com]

I've heard this trope about the Patriots for a long time - are there any books you would recommend on this topic?

I would've thought the dawn of total war during the French Revolution would have decreased the likelihood of a stylized timeouts by Napoleon, but maybe they were just that professional by then.

[robby.livejournal.com]

You could research the tactics developed by the the American colonists during the generations of warfare with the Indians, and also compare the American hunting rifle of the period with the large-caliber smooth bore British military musket (Brown Bess)

[robby.livejournal.com]

Here's a piece on the battle of Lexington and Concord.

http://www.wpi.edu/academics/military/lexcon.html

[katestine.livejournal.com]

Interrresting. Thanks!

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Muy fascinating.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Interesting! So guerilla warfare was really invented by the American colonists?

[robby.livejournal.com]

These colonial militias fought generations of wars against sophisticated Indian armies.

[old-cutter-john.livejournal.com]

I first read Kerouac's epiphany in different words when I was a small boy. King Solomon wrote it at the beginning of the book of Ecclesiastes.

My view of the reason for it all is that God loves stories. Indeed to the extent that there's any truth at all to the Biblical assertion that God created man in His image, that's the full extent of the similarity.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

The thought of God as some kind of cosmic equivalent to the vengeful King for whom Scheherazade had to weave stories in order to survive, does make me grin! Thanks for that image.

[sulphuroxide.livejournal.com]

my roommate wrote this quite a while ago, you might enjoy it. i helped him edit.

http://thelobsterbrain.com/2011/01/26/56/

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Your roommate is a talented writer. I enjoyed reading that. What does he do in real life?

[sulphuroxide.livejournal.com]

hes a teacher who doesn't want to teach anymore. he still plans to be a writer. his passion is playwriting, although he will use films in the same way.