Jack Kerouac Satori in Paris

2.

BUT AS I SAY I DONT KNOW HOW I GOT THAT SATORI and the only thing to do is start at the beginning and maybe I’ll find out right at the pivot of the story and go rejoicing to the end of it, the tale that’s told for no other reason but companionship, which is another (and my favorite) definition of literature, the tale that’s told for companionship and to teach something religious, of religious reverence, about real life, in this real world which literature should (and here does) reflect. In other words, and after this I’ll shut up, made-up stories and romances about what would happen IF are for children and adult cretins who are afraid to read themselves in a book just as they might be afraid to look in the mirror when they’re sick or injured or hungover or insane.

23.

WELL, WHY DO PEOPLE CHANGE THEIR NAMES? Have they done anything bad, are they criminals, are they ashamed of their real names? Are they afraid of something? Is there any law in America against using your own real name?

I had come to France and Brittany just to look up this old name of mine which is just about three thousand years old and was never changed in all that time, as who would change a name that simply means House (Ker), In the Field (Ouac) —

Just as you say Camp (Biv), In the Field (Ouac) (unless “bivouac” is the incorrect spelling of an old Bismarck word, silly to say that because “bivouac” was a word used long before 1870 Bismarck)—the name Kerr, or Carr, simply means House, why bother with a field?

I knew that the name of Cornish Celtic Language is Kernuak. I knew that there are stone monuments called dolmens (tables of stone) at Kériaval in Carnac, some called alignments at Kermario, Kérlescant and Kérdouadec, and a town nearby called Kéroual, and I knew that the original name for Bretons was “Breons” (i.e., the Breton is Le Breon) and that I had an additive name “Le Bris” and here I was in “Brest” and did this make me a Cimbric spy from the stone monuments of Riestedt in Germany? Rietstap also the name of the German who painstakingly compiled names of families and their scocheons and had my family included in “Rivista Araldica”? —You say I’m a snob ?—I only wanted to find out why my family never changed their name and perchance find a tale there, and trace it back to Cornwall, Wales, and Ireland and maybe Scotland afore that I’m sure, then down over to the St. Lawrence River city in Canada where I’m told there was a Seigneurie (a Lordship) and therefore I can go live there (along with my thousands of bowlegged French Canadian cousins bearing the same name) and never pay taxes !

Now what redblooded American with a Pontiac, a big mortgage and ulcers at March-time is not interested in this great adventure!

Hey! I should’ve also sang to the Navy boys:

“I joined the Navy

To see the world

And whaddid I see?

I saw the sea.”