User Reviews

This video is an interview that Mr. Jack Kerouac gave in 1967 (just two (2) years before he passed away) in French (he was a Franco- American, and his first language, the one his family spoke at home in Lowell, Massachusetts, where he was raised, was French), on a TV show entitled "Le sel de la semaine" ("The Salt of the Week"), animated by a renowned French-Canadian intellectual and communicator of the time, Mr. Fernand Séguin, aired on the French division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), called "Société Radio- Canada" (SRC), and this interview is just absolutely succulent. I am quite sure a version was produced, and is available, with English subtitles. Anyway, in this interview, Mr. Kerouac is relaxed, alert, alive, often very funny, and he opens up and reveals himself with a poignant authenticity and frank spontaneity, as he answers questions about his family, his French-Canadian mother (and her spunk and humour - I don't want to spoil this with any more details, but you'll smile, whether you like it or not(!)), why he returned to live in Lowell, Massachusetts, rather than San Francisco or New York, for instance (and his answer to this question will force a laugh out of just anybody - I purposefully will not "spoil" it here), and, perhaps most interestingly, Mr. Kerouac explains in this interview, in very simple, but profound terms, in French, how he coined the term "Beat Generation", with a surprising rapprochement to a French word, which happens to be practically the same in English (I won't spoil it here either), in circumstances that you probably would not have suspected (no spoiler here again(!)). Anyway, this interview is an absolute "must see" for anyone who has any interest in Kerouac or the "Beat Generation" and the "Counterculture", with the very peculiar flavor owing to the fact that Mr. Kerouac, this larger than life, giant American cultural icon, gives the whole interview in what most Americans would consider - and, quite understandably, I think one must reasonably acknowledge - a foreign language (i.e. French), and would be surprised to learn that their hero was a native French speaker (owing, once again, to his family origins which lead back precisely to the province of Quebec, in Canada, where, once again this fabulous interview was given). Please try to check it out if you can.