Chamber Four

Authors: Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs

2008, Grove Press

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I’ve never been that into the Beats. Sure, I read On The Road when I was seventeen and liked it. It didn’t change my life; neither did Naked Lunch or The Dharma Bums or Howl. As a young writer, the ambling but controlled bebop prose moving steadily in no particular direction piqued my interest. I saw the original On The Road scroll manuscript once, and was far more awed by the presentation than I had been in the book itself.

And The Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks is exactly the sort of title I used to come up with for my stories back then (and still do on occasions I would consider moments of weakness). This book was written in 1945, before the Beats were the Beats, and is not a groundbreaking work of fictionalized history–nor would it have been, I doubt, back in ‘45. Quite literally kept under floorboards until all parties involved had lived out their lives, Hippos does, however, offer a nice view of the giants before their growth spurts. It’s a book written in a fledgling style that would soon become signature Beat, what Kerouac would come to call “spontaneous.”

The novel is based on the true story of a 1944 murder, in which both authors were intimately involved and, for a time, implicated.  It is written in alternating chapters, with both Burroughs and Kerouac narrating in the first person through characters based, with little subtlety, on themselves (renamed Dennison and Ryko, respectively). Each author, through his character, offers his own perspective on what occurred and, indirectly,  it meant.

If you know much at all about the Beats, you likely know the basics of the story at hand. If you don’t, do yourself the favor of not reading the flap copy, as what little more suspense this might afford will strengthen the narrative structure, or at least give that impression. Plotting was never a strong point for the Beats, though perhaps that was part of the point. The majority of the book reads a lot like typical early Kerouac (the Burroughs chapters included): seemingly aimless descriptions of New York carousals bask in the refusal by the characters to desire anything more from life; art and literature name dropping abounds; wild-if-short misadventures offer some sort of veiled wisdom, but only to those readers who actually want it to be there–amongst whom I do not include myself.

It is interesting to read the differences between the two author’s sections, particularly because they read so similarly in voice. Trying to parse out the now familiar voices of Kerouac and Burroughs from the less-mature narration presented here offers a nice chance to see these two authors more or less in the raw, seemingly before any sort of authorial awareness crept into their work. There are noticeable differences, of course. Kerouac’s sections tend to be more active, with the characters moving from place to place about the city, while most of Burroughs’s contributions are comprised of neatly contained scenes. There are a few very nice bits of imagery, by Burroughs especially. (“Finally he leaned over and took her right index finger in his teeth. The nail makeup was a little loose and he peeled it off with his teeth.”) For the most part, however, the writing is a bit pedestrian, striving for but not really achieving the beat of the Beats, if you will.

Ultimately, most of the book ends up reading like pages filled with anecdote, and offers very little build toward the climax we know is to come. The relationship between Ramsay Allen and Phillip Tourian is the only real dramatic thread, and it is handled satisfactorily though not expertly–it’s a little depressing too. (Back to my flap copy comment, I wonder how differently I’d feel about this if I did not know the specifics of the outcome upon first read. I suppose, since I have to ask, the answer is probably very little.) As tends to be the case with fictionalized retellings of actual events by young authors, there is very little drama cultivated prior of the big moment. And the Beat style certainly doesn’t help here: if you are looking for careful plotting, you should know to look elsewhere from the Beats.

What I enjoyed most about the book were the scenes immediately following the murder. The reactions to the news (delivered to each firsthand by the frazzled killer) by Ryko and Dennison were not what I would have expected. They were close friends with both the murderer and the murdered, but neither takes sides and both refrain from judging the killer. In fact, without malice, they both felt it was quite necessary though unfortunate. Again, I won’t spoil too much, but there were some strange sexual politics (especially though a 1945 filter) at work.

Of course, the real charm of this book has little to do with the story and everything to do with this being the rare chance to read a “new” work by two literary magnates.  This is doubly the case as it was written early in their writing careers. When the killer leaves Ryko to turn himself in, Kerouac’s character is left in a bar alone to finish his beer. “It was the loneliest beer I ever had,” he says. It’s the most heavy-handed line in the book, but it expresses nicely what this book really is: two writers’ attempt to blend fact and fiction while developing voices of their own, taking care to avoid losing themselves in the process.

–James Grauerholz’s afterword presents some interesting insight on the Beats while comparing fact with the book’s fiction. Grauerholz is the executor of the Burroughs estate and was friends with the whole group of Beats, and this makes his words more touching than the dry and academic afterwords that usually accompany such “lost texts” as this. His exploration of the not quite non-sequitur title and how the explanation by Burroughs & Kerouac of its meaning might or mightn’t be a lie is particularly amusing.

Other books you may enjoy: Dharma Bums (Kerouac), Man Without a Country (Vonnegut), The Stranger (Camus).