Even during his lifetime, Kerouac was proclaimed “King of the Beats,” but he invariably refused this title. All of his work, which served as a catalyst for the counterculture, is permeated with the desire to break free from social patterns and find meaning in life. These searches led to the fact that he either tested his body and psyche for wear and tear, then began to master spiritual teachings, primarily Buddhism, or traveled around the country and the world. The novel “The Vanity of Duluoz”, which has the subtitle “Adventurous Education 1935–1946” , is the last book Kerouac published during his lifetime, and is something of a cornerstone for the entire Duluoz Saga, an autobiographical epic that spanned many novels and decades. Kerouac sends his young alter ego on a journey from the football fields of a provincial New England town to the classrooms of Columbia University, from the cold waters of the North Atlantic infested with German submarines to the bars of New York, where young poets and writers, the future stars of the Beat generation, gather...