Brian James Schill writes in “Departure in New Noise: Punk Poetry”:
As their repeated references to Rimbaud suggest, then, there is much in the French poet’s style, philosophy, and experience with which punks and postpunks identify. Rimbaud is in many ways punk’s intellectual godfather and elemental versifier. Punks see in the writer who had renounced his own calling and once claimed, “Morality is the weakness of the brain,” a template for their own rejection of authority and history, their violent détournement of art and pop in the service of prophecy, sneering through performances with a vulgar, self-consciously naive pessimism and contentious repudiation of self, family, God, and country typified by punk missiles from [the Sex Pistol’s] “God Save the Queen” to [Nirvana’s] “Smells Like Teen Spirit” to Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life),” the last of which remains an absolute… denunciation of the band’s own audience and history. In such songs, punks, many of whom continue to have nothing to lose, too play the assassins Rimbaud references in “Morning of Drunkenness,” conspiring through narrow eyes and on behalf of an invisible crowd to scrawl, “We have faith in the poison. We know how to give up our entire life day after day.” Targeting progenitors of all types and abilities and injecting into pop a bitter venom that would reveal the emperor’s nakedness through a certain electrolysis—coarse hair dropping off in clumps—punks worldwide, Carroll, Clarke, Childish, Exene Cervenka, Lydia Lunch, and Lyxzén demonstrate and continue to see theirs as the time of the assassins, a time whose idols and architects deserve to be not only exposed but put down.
Is there a way we can read The Basketball Diaries as related to Rimbaud’s “Letter of the Seer”? Would Carroll agree with the sentiment “Morality is a weakness of the brain”? Or does Carroll, like Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, provide something like a “moral core” (even if quite deranged) to his story?
While The Basketball Diaries is not poetry, isolate some instances — good lines, paragraphs, etc. — that demonstrate Carroll’s style at its best, but be sure also to quote from the “Letter of the Seer” which I handed out and is in a PDF in the Google drive. 300 words.
New York Underground in Film, Music and Literature 1955-85 
The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll reveals the daily life of a basketball junkie whose moral code disappears as he becomes more consumed with junk and sex. While a cursory glance at Carroll’s novel seems as if Jim holds no moral codes when it comes to his actions such as his Heroin addiction, a closer examination suggests that he cultivates his morality and himself through his writing. Despite holding differing stances on morals from Rimbaud, both writers perceive poetry as their attempts to cultivating themselves as they choose.
As Rimbaud describes a poet he surrounds his definition upon holding no morals as an entrance into reaching the unknown as a poet. In doing so he suggests that reaching the height of poetry becomes possible by suffering and losing all sensibility. As he voices his interest upon this matter he states:” He reaches the unknown, and when, bewildered, he ends by losing the intelligence of his visions, he has seen them”(Rimbaud). Through expressing his views upon poetry as a point beyond knowledge the writer suggests that poets must hold no moral core to cultivate their work and engage their brain. By indicating “losing of intelligence”, the writer implies that these poets’ must forget all that the world has taught them and engage outside of applicable knowledge. In doing so, he explores morals as a blockade in the writer’s brain, one which hinders their creativity. Rimbaud differs from Carroll through his definition of poetry framing around going beyond morals.
Carroll’s writing while displaying no morals within the actions of his characters, reveals poetry as a foundation upon building a moral code. Through the diary entries, Carroll recognizes his knowledge upon writing as his own intelligence and understanding of certain morals. By voicing his infatuation with writing Carroll states: “The more I read the more I know it now, heavier each day, that I need to write. I think of poetry and how I see it as just a raw block of stone ready to be shaped”(159). The author’s view of poetry a something which can be molded into reflects his morals. Rather than being non-existent, his morals become cultivated by his own perception. These build upon his writing rather than hinder it, Carroll’s stance upon poetry becomes individualistic. By voicing “how I see it”, within the novel the author indicates he holds some moral codes and foundation upon his writing. Unlike Rimbaud, he cultivates his writing around the known which he can shape rather than the unknown.
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In The Basketball Diaries, Carroll expresses and embodies many of the same views that Rimbaud shares in his “Letter of the Seer.” Both poets seem to share the same frustration with earlier generations, and the same desire to rebel against their predecessors. Both men also use the form of their predecessors to protest. Rimbaud writes poetry that expresses his radical views, and Carroll becomes the Catholic school basketball star that his parents’ generation could outwardly admire, while subverting the perfect image by doing heroin and selling his body behind the scenes. Rimbaud describes ancient poetry as “rhymed prose, a game, degradation and glory of countless idiotic generations…” He goes on to say: “…newcomers are free to condemn the ancestors. We are at home and we have the time.” Rimbaud successfully transforms and adapts the very literary style he rebels against in “Letter of the Seer” by using articulate and poetic prose to express his radical, even revolutionary views on the form. While they have this rebellion in common, I don’t believe that the young Carroll of The Basketball Diaries would agree with Rimbaud’s view that “morality is a weakness of the brain.” Despite running the streets and relying on any number of questionable methods to obtain the money he needed to support his habit, Carroll kept a clear moral compass throughout his addiction. For example, in one of his journal entries, Carroll writes about his experiences hustling in New York City to keep up his habit. In one encounter, he finds a cat tied to the toilet seat in the hotel bathroom of a CPA. “Too bad for him, [Carroll] was very stoned and in a cat-loving mood,” so despite the morally questionable circumstances that lead him to find the cat, Carroll clearly demonstrates his moral compass as he punches the John and makes of with the kitty (and 60 dollars) (106). Despite his violence against and robbery of the CPA, Carroll’s mercy for the cat demonstrate the existence of some sort of moral code. This code is by no means similar to what society at large deems as “moral,” but Carroll never fails to give sound reasoning for the acts he commits.
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“The Basketball Diaries” can relate to Rimbaud’s “Letter of the Seer,” as both contain reference to “monstrous,” or unlawful activity to shape oneself. “Basketball Diaries” is about a boy who has a childhood filled with illicit, illegal activity, which thus “tests his soul” and finds himself, which is what “Letter of the Seer” seems to encourage.
I don’t think teenage Carroll would agree with the sentiment “morality is a weakness of the brain,” although Jim seems to engage in shady underdealings.. In Spring 65, he notes an episode in which a little girl asks if Jim is against the war. He is, and also doesn’t seem to believe in a God. He then asks her “Did you ever read about Christ killing, or using a gun?…do you think he would fight in the war?” (100). He seems to have a cynical view of the world around him, yet advocates peace and believes religion agitates the world’s strife.
Rimbaud states, “The first study of the man who wants to be a poet is the knowledge of himself, complete. He looks for his soul, inspects it, tests it, learns it. As soon as he knows it, he must cultivate it!…the soul must be made monstrous: in the fashion of the comprachios…” This can be directly linked to “The Basketball Diaries,” as Jim Carroll makes his own soul ‘monstrous’ through the abuse of heroin at the shockingly young age of 14, and deviant sexual acts with adults. His childlike innocence is nonexistent as he finds himself in a variety of situations and being made bizarre sexual propositions by older men. Ironically, through these experiences he learns the dangers of the world around him and firsthand experiences the hazards. The way in which Jim becomes well-acquainted with the seedy New York scene encapsulates Rimbaud’s message in “Letter of the Seer”: Jim indeed becomes a ‘seer’ through engaging to the fullest in the sordid world he inhabits, and thus finds himself.
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“The first study of the man who wants to be a poet is the knowledge of himself, complete. He looks for
his soul, inspects it, tests it, learns it. As soon as he knows it, he must cultivate it!” This quote from Rimbaud’s Letter of the Seer stood out to me in regards to “The Basketball Diaries,” because I did view “The Basketball Diaries” as a self-exploration of oneself, of not only Carroll’s identity but specifically his placement in the world as it happens around him. That being said, the language of “The Basketball Diaries” did not read as traditionally poetic to me, instead being very candid and often informal, using slang and very direct language to convey things, the dialect placing the reader directly into the mind and setting of the novel (although there are moments of poetics, such as early on when Carroll describes getting high on Carbona with visions and fantasies and “fun-house laughs”). I feel like there is something poetic about this in its own way, however, and there are moments of inner speculation or confession that turn outwards into a speculation about or study of the world that feel very much aligned with Rimbaud’s writings on a poet’s understanding of the self, such as during the Thanksgiving fast, which starts with Carroll’s confession of his refusal to partake in it and his embarrassment in his own refusal, and ends up with him stating, “Symbolic gestures are certainly self-satisfying but they are not too nourishing for anyone anywhere.” According to Rimbaud, “The Poet makes himself a seer by a long, gigantic and rational derangement of all the senses. All forms of love, suffering, and madness. He searches himself.” To me “The Basketball Diaries” is all about Carroll searching himself and becoming a seer. Perhaps not in search of a final conclusion, but simply an exploration, a “seeing” of his current self and his world as he grows and experiences, making him a true poet by Rimbaud’s standards.
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Carroll would not agree with Rimbaud’s sentiment for morality. He does propose a certain moral code, odd as it may be. An example is when he helps Genie Walsh’s wife get drugs to him in prison. He explains his intentions in the following lines: “… normally I never cop for anyone who ain’t got a habit. This is strictly on moral grounds. But I’m hip to her gig; like what she does is empty the five bags into one for visiting hours with Genie upstate and she kisses the bag into his mouth …” (172). Although he despises authority figures and Catholic morality among other ideals, he does retain a sense of responsibility and morality in his drug dealing. He does not aid anyone’s pursuits of becoming an addict. Furthermore, he is more than “hip” with Walsh’s wife’s act; it is a part of his morality to aid her. She is still hanging onto her husband which involves aiding his habits even when is away. Perhaps the protagonist is invested in the lives of other addicts and does this not so much to help them as to help the people that love them. He is “strict” when it comes to establishing “moral grounds” in this business. He does not go in with disregard, indifference, or malice for those he supplying. In this particular case, he seems more emotionally open to helping this woman than his words suggest.
Rimbaud explains the process of a poet becoming a seer as “a long, gigantic and rational derangement of all the senses. All forms of love, suffering, and madness. He searches himself.” This opposing endeavor of rationality and derangement involves deliberately seeking “love, suffering, and madness” and losing one’s physical and moral senses in the process to truly search oneself. Comparing Carroll’s experience with drugs to this statement gives Rimbaud’s statement a psychedelic calling. An example of Carroll’s more poetic style is his description of jail: “suffice to say that I found a broom closet at the end of my cellblock where I could hide from the ugly screws and filthy cock and sad-eyed forms and learn to love silence … I didn’t become pure on Riker’s Island” (184). His own time for self-exploration proves fruitless. He did not become the pure child that the setting of a small closet suggests his Catholic teachers wanted him to be. He sat in silence, “deranged” of some senses, but still did not become a seer. Carroll expresses all this in just a few words. He references his punishment in Catholic school, his current situation and learning curve for silence, and his continuous efforts to become his version of “pure” among his surroundings. His poetic style lists all the things and people closing him in, details his experience, and ends with a simple line on the results of this experiment.
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Carroll would not agree with Rimbaud’s sentiment for morality. He does propose a certain moral code, odd as it may be. An example is when he helps Genie Walsh’s wife get drugs to him in prison. He explains his intentions in the following lines: “… normally I never cop for anyone who ain’t got a habit. This is strictly on moral grounds. But I’m hip to her gig; like what she does is empty the five bags into one for visiting hours with Genie upstate and she kisses the bag into his mouth …” (172). Although he despises authority figures and Catholic morality among other ideals, he does retain a sense of responsibility and morality in his drug dealing. He does not aid anyone’s pursuits of becoming an addict. Furthermore, he is more than “hip” with Walsh’s wife’s act; it is a part of his morality to aid her. She is still hanging onto her husband which involves aiding his habits even when is away. Perhaps the protagonist is invested in the lives of other addicts and does this not so much to help them as to help the people that love them. He is “strict” when it comes to establishing “moral grounds” in this business. He does not go in with disregard, indifference, or malice for those he supplying. In this particular case, he seems more emotionally open to helping this woman than his words suggest.
Rimbaud explains the process of a poet becoming a seer as “a long, gigantic and rational derangement of all the senses. All forms of love, suffering, and madness. He searches himself.” This opposing endeavor of rationality and derangement involves deliberately seeking “love, suffering, and madness” and losing one’s physical and moral senses in the process to truly search oneself. Comparing Carroll’s experience with drugs to this statement gives Rimbaud’s statement a psychedelic calling. An example of Carroll’s more poetic style is his description of jail: “suffice to say that I found a broom closet at the end of my cellblock where I could hide from the ugly screws and filthy cock and sad-eyed forms and learn to love silence … I didn’t become pure on Riker’s Island” (184). His own time for self-exploration proves fruitless. He did not become the pure child that the setting of a small closet suggests his Catholic teachers wanted him to be. He sat in silence, “deranged” of some senses, but still did not become a seer. Carroll expresses all this in just a few words. He references his punishment in Catholic school, his current situation and learning curve for silence, and his continuous efforts to become his version of “pure” among his surroundings. His poetic style lists all the things and people closing him in, details his experience, and ends with a simple line on the results of this experiment.
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Caroll’s case is as intriguing as Travis’s. There is a common theme throughout the book, that, like Travis, Caroll feels he is the only one seeing the decaying morality around him, as he says when he goes to the bathroom at Grand Central, “No eyebrows raised about it from anyone, fuck, I’m beggining to think I’m the only person in the place that came down for a normal body functions”(109). Again, like Travis his moral code is central to his character, but it seems Caroll is also lost in the depravity of that same moral center. I think we can also directly relate what Rimbaud was talking about in “Letter of the Seer” to Caroll’s diary. Caroll takes on Rimbaud’s fearlessness and loses himself in a world of drugs and sex and debacuchery, all while trying to culitvate his artistic senses which is what Rimnbaud talks about. “He exhausts al poisons in himself and keeps only quintessence.”, this is what Caroll seems to be doing to a large degree. And in the process of providing those around him a picture of ugliness in himself, that, in his mind, is a projection of the ugliness he sees around him, he makes himself the seer that Rimbaud talked about. It’s hard to say whether Carroll would agree with Rimbaud’s statement, “morality is a weakness of the brain”, he has a strong internal moral compass, which is what drives him to behave the way he does. Ultimately, I don’t think he would completely agree with that statement, due to how much depravity he sees in the world that would, in his mind, be linked to a lack of a moral code.
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Although Carroll does not consider himself a poet, he makes himself a seer by “derangement of all the senses” through drugs and neglecting self-care (Rimbaud). He experiences all forms of suffering, from a physical “junk halo now all over” to the feud with his dad to the women troubles that take a toll on his mental health (Carroll, 206). Despite Carroll adamantly being against the war, he seems to have no moral code and would most likely agree that “morality is a weakness of the brain” (Rimbaud). Carroll’s fantasy of “just wanting to whip out a tommy gun and blast away” attests to his poor character and lose morals (Carroll, 149). Although Carroll never kills anyone, normal people who have a moral code do not think about shooting innocent people. In the beginning of the diary, I had attributed his misdeeds to playful adolescent mischief, but as the diary continued and Carroll only worsened I realized that he had no regard for rules or society and was just a selfish drug addict. Carroll does not have the slightest moral code. He goes from Diaper Bandits to robbing people in the park with a knife for junk. As Carroll “exhausts all poisons in himself and keeps only their quintessences” he becomes more of a seer and more of a poet (Rimbaud). One example of Carroll’s poetry was when he leaves Riker Island, “Suffice to say I am finished with the asshole bandits…suffice to say that those swine for guards won’t draw blood from my ankles; suffice to say nobody will hang himself…suffice to say I won’t have to watch anymore fourteen-year-old…suffice to say no black cell-block kings…suffice to say that I spent four hours a day in that closet, I didn’t become pure on Riker’s Island” (Carroll, 184). He relays all the most memorable and significant events that happened on Riker’s Island to the audience through a poem. As the diary continues Carroll’s character worsens. His prolonged depraved actions eventually catch up to him, evidenced by the fact that he becomes more of a seer and poet as his “knowledge of himself” that he is a useless piece of junk become understandable to himself (Rimbaud).
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In the quotation, the saying of “morality is the weakness of brain” tries to summarizes punk mentality, that is, according to Brian James Schill, resulted from and accentuate on the other hand young people’s dissatisfaction/dissolution vis-à-vis western-oriented history narration, failure of the contemporary society and the morality that holds all these things up. This argument reminds me of Jim Carrol’s narration in his basketball diary. In a passage written in the fall 1965, the boy is deeply upset by the ongoing atrocity of the Vietnam war. “[The] war in Nam is sanctioned by the pope who is flawless of course” (145), he ironizes.
However, I personally observe here a great difference between Schill’s description of the group and what the poet actually represents himself to be. Schill argues that the reality somehow pushes the young people into a “a vulgar, self-consciously naive pessimism and contentious repudiation of self, family, God,” which defines the punks as passively shaped by a vague dissatisfaction, despite the reasons that cannot be bigger, a dissatisfaction that has been haunting humans since the time of Nietzsche. However, this argument somehow pushes punk into a stereotyped category of postmodernists, who complain, complain, impotently complain. In Carrol’s document, however, we can see something dynamic or even dramatic that draws a line for these young people from their fathers. Continuing my quotation, Carroll begins to explain why he “[sucks] [himself] oof all day and load up on some good scag and live in a closet” (145). He desperately reaches out for his readers’ sympathy and empathy by addressing them “you,” and he describes, within a meandering sentence, how he finally gets released in his closet yet at the same time deeply plagued by his father, or his Father, because he “[loves] them somehow more or at least always” (145). This kind of dramatic tension cannot be seen clearly in Schill’s generalization.
He links with Rimbaud, I think, majorly by his amazing and visionary depiction of the drug effects, enacted on his own body (187). This type of self-experimentation and visionary mission link him to his ancestor, though I think Rimbaud’s image transfigures a lot in the united states, compared to how he is understood in France.
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It seems that Carroll’s moral core is different than Travis’s, but shaped by a similar society. Travis in Taxi Driver says “I believe that one shouldn’t devote one’s life to morbid self-absorption,” yet throughout the movie seems to live in this paradox of self absorption and attempting to be selfless. He seems to simultaneously reject and embrace the immorality and violence around him: “Every night I return to the car to the garage, I have to clean the cum off the back seat. Some nights I clean off the blood.” Surrounded by a society of violence and sex, Travis seems to live a paradoxical morality of rejection and embrace. Carroll lives in a similar society of drugs, violence, and sex, but his resulting morality seems not one of paradox but one of lack, best described by himself: “I didn’t really think, I didn’t even take my sneakers off, I just jumped into this jerky dream that lasted all the way down until I hit the bottom” (99). As opposed to Travis, Carroll doesn’t seem to think. His morality seems to be a decaying structure, existing but never utilized actively. It does make itself known at certain points in the story, when he seems to reject certain things due to moral standards, but for the most part, he seems to not put any thought into his actions. We see this in the diaries as his narration focuses on what his body does and feels instead of how he thinks, an example being “With Al’s lip pouring with blood, we decided to fuck the last book and pool our earnings for a spoon of cocaine.” Whereas Rimbaud references that “one must be a seer, make oneself a seer,” Carroll’s eyes seem to not be focused on anything, let alone himself. Rimbaud claims “The first study of a man who wants to be a poet is the knowledge of himself, complete… as soon as he knows it, he must cultivate it.” While Carroll seems entrenched in poetry and literature, his every day seems thoughtless and apathetic, immune to the world around him. He seems to have innate morality, but the structure is decaying without any use on the daily.
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There is definitely a relationship between Carroll’s The Basketball Diaries and Rimbaud’s “Letter of the Seer’. Specifically I believe Carroll would agree with Rimbaud’s line that “the poet is truly the thief of fire” and the paragraph on a poet’s responsibilities that follow. Jim’s whole acting out seems as though he is one of the “weak people” being described in the letter who descends into “madness”. Yet it is the realization of responsibility that ultimately gives Carroll the ambition to “march forward in progress” and become “multiplier of progress”. Essentially Carroll gains the vision that Rimbeuad describes in his letter, a characteristic that seems to me as a necessity that should be honed by poets entering a more and more “materialistic world”. I would say that while Taxi Driver shares in this whole concept of moral core, there are many differences in that Travis always tries to change what is around him yet never truly dives deep within himself. Yet Jim has more of a self-realization feel to me especially seeing him go through the process of ultimately doing away with drugs to focus on creating art in the form of writing. In that sense, I believe that Jim fits more in line with Rimbeudian principle in that the young teen is becoming a “seer” in a sense throughout the novel. As stated above Jim goes through the film exploring himself which fits perfectly with Rimbeud’s line that “the Poet makes himself a seer by a long, gigantic and rational derangement of all the senses.” Jim definitely partakes in this path throughout the film as he experiences almost “all forms of love, suffering, and madness.”
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You really have to quote from the book that you are writing about.
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Jim Carroll tells the story of a junkie that loses both his passion for basketball and “moral code” in exchange for drug addiction. Unlike Rimbaud’s “Letter of the Seer,” “The Basketball Diaries” is not very poetic in its writing style, but rather focuses more on slang and grammar that helps to properly convey the mood of the novel — which is that of a junkie that must hide his deviant acts whilst simultaneously portraying himself as a proper Catholic basketball player. In the book, Jim Carroll states, “To sit in this awful mess and maybe smoke some dope and watch some innocuous shit on a dumb glass tube and feel fine about it and know there’s really nothing you have to do, ever, but feel your warm friend’s silent content. You don’t feel guilty about not fighting a war or carrying signs to protest it either. We’ve just mastered the life of doing nothing, which when you think about it, may be the hardest thing of all to do.” This quotation can perhaps lead one to believe that unlike Rimbaud, whom used his poetry as a way of protesting against socialization, Carroll did not seem to really care about such a cause simply because it did not harm his way of life, nor did it affect him in any way. Rimbaud believed, to some extent, that poets had a responsibility to be a leader of progress, “The poet would define the amount of the unknown awakening in his time the universal soul: he would give more — than the formulation of his thought, than the annotation of his march toward Progress! Enormity becoming normal, absorbed by all, he would really be a multiplier of progress!” Both Rimbaud and Travis Bickle have a “moral code” in which they feel, or take it upon themselves, to right the wrong they see. Carrol does no such thing and instead focuses on himself, even though he does acknowledge the wrongs of society — its leaders, rules, wars, “My mind went with it, something all you bald head generals and wheelchair senators could never imagine.” His form of protesting is mainly in self-thoughts.
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There are several similar themes between Rimbaud’s “Letter of the Seer” and Carroll’s The Basketball Diaries. Namely, both of these works argue against a standard morality in search of a more pure, real experience. In “Letter of the Seer”, Rimbaud argues that a true poet “looks for his soul, inspects it, tests it, learns it. As soon as he knows it, he must cultivate it!” (Rimbaud, 2); or, in other words, “the soul must be made monstrous” (Rimbaud, 2). This cultivation is done by “a long, gigantic and rational derangement of all the senses” (Rimbaud, 2). This “derangement” can be seen as the type of vulgar behavior that Jim Carroll describes in his novel. Through everything from his story of masturbating on the roof (Carroll, 42) to prostituting himself for drug money (Carroll, 104), Carroll’s honest portrayal of his early life acts as a demonstration of Rimbaud’s ideas by destroying the standard image of a rock star/poet/pop icon and replacing it with an image that refuses to adhere to traditional morality.
Carroll does seem to have something of a “moral core” in The Basketball Diaries. Throughout the story, Carroll seems to be very “anti-establishment”. Carroll refuses to adhere to any sort of traditional moral code and stubbornly. He refuses to give up his bad habits; he detests the inauthenticity of the church (25-26); he expresses anti-war sentiments (99-100. Carroll’s “morality” seems to be centered around trying to find a sense of authenticity in spite of the establishments around him that refuse to accept him. Despite all of his drug use, prostitution, and vulgar activities, Carroll’s simply “just [wants] to be pure. . .” (Carroll, 210).
The scene where Carroll describes masturbating on the roof (42-43) probably stuck out the most to me. There’s something poetic about the scene itself, and Carroll’s mix of “poetic” and “vulgar” language in this section (i.e. “[I] stare into the star machine and jerk myself off”) and throughout the book are really captivating. I also thought that the narrative and character voices Carroll used were very poetic. For example, the junkie’s story on page 103 has a unique aural quality. Similarly, another of my favorite passages is Carroll’s description of getting in STD (120). There’s just something disgustingly poetic in the way that Carroll describes his experience with gonorrhea.
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Both Rimbaud and Carrol use their words and impressive literary skills to illustrate their frustrations with the past generations and their disappointment with the trajectory of their current one. Rimbaud in the “Letter of the Seer” describes a poet as someone who “looks for his soul, inspects it, tests it, learns it,” and when the soul is made “monstrous” is when someone becomes a true author. The Basketball Diaries follows the story of a young boy who addresses society’s shortcomings by becoming exactly what society fears; a successful basketball player who turns outlaw, takes heroin, steals, and sells his body.
Like Rimbaud, Carroll seems to be consumed by the decay and disappointment of the world around him and begins to use an alternative, rather drastic means to illustrate what needs to be changed.
Rimbaud claims that “verses and lyres give rhythm to Action.” Caroll embodies these ideas of the thorough exploration of the self through poetry as a means of sparking action for betterment within the community around them. Carrol says to have “these diaries that have the greatest hero a writer needs, this crazy fucking New York.” His examination of himself within the craziness of his environment is going to “wake a lot of dudes off their asses and let them know what is really going on…” (159). Although both of these writers’ moral cores may not align with the majority of society, their actions are driven by a desire to improve the world around them.
However, I do believe that in some sense both of these writers believe that morality is a weakness of the brain. While Carrol’s intentions have moral foundations, he achieves these through a lack of morality. His self-exploration would not have been as profound if he had not been able to share his immoral aspects. Both poets utilize a “long and rational derangement of all the senses” to turn their “immoral” aspects into calls for action. The good and the bad is necessary for these authors to express their impactful calls for change.
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Carroll’s entry that begins on 126 where he recounts the War’s legacy on his upbringing and his outlook on life is reminiscent of Rimbaud’s criticism of romanticism in Letter of the Seer. Carroll sprinkles little jibes about the narrator’s long hair, but the reasoning becomes acute in this passage. The conflict with his hair becomes generational when he describes his “old man and the rest are calling me a creep and saying it’s all some commie who brainwashed us all,” when in reality Carroll could care less about this boogieman ideology the older generation assigns to him (126). His disillusionment stems from childhood fear in air raids and nuclear holocaust. His sentiment reflects Rimbaud’s stance on the evolution of poetry, where “reason inspires [him] with more enthusiasm on the subject than a Young France
would have with rage,” that being for Carroll the need to turn off the military industrial complex is pragmatic, and it is for him the logical steps towards securing his own survival (Seer). The whole narrative is dripping with fear of where you can hear Carroll’s moral compass ticking just out of sight, hanging on his words with apprehension and perhaps only a morsel of remorse.
Despite the grim subtext of this novel and the facets of life it portrays, Carroll’s narration is not hung up with grim seriousness; It takes visceral joy in the simple pleasures and buoys itself through the rougher parts of the diary. This specific entry is Buelleresque in its disregard for everything the parent generations represent. Carroll spells out the simplicity of this dynamic in the ending address of this passage: “The Russians are drags too, you’re all old men drags, scheming governments of death and blinding white hair” (127). The passage as a whole is poetic, but this particular sentence drives so much emotion and perspective that is definitely one of the highlights of the novel.
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After reading The Basketball Diaries and reflecting on Carroll’s moral scope, I find it difficult to pinpoint his “moral core” due mostly to his youth and supposed lack of experience. The writing style and content of The Basketball Diaries reminded of J.D. Salinger’s A Catcher in the Rye from similar plights in prep school to emblematic New York grime. In this sense, Carroll’s narration, like Salingers, was somewhat formulaic and progressive—each moment building off the next linearly. The tone is youthful and wary but distinctly wise. With this in mind, judging Carroll’s morality proved tricky. Moral clarity and concreteness require fickle and conscientious awareness. Having a moral core—in the typically accepted definition—demands a level of maturity and experience that I don’t see Carroll possessing at this point in his life. Here, one could argue that Carroll believes “morality is a weakness of the brain” considering he exhibits behavior not typically classified as moral (ie. drugs, flashing people, fighting people, etc) but morality is so much more nuanced than that. One minor moment of tricky morality I noted in Carroll was when he noted the economic disparity between him and his fellow prep school classmates saying, “I can’t make out these private school dudes. Here they are with the richest parents around New York and I can’t even lay down my pants in the locker room to take a shower without one of these cats riffling my pockets.” After this point, he proceeds to scavage the wrestling team’s lockers and make back what money he’s missing. Here is where morality puzzles me. On one hand, it’s easy to say Carroll acted immorally merely because he stole. On the other hand, he stole from the rich and he stole from those who steal from him, so it also nods to moral behavior. There appears to be a moral way of acting immorally. Rimbaud remarks that “the man who wants to be a poet” must first study himself and “look,” “inspect,” “test,” and “learn” one’s soul. I see the notion being applied to morality as well. There requires a sense of knowledge in order to act consciously. Carroll is aware that his choice to steal from his classmates is “immoral” but since he is also aware that they are at an economic advantage and have stolen before, his immorality is lessened, if not lost. While Carroll isn’t the most mature character, his exposure to various types of people, places, and experiences create a nuanced version of morality he follows.
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In The Basketball Diaries, Carroll is more related to a moral core than actual idea that “Morality is a weakness of the brain.” Throughout the novel Carroll follows certain beliefs whether it be with drugs, girls or the people who hold authourity, in order to stay high without addiction, have sex with girls who are seemingly willing and stay out of trouble with the cops. Carroll uses the diary in order to express feelings that he would not say out loud, as he documents his adventures he maintains his moral core or code by choosing what goes in and what stays out. Carroll says, “But I dont want to souk my diary with a description of that” (56). Carroll refers to writing about Alice urinating. Ironically he mentions the lengths of penises, objectifies women, and pedophiles as if that does not “soil his diary.” Carroll’s decision to omit something as natural as peeing, though unusual shows his immaturity and naivety. In relation to Rimbaud, Carroll shares the same idea of needing to understand oneself in order to be a poet. Rimbaud writes, “The first study of the man who wants to be a poet is the knowledge of himself, complete. He looks for
his soul, inspects it, tests it, learns it…All forms of love, suffering, and madness. He searches himself. He exhausts all poisons in himself and keeps only their quintessences.” Though Carrolls blunt and uncensored records of his youth he allows himself to be a poet by definition of Rimbaud. He explores himself and experiments with drugs, girls and even how far he can get without being involved with the police. Through Carroll’s narration he records himself in multiple experiences in which he discovers moments about himself and how he manages to get by certain situations. In one memory he recalls not eating in order to be in alliance with starving men in Mississippi. Carroll says, “Symbolic gestures are certainly self-satisfying but they are not too nourishing for anyone anywhere.” (71). In this moment Carroll highlights the meaning of selfish motivations. Carroll does not really care about the starving men and he realizes that by not eating his food he is given it does not automatically give food to the hungry. Through his small part of suffering, Carroll learns more about himself and how the world works. He learns how others would rather throw away what they have, instead of actually change something for the better. Overall through Carroll’s narrative he learns about himself and through his documentation the reader can see how his progression allows him to “look for his soul, inspect it, test, and learn it.”
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I think Carroll would disagree with the sentiment that “Morality is a weakness of the brain.” He shows signs of moral principle at most unexpected points in the narrative, which reinforce his principle’s authenticity despite its lack of consistency. For the most part, he applies his sense of right and wrong to everything but himself. Examples of this are when thinks through the futility of his school’s Thanksgiving fast, and when he expresses a thought-out perspective on religion in talking to a little girl. We’re also told that, as a child, he vowed to never get on heroin. This shows that, more than lacking a moral core, he increasingly dissociates himself from the same, while continuing to deploy it on the events and objects he observes around him. The book’s last sentence “I just want to be pure …” bring about a reunification of Carroll and his moral core, and dispel any possibilities that Carroll may believe “Morality is a weakness of the brain.”
Rimbaud’s idea of the “rational derangement of all the senses” as an artistic method would likely resonate with Carroll, as the more hopped up he gets, the more he finds himself wishing to “finish the poems breaking loose in (his) head.” Also, the fact that, while writing, he “just get the images from the upstairs vault” positions him as a seer. But the aforementioned final sentence of the book is at direct odds with Rimbaud’s assertion that “the soul must be made monstrous.” While he does make his soul “monstrous” by corrupting himself with substance abuse (and arguably sex) at a young age, Carroll doesn’t use with the primary purpose of improving his art or pushing artistic boundaries. He’s a kid, and his motives are more hedonistic and compulsive, and less complex than that.
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“I think of poetry and how I see it as just a raw black of stone ready to be shaped, that way words are never a horrible limit to me, just to shape.” This quote by Jim Carroll in The Basketball Diaries goes hand in hand with Rimbaud’s “Letter of the Seer.” Rimbaud’s ideas on an artist coming to terms with the “unknown” and being the “unknown” himself is highlighted by Carroll through this quote, where describing poetry as a “black stone” not only makes it sound unknown but also dark and mysterious (because of the color black). When Rimbaud states “The first study of a man who wants to be a poet is his self-knowledge, complete; he looks for his own soul, he inspects it, he tests it, learns it. As soon as he knows it, he must cultivate it,” he emphasizes on the idea of how every poet has the necessary knowledge and resources to concoct poetry or any art form; the capability is to be able to use that knowledge to shape a product. I don’t think that Carroll would agree with the sentiment “Morality is a weakness of the brain” because he never use immoral means to perform a moral act, which is what Travis did in Taxi Driver. Although Carroll was addicted to drugs, he worked himself and despite being cynical and pessimistic towards those around him (especially the world), he believed in peace and love, “I just wanna be pure, I just wanna be pure.” Overall, I think that the desperation and addiction to drugs made him look at the world and its inhabitants, including stars like the sun, as monsters, he did carry a sense of morality and hope for himself and those around him.
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The “Letter of the Seer” by Rimbaud, claims that a poet studies their mind, and, in turn, is able to see the whole truth of the world, if “he exhausts all poisons in himself and keeps only their quintessences” (2). Rimbaud philosophizes that a poet is superior to society, since their lens allows them to see the veracity of the world. I believe that this view in writing differs form Jim Carroll’s ‘The Basketball Diaries,’ since, throughout the narration, the main character embodies a sense of knowledge and awareness of his conditions through vulnerably reflecting upon his situations. As he gains an addiction, he gains an introspective sense of the community and people surrounding him, which, compared to Rimbaud, is not entitled. At the end of book, he has to steal from others in order to pay for his habit; he details the intimidating front he had to keep in order to pickpocket from a man in the park, as “it helps cover up the sound of [his] two knee caps chattering against each other” (202). Carroll understands that this facade is what gives him the ability to steal, and that his core still possesses the values embedded within him from his upbringing. Through Carroll’s poetic words, one is able to understand the innocence of his mind, because his words are so simple, yet so genuine. Therefore, much like Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, he has a ‘moral core’ that allows him to check into reality, even though their minds have been depleted, from drugs and insomnia. I believe that Rimbaud believes that “Morality is a weakness of the brain,” since his subversive style used extremes to capture the essence of his radical views. Yet, Carroll’s biographical book tackles progressive content through honest introspective commentary on the life of a young boy coming of age within a rebellious counter-culture. His harsh tone comes from the telling of his hardships, as he is not compelled to express extremes, in order to resonate with an audience; his audience already will listen.
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The Basketball Diaries is presented as a bombardment of thoughts and memories splashed all across different pages organized into diary entries. Carroll’s entries are not necessarily poems, but through his work, one can see who he truly is through his artistic style, attention to detail, and his multifaceted quotes that gave his book so many layers. However, though we get an account of the type of person he is during this period of his life, his narration is almost self enlightening as his mental growth and rational changes over time giving parallel to some of the key concepts that Rambaud tries to highlight in the “Letter of the Seer” like, “The first study of the man who wants to be a poet is the knowledge of himself, complete. He looks for his soul, inspects it, tests it, learns it.” (Rambaud, “Letter of the Seer”) Throughout the novel, Carroll explores different aspects of his life like, “…all forms of love, suffering, and madness. He searches himself…,” (Rambaud, “Letter of the Seer”) and through his entries, outlines memorable encounters that have led him to become the man he grew up to be. Carroll would definitely agree that “Morality is the weakness of the brain” because he grew up following the crowd that never followed the rules, and always questioned some type of authority. On the other hand, he does crave to be a man with high morals, but it is not in his nature to follow that way of life. To him, having a sense of morality would be the same exact thing as dying because any sense of exhilaration and freedom he has ever had has been in a moment where there were no rules and limitations. For example, when Carroll decides to secretly masturbate outside on the roof of his complex when he says, “…I guess it has to do with the incredible sexiness of the whole thing, the idea that someone else might pop through the roof floor and snag you any second, the possibility of being caught in a situation where there is no possibility of explaining yourself is what is the real turn on…” (Carroll, pp. 42) indicating the amount of lengths his younger self would go to pursue a high that only served him well when he was well under stress to get caught. He didn’t hate the system, but he never supported it either. He became a product of his environment and hated oppressive institutions that are, “fucking up minds they do not own…” (Carroll, pp. 25) viewing them as falsehoods and seeing morality as a facade that be put up to hide their hypocrisy like the queer teacher that assaulted his students by punishing them for pleasure all the while being “men of God”.
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The Basketball Diaries is presented as a bombardment of thoughts and memories splashed all across different pages organized into diary entries. Carroll’s entries are not necessarily poems, but through his work, one can see who he truly is through his artistic style, attention to detail, and his multifaceted quotes that gave his book so many layers. However, though we get an account of the type of person he is during this period of his life, his narration is almost self enlightening as his mental growth and rational changes over time giving parallel to some of the key concepts that Rambaud tries to highlight in the “Letter of the Seer” like, “The first study of the man who wants to be a poet is the knowledge of himself, complete. He looks for his soul, inspects it, tests it, learns it.” (Rambaud, “Letter of the Seer”) Throughout the novel, Carroll explores different aspects of his life like, “…all forms of love, suffering, and madness. He searches himself…,” (Rambaud, “Letter of the Seer”) and through his entries, outlines memorable encounters that have led him to become the man he grew up to be. Carroll would definitely agree that “Morality is the weakness of the brain” because he grew up following the crowd that never followed the rules, and always questioned some type of authority. On the other hand, he does crave to be a man with high morals, but it is not in his nature to follow that way of life. To him, having a sense of morality would be the same exact thing as dying because any sense of exhilaration and freedom he has ever had has been in a moment where there were no rules and limitations. For example, when Carroll decides to secretly masturbate outside on the roof of his complex when he says, “…I guess it has to do with the incredible sexiness of the whole thing, the idea that someone else might pop through the roof floor and snag you any second, the possibility of being caught in a situation where there is no possibility of explaining yourself is what is the real turn on…” (Carroll, pp. 42) indicating the amount of lengths his younger self would go to pursue a high that only served him well when he was well under stress to get caught. He didn’t hate the system, but he never supported it either. He became a product of his environment and hated oppressive institutions that are, “fucking up minds they do not own…” (Carroll, pp. 25) viewing them as falsehoods and seeing morality as a facade that be put up to hide their hypocracy like the queer teacher that assaulted his students by punishing them for pleasure all the while being “men of God”.
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Jim Carroll’s The Basketball Diaries is modeled after Rimbaud’s psychoanalytical style signaled by the novel’s progression into a loose bildungsroman, and exploration into the portrait of a young poet. Rimbaud admired the vision associated with youth, and children’s ability to speak directly from their consciousness. In “The Letter of the Seer,” he states, “[The poet] searches himself. He exhausts all poisons in himself and keeps only their quintessences. Unspeakable torture where he needs all his faith, all his super-human strength, where he becomes among all men the great patient, the great criminal, the one accursed—and the supreme Scholar!—Because he reaches the unknown!” Carroll’s novel does exactly that by compiling diary entries that tap into his youthful rebellion and belief that society had been damned long before he was born. In reference to the quote, Carroll fulfill the standards of a poet, and reaches into his “super-human” consciousness that is able to see the world for what it truly is– a tragedy. He discusses his moral compass throughout the novel, exposing his anti-war beliefs, and revealing that his perception was morphed by the corruption and melancholy that he witnessed beginning at the age of 12. This leaves the reader conflicted, as it becomes clear that Carroll seemingly does not know better. He fell victim to ignorance, exemplified by his poor sexual health and inability to differentiate the drugs he consumed. He states, “I took my first shot of heroin… I only found out later what a dumbass move it was. Funny, I can remember vows I’d made never to touch any of that shit when I was five or six. Now with all my friends doing it, all kinds of vows drop out from under me everyday” (30). The narrator acknowledges that with each passing day he loses more of his sanity, and his values have shifted significantly because of those around him. With a weak sense of identity and ethics, his life was terribly difficult and challenged him as an individual searching for their place in the social scheme.
(Thank you, for the extra day)!
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In Rimbaud’s “Letter of the Seer”, he writes that “the first study of the man who wants to be a poet is the knowledge of himself, complete. He looks for his soul, inspect it, tests it, learns it…” This concept can be seen in “The Basketball Diaries” as through his entries, Carroll is constantly searching himself and learning more about his relation to the world in this process. Through many of the entries we get this sense that Carroll believes he is invincible, but when his is confronted with the death of his friend, Bob, who had died of leukemia, it forces him to think about mortality as something more concrete. We notice this in Carroll’s description of Bobby’s body at the funeral, “…he looked sixty years old and he was sixteen…It was like having the skeleton of someone you know put in front of you. I felt dazed in the streets, like I had just come out of a four hour movie I couldn’t understand. I thought about that face all night, and death”(Track 2 13:51). This passage highlights Carroll’s writing style and can be related back to Rimbaud since this is a clear moment where Carroll is learning more about who he is as a person and how he acts in different scenarios. I don’t think that Carroll would agree with the idea that “Morality is a weakness of the brain” because there are moments in this book that seem to suggest otherwise. When asked if he supports the war by a freckled face girl in the park, he voices his opposition and when religion is mentioned, he asks the girl, “Well, did you ever read about Christ killing or using a gun?” (Track 2 35:31). Carroll views the war as unethical, and I don’t believe he sees this as a personal weakness. Figuring out where the lines are drawn for his moral code are complicated, especially looking at his patterns of sexual encounters with women. There are multiple moments in the novel where Carroll denies sexual advances or completely removes himself from situations, calling attention to his ‘innocence’. At one point, he and his friend, Willy, leave two girls with some other guys on a beach to shoot hoops instead. There is a moment on a subway where he describes a woman who is “…tossing this spread toward me so wide, I can see her powdered blue panties. What do these faces want out of me? Finally I got up and went over to her and asked her if she could please close her legs, I am barely 15 years old and it’s distracting and frankly, lude. Then I went over and sat down again”(Track 2 40:25). Even later, he stops a woman who is about to go down on him, and as he leaves says “What about my innocence?” (T4 7:21). Though there are many other moments in the novel where Carroll engages in sexual activities, including a moment where he is spying on another girl, his denial of these three scenarios leads me to believe that there is some moral compass working, although how specifically, I am not quite sure.
(Citations are referencing the audiobook).
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While reading Carroll, I found that he emulated Rimbaud in ways pertaining to nostalgia and contemplation. Within the “Letter of the Seer”, Rimbaud states, “All ancient poetry ended in Greek poetry, harmonious life”. I get the feeling from both Carroll and Rimbaud that they yearned to be a part of the past. Rimbaud, a past that he hasn’t experienced, and Carroll, the past within his own life. This is harder to prove within the context of The Basketball Diaries because Carroll was so young, however, I got these feelings through his newer poetry and lyrics. Many of his songs incorporate people that have died and left eternal legacies, plaguing him with the inability to truly understand their inner workings.
I genuinely believe that Carroll has a “moral core” within him, even though it is difficult to find during the diaries. However, after watching him reflect upon his times playing basketball, I feel as though playing the sport was what held any fragment of morality to his life. Even though the majority of the entries are riddled with drugs, sex, and pure nihilism, readers aren’t clued in to the necessary time and dedication to basketball that must have been interspersed within these self-deprecating activities. I believe that Carroll used basketball as a way to gain confidence and a sense of identity. We can see this during “WINTER 65” when he states, “If you never do anything to make yourself seen…like really seen, the type that makes people point, then you don’t deserve to be seen at all. That’s my theory, and not only on a basketball court, to look good while you’re doing it is just as important as doing it good and combine both and you’ve got it made” (Carroll 89). The main difference between Carroll and someone like Burroughs, is that Carroll wants to be seen in a positive light by others. Even though this is a deranged way to necessitate morality, it works for Carroll.
The greatest thing about The Basketball Diaries is its form. It’s almost a collage of Burroughs, O’Hara, and Rimbaud in one place. I really do think that the form of prose serves the content of this novel well because it feels a lot more effortless than some of his later poetry. I’ve found that the most poetic scenes are pertaining to sexual encounters, especially masturbating. Carroll presents his drug use nonchalantly, as if there’s absolutely nothing euphoric about it. However, when he talks about sexual instances, he adds an element of imagery that is unmatched throughout the rest of the entries. He states, “My feet bare against the tar which is soft from the summer heat, the slight breeze that runs across your entire body…” (Carroll 42). This sentence could most easily be separated into line breaks to emulate poetry, however, it looks and feels so effortless in prose.
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In terms of Rimbaud’s declaration that a poet should partake in “derangement of all the senses… [exhaust] all poisons in himself and [keep] only their quintessences,” I think Carroll succeeds in the Basketball Diaries in carrying on Rimbaud’s ideas. He also uses all manner of substances and poisons, and seems to take from them the material he needs to fill his diary. He seems to fully know himself — or attempts to — as Rimbaud suggests, and his entries run the gambit from tragic to sexual. He talks about a friend’s funeral on page 27, saying that “if you wanted to you said a prayer. If you didn’t want to I guess you just stood and felt shitty about everything.” I thought this was a beautiful, concise statement of grief. Carroll’s entries don’t linger on grief, but simply address it and move on, and I found those small lines to be very impactful.
I feel that Carroll would have agreed with Rimbaud’s statement that “morality is a weakness of the brain.” He seems to mistrust authority and adults in power at best, and especially religion. He rails against religion time and again, whether he’s calling out pedophile priests or simply ranting about his school. He prostitutes himself, sleeps around with people of all ages, steals cases of alcohol from the VFW, lies to his mother about his report card. It seems that Jim is really only concerned with looking out for himself in a tough environment. At the same time, however, the poem he wrote (and recalls in the diary’s last line) points to, perhaps, a desire to regain a sense of morality, or to go back to a time before he felt corrupted. “I just want to be pure…” Carroll says. The implication seems to be that he isn’t. He’s largely amoral, but some part of him sees the value in morality.
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