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TristessaTristessa is a short novel by Beat Generation http://www.rooknet.com/beatpage/index.html writer Jack Kerouac set in Mexico City. It is based on his relationship with a Mexican prostitute (the title character). The woman's real name was Esperanza ("hope" in Spanish); Kerouac changed her name to Tristessa ("tristeza" means sadness in Spanish) Allen Ginsberg, in describing the book, wrote, "Tristessa's a narrative meditation studying a hen, a rooster, a dove, a cat, a dog, family meat, and a ravishing, ravished junky lady'. In "Tristessa", Kerouac attempts to sketch for the reader a picture of quiet transcendence in hectic and sometimes dangerous circumstances. He chronicles her addiction to morphine and impovershed life with descriptions tinged with elements of her saintly beauty and her innocence. Early in the novel, Kerouac attempts to communicate his Buddhist beliefs. These beliefs become entangled as a metaphor in the unfamiliar culture and language that Kerouac tries to grasp and make contact with in the story. Tristessa says How is Jack,? She always asks: Why are you so sad??Muy dolorosa and as though to mean You are very full of pain, for pain means dolor"I am sad because all la vida es dolorosa, I keep replying, hoping to teach her Number One of the Four Great Truths,Besides, what could be truer? The contrast between the initial reaction that the reader may have of the impoverished, marginalized life of Tristessa and the self-destructive nature of her addiction contrast with the found-beauty of Kerouac's descriptions. Kerouac's friend and fellow Beat writer William Burroughs also appears as a character in "Tristessa".
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