A mystic boob?

Hunter Thompson called him a mystic boob, but Jack Kerouac goes on haunting American literature. If we regard Thompson’s term as a prism we have to ask if he considered it a given that mysticism, and by extension hermeticism is boobery or did he mean Kerouac’s particular sort of mysticism is boobery? If he meant to disparage the whole of the hermetic tradition by also disparaging Kerouac his premise becomes too problematic to carry much weight. His gonzo style was so celebrated that it eluded a great deal of scrutiny, just as Kerouac’s did. Not infrequently a writer’s persona and/or foofaraw surrounding the writer’s work obscures the work itself. This was certainly true of James Joyce’s Ulysses, which is still discussed by people who haven’t read it. It is even more true of Finnegan’s Wake, a work that can hardly be overestimated for its influence on literature.