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I'm in love with another Jack! Jack Kerouac's "On the Road"
Front-Ranger:
Who was Jack Kerouac? He was actually born Jean-Louis Kerouac in Lowell, Massachusetts, on March 12, 1922. His most famous book, On the Road, was written in April, 1951, in Denver, Colorado. Here is an early quote from the book that reminded me of my dear Brokie friends:
“…the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everyone goes 'Awww!' "
Today I finally got to see the famous scroll of On the Road in person. It's a 120-ft roll of paper containing the 175,000 words of the manuscript. Because he was a fast typist, further fueled by coffee, Kerouac used Chinese calligraphy paper rolled into his typewriter so he wouldn't have to break his chain of thought while writing. Think what he could do if he'd had the Internet then!!
Front-Ranger:
The novel begins with nonstop descriptions of Jack's new friend, Dean Moriarty, who is a thinly veiled version of Neal Cassady. Dean has arrived in New York with his new wife Marylou and goes to work in a parking lot. But he soon dumps Marylou for...Jack! He shows up at Jack's doorstop one evening, wanting to be taught how to write. Some quotes:
“His dirty workclothes clung to him so gracefully, as though you couldn’t buy a better fit from a custom tailor but only earn it from the Natural Tailor of Natural Joy.”
“All my other current friends were intellectuals….But Dean’s intelligence was every bit as formal and shining and complete, without the tedious intellectualness. And his ‘criminality’ was not something that sulked and sneered; it was a wild yea-saying overburst of American joy; it was Western, the west wind, an ode from the Plains, something new, long prophesied, long a-coming (he only stole cars for joy-rides).”
Front-Ranger:
Jack really knows how to begin a story with a bang! He introduces the magnetic character of Dean and then withdraws him just as suddenly. Just as we're getting to know Dean and becoming intrigued with him, he disappears off to Denver, along with characters resembling William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, and Jack is now hitchhiking west to meet up with them again.
Here's a photo of Jack and Neal Cassady:
Front-Ranger:
Here is a photo of the scroll:
It is 120-something ft long with about 175,000 words. It was written over a 20-day period in 1951 in Denver, Colorado. As you can see, Kerouac did not put in any paragraph breaks. These were added later. I read that he had to retype the whole thing in manuscript form in order to get it published. The book was not published until 1957.
Front-Ranger:
There were many detours on the way to Colorado. One of them happened when Jack (renamed Sal in the story) and his travelling companion decided to pursure two girls near the Colorado border. They spent an evening with them, and spent all their money. Sal took the girl to a bus staton where she planned to leave the state and go to New York. 'There ain't no flowers there,' I said. 'I want to go to New York, I'm sick and tired of this. Ain't no place to go but Cheyenne and ain't nothing in Cheyenne.' 'Ain't nothing in New York.' 'Hell there ain't,' she said with a curl of her lips."
"I fell asleep for two delicioius hours, the only discomfort being an occasional Colorado ant. And here I am in Colorado! I kept thinking gleefully. Damn! Damn! damn! I'm making it! And after a refreshing sleep filled with cobwebby dreams of my past life in the East I ... got me a rich thick milkshake at the roadhouse to put some freeze in my hot, tormented stomach."
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