Re: On The Road - Scroll Edition

On Aug 26, 5:37 pm, TIM...@xxxxxxx (Tim Herrick) wrote:
It's been years since I read On The Road, and by years I mean of course
decades and by decades of course I mean more than two. I am in the middle of
reading The Scroll Edition of On The Road. Now, I can't say it's great or better
than the original, published version-although who doesn't love saying
original meaning the published, edited, and from what I gather is the third draft
and calling the scroll version the new version, when in fact it is the
original.
I've been a Kerouac fan well, ever since I was a kid. I was already a reader
and as a pre and early teen, like a lot of folks of my generation, went from
JRR Tolkien and Ray Bradbury and Robert Heinlein to the Beats and beyond.
The Beats really introduced us to literature, and even though teachers tried
with say, Emily Dickenson, you really had to discover stuff outside of the class
room. So, my sister, six years older than me, came home from her freshman
year of college with the books of the modern lit course, so along with The
Trial, Herman Hess, was ON THE ROAD. I was hooked, course the Bob Dylan and
Grateful Dead and Patti Smith records helped. Before the end of High School, I had
read everything by Kerouac, not to mention Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and most
of Burroughs. And I would continue re-reading them for several years.
Course, the trouble is, you read other stuff too. Raymond Carver, for
instance, or Charles Bukowski or Mary Gaitskill. Denis Johnson. And it's not just
contemporaries. But 20th and 19th century, European and American. Philosophy
(got a useless degree in that!), and on and on.
Harold Bloom says reading is about one thing, the discovery of self. That's
paraphrased badly. In many ways, every book you read you read every book you
ever read. Or will read. With Kerouac, besides all the fun, crazy, mad ones
stories, as you go through his oeuvre, he drops a lot of names, like Rimbaud
or Spotted Horses by Faulkner in the Subterraneans, so he gives one a lot to
read.
But, as the years went on, I grew apart from Kerouac, particularly the On
The Road and other Beat novels. I hate to travel and I hate to drive, so that
helped. I always had a fondness, and would re-read on occasion, Visions of
Gerard, a lesser known work about his older brother who died in childhood but
before he did had semi-documented holy apportions. Real Catholic book.
The worst thing you can do to Kerouac is re-read him when you're 35 I read
once in some brit novel. But, there are other books. And if you're a reader,
while we may read different books, exclaim others and disclaim others, there
seems to be some things to agree on. One is re-reading, and anyone who has
made the effort to re-read Moby *** or The Great Gatsby in their 30s or 40s
knows the delight I am talking about. The new discoveries. Another reading
pleasure is unknown to you works by an author you like (Israel Potter). But,
another pleasure, is reading more difficult to read material, like scripture or
Shakespeare or older material. I try to read Shakespeare every year,
particularly the plays I don't know (King John), I've also read some ancient material,
like Euripides and Botheus. Or some real whacked out material, like the "
memoir" of Jefferson Davies. Anyway, I like to read, I hate television, and I
always felt you have to read everything. Or try, right. Contemporary novels,
pulp fiction like Stephen king, old stuff, and on and on. Biographies. History.
I like reading Civil War Histories.
Anyway, back to the scroll edition. I'm older than 35 and it always seemed
to me that Kerouac was more interested in spiritual matters than partying.
And, Kerouac and the beats have been so dismissed by many contemporary writers
and such, perhaps starting with Carver, that you know, that in itself makes
him worth of a rediscovery. Pendulum swings back. Or Something. And of course,
Dylan raving about Kerouac as early inspiration, quoting from memory, on NDH.

So, I am reading and the scroll and digging it muchly as a READER, and it is
a unique reading experience. And, speaking as a reader, it fits the criteria
of some the things I've pointed out, as well as some others.
1) it's a challenge read, because it is basically a 300 page paragraph.
Oh, it's punctuated compellingly enough, but there are no indents. So, like
reading scripture, ancient literature, epic poems, Shakespeare, philosophical
texts, it takes more effort than other, more contemporary, more reader
friendly writing. What is surprising-about halfway through as I write this-it's
no slog. Really interesting sentence structure.
2) Is it better than the original, that is the published, more edited
text? Well, back in my Kerouac intensive youth, On The Road was not my favorite
-but as any real Dylan fan knows, it's the unreleased and over looked that
gets our highest praise. I'd rather rave about infidels than like a rolling
stone, okay and Kerouac to me is like a whole body of work, a writing style
and world view and historical era more so now, than an individual book, since
as I've said, it's been a while since I've read or even re read him. So, it'
s the wrong question to ask but asking it makes the reading of the scroll
more interesting. I can't help but ask it, but to answer it, I have to go back
to my memory and try to make the comparison and damned, if there aren't
glimmers of real youthful feelings inside me, remembering how gripping on the road
was to my young mind. It's not that say, Robert Heinlein, wasn't good or
even great writing, and shoot, maybe one can call it literature, but shoot, this
was real life or something like it. Literature is just superior to genre
writing and I don't mean to say that as a way to put down genre writing but
being somebody who was a reader, and on the road falling into my lap, without
recommendation and being up to me to discover the difference, well it is
thrilling in retrospect. It was thrilling then too. It's thrilling now. Trying to
decide if this is better than the original requires intensive flashbacks and it'
s those flashbacks that are the most fun.
3) On The Road is a great American novel. Sure it's a hoary, old phrase
and all that, but you know it's true. Moby *** and the Great Gatsby are
great American novels. Why? Well, the writing of course, is brilliant. As good
as it gets. Also, the writing, characters and plot both capture a specific
place, time and the people in it and univerlisizes the place, time and people.
Nineteenth Century whaling, 20s era long island where bootlegger gangsters,
stock brokers, rich and poor, co mingle, clash-want a document of either era go
to those two novels-but want some insight into certain shades of the human
condition of any era-go to those two novels-find out some self discovery
about emotions and obsessions-go to those two novels. I don't want to sound too
chauvinistic, and I am using "American novel," as a short hand certainly
other novels from other countries and eras are equal to them. Also, I think
those are two we can ALL agree on-maybe others, like Scarlet Letter, Grapes of
Wrath, As I Lay Dying, Blood Meridian, American Pastoral, Catch 22, we can
either agree or argue about. Lets set out some criteria and open a beer. I bring
up Moby and Gatsby cause in the past ten years or so, I've re read them both
a few times, and what can I say, they're great, epiphanies galore, made not
just love reading more but made me love reading literature! Art! On The Road is
of that caliber and I'm not even sure if it's the scroll or the original
that is to be considered such, although I don't think we can read one without
the other again. But, on the road is really great writing about a specific
time, place and people and dang, if I don't get the sense of it
universalizing, and I think that sense comes through age and distance, and not just my
distance from the guy who first read the thing and was turned on but from when it
was written. With Gatsby and Moby ***, which were kind of published near to
the time the events occurred, not exactly, but about ten years and On The
Road was the same. Although, On The Road was more immediately hailed I guess
but the Time of the novel the late 40s and it was published in the late 50s.
Now, that there's distance, the scroll at least is more about that period of
time, immediately after World War II, where America was heading towards that
conformity but there was still the restlessness and rootless ness lingering
from the depression era not to mention the love of the post big band jazz
happening. On the other hand, there's no television or profiling of folks smoking
tea and taking bennies. The universality of it? There was this one scene I
was reading, where the narrator starts off on the road but winds up in a rain
storm, broke, somewhere in upstage new York and both appreciating the new
vistas and mad at himself for making this mistake and has to head back to new
York to set off again properly. I just remembered, not reading on the road but
being in my early 20s somewhere strange and having both to think of a way to
get back to where I really had to be but also digging on the new place I
accidentally happened to be. I've been there, you've been there. And, I don't
think I was there when I first read the dang thing in my teens, just like I hadn
't met someone so obsessed with Evil that it made them evil like Ahab or
thinking that I could replay the past like Gatsby when I first read those books
but having more experience made those books deeper and more moving and more
of a kick when I re-read them recently.
If this Scroll Edition of the On The Road wasn't published, or if a buddy of
mine mentioned he got it or that David Gates in Newsweek and Luc Sante in the
Times Book Review gave it some insightful copy, I may not have gotten on the
50th anniversary of On The Road band wagon. But on that band wagon I have
gotten. And aside from all the stuff I've mentioned here, this is really cool
writing. I mean just compelling and in fact, so compelling, I can easily
forget all the baggage I have about Kerouac and just enjoy it. Kerouac often
regretted how the published on the road was edited, and he tried to create a new
kind of writing through his spontaneous bop prosody theories. Going with the
inspiration. I guess there is back and forth on that, and who knows really.
You read about how crafted the sentences of Hemmingway or carver were, and that
sort of minimalist writing is something I strive for and enjoy, but maybe
there is something to be said about the more inspired, more fresh though rough
around the edges approach too.

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I didn't read your post yet, but I was wondering when a 'Scroll' post
would show up on rmd... just like I was wonderin' when the 'Scroll'
would appear in print... I just ordered my copy yesterday... Can't
wait to read it...

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