Jack Kerouac's 37 metre-long, first draft scroll of On the Road to be auctioned
theguardian.com81 points by mitchbob 4 days ago
81 points by mitchbob 4 days ago
I saw this about 20 years ago in an exhibition at the Denver Library. I'd wondered how they really knew who the real people behind the characters were, it turns out that Kerouac didn't change any names at first so it's right in the manuscript.
I'd heard about it from a friend in the mid-80s, this friend was an aspiring writer and he mentioned OTR but then was musing about his new word processor typewriter, saying that he felt like the need to physically change pages added breaks to his writing process and he was worried that with the basically infinite page on the word processor it would be too easy to write crap. I wish I had a way to look this guy up and get his take on writing today.
"That isn't writing at all, it's typing."
- Truman Capote on Kerouac's work.
(I love Kerouac...)
Capote was right. Kerouac had been writing the book for years in notebooks. His first /typed/ draft took three weeks.
https://thedailybeatblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/jack-kerouac-d...
The anecdote was featured in the book Slow Productivity.
I can't say Kerouac does much for me as a writer, but he's interesting as a pop cultural phenomenon.
If you're interested in 'On the Road', the Beats or the Hippies, you'll enjoy this documentary:
Magic Trip (2011)
The documentary uses the 16 mm color footage shot by Kesey and the Merry Pranksters during their 1964 cross-country bus trip in the Furthur bus. The hyperkinetic [Neal] Cassady is frequently seen driving the bus, jabbering, and sitting next to a sign that boasts, "Neal gets things done
Not the first time, it was auctioned in 2001: https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-2053069
I noticed the lack of glue and yellowed tape. Actually it consists of strips of paper that are 12 foot long, taped together.
It sold for $2.2 million then. It'll be interesting to see what's happened to that price.
I used to be a hardcore beatnik collector in my college days, basically gobbling up any of books, pamphlets, first editions from everyone on the bus or even mildly associated. But as I got older, I realized how much of it was really just reactionary circle jerking without much meaningful substance, save for Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg at times. The rest of it, especially Kerouac, was basically just documenting a special time and place in niche west coast history, and the real heroes I've come to recognize were the characters like Neal Cassady who's writings I also had. But it's like people today who had parasocial relationships with pre-Covid Dimes Square. Pretty weird to make Cumtown your entire personality, but those people exist. Probably some dork with 2010s hair like Mark Pincus or Dennis Crowley will buy this.
If somebody wanted to dip their feet into this literary scene what would you recommend? I poked around "On The Road" at the behest of some hipster acquaintances in college and didn't stick with it. Not sure if it's because I wasn't ready or because it was...
> without much meaningful substance
Beat literature seems like something I'd enjoy - can you think of anything approachable but not too out of the way?
A lot of people will say to start with the most well known stuff - Naked Lunch, On the Road. I never liked Naked Lunch much, but On the Road is still probably the best gestalt depiction of the post-war America that was smack in the middle of transitioning from post-depression NYC jazz to California hippie. Once you have a feel for what that time and context was, then the poetry makes more sense.
It's been a while, but I remember enjoying a lot the very early writings that were collected posthumously in Atop an Underwood, very easy to pick up arbitrarily. Other good ones - Desolation Angels, Dharma Bums, The Town and the City, Subterraneans, Satori in Paris. Those are all formative. There was another posthumous release And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks which was just a funny and ridiculous retelling of a murder of a friend.
Of course, lots of fun stuff from Bukowski, Gregory Corso, Gary Snyder, Phil Lamantia, John Clellon Holmes, Richard Brautigan, short stories and poems. Neal Cassady Collected Letters, 1944-1967 was probably my single favorite book back then. I'm sure I'm forgetting lots of stuff.
Oh and Dog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk8cMyCUnoo
Junkie by William S Burrough, while not of the beatnik genre is an excellent read.
It's set in the exact same time and place, and I think parallels the destructive nature of the Road in a more a direct way.
I think the Road is actually best read once as a teenager, once at midlife. The perspective change is enormous.
Dharma Bums is my favorite Kerouac book, and I've read most of his. Bonus points if you have even a passing interest in Zen.
I can remember that one being my favorite too but I can't remember anything about it. It's been 35 years, probably time for a re-read.
On the Road is the American Odyssey. A lost man separated from his wife and returning from war takes a long and twisted path over many years to find his way home, despite countless setbacks and moral failings, at the mercy of the divine all along the way.
I feel like this book has aged badly, particularly the parts about encounters with very young girls. It's also very repetitive and far too long, in my opinion.
Every story with young girls in it has aged badly, but only if you let it. Shakespeare has aged badly if you let it.
It's difficult to me to see what people thought was so great about the beatniks. All of Kerouac basically consists of "look how much fun you can have in a trusting society by tearing it down."
Saw it in the British Library a few years ago. Hopefully the new owner is as generous with loaning it out to public museums as the current one.
I highly recommend John Ventimiglia's audiobook reading of the Original Scroll. It's my favorite reading of any audiobook. He perfectly captures all of the tone and characters and rhythm.
Does it come with amphetamines to go with the experience?
It's hard for me to understand how stuff like this isn't in a national museum.
FTA: This scroll is one of the most important literary documents still in private hands.
and: However, the return of the scroll to the auction block echoes an earlier controversy. In 2001, when the manuscript was last offered for sale, Carolyn Cassady – the former wife of Neal Cassady, the real-life inspiration for the novel’s Dean Moriarty – denounced the auction as “blasphemy”, arguing that the scroll belonged in a public library rather than a private collection. “Jack loved public libraries,” she said at the time, adding: “If they auction it, anybody rich could buy it and keep it out of sight.”
If it's in a library, it's going to be in special collections, and nobody's going to see it. It will be preserved and kept safe for the rare scholar who has a legitimate need to see the original, but for most purposes the archetype is never needed. We don't have the archetype of Vergil's Aeneid, but it's well studied nonetheless.
If it's in a private collection, a scholar who really, really needs to see it might make an arrangement with the owner. For everyone else, though, there are copies at the local bookstore. Bonus, though: if it's in a private collection, there's a chance that it physically is in a library. Some private collections are housed inside public (usually university) library special collections. From the investor's standpoint, it's worth it to have professionals who know preservation keeping the book in climate-controlled, reasonably secure facilities.
Seems pretty scannable. Maybe someone could do that and put it online (estate permitting), or even print and sell photographic reproductions of the scroll, complete with scotch tape splices every 12 feet.
”The library does not allow me access” is a much more viable lawsuit than ”Mr Moneybags does not allow me access”
Mr. Moneybags is also much more likely to gate access to documents based on what they think the purpose of the research is. If they don't like your opinions, sorry, out of luck.
This is also a problem with special collections in libraries, unfortunately.
Don't you have a 1A right to access them so long as you are not a risk of damaging them? I've never tried myself.
The billionaire who buys this will almost certainly not allow that kind of access. If its in a public archive its much easier to get that kind of access.
Someone in another comment said they got to see it in an exhibition 20 years ago. So it sounds like even if it’s in some billionaire’s collection it’s taken care of and the public does get an opportunity to see it, at least sometimes.
I saw it around ~15 years ago in a NYC museum. My memory is hazy, but I remember being surprised that it was held together with scotch tape.
Its because there is more than one draft.
Yes, this is the iconic version, but the whole point of Kerouac is that its "jazz" and improvised, despite the published novel being at least 6 drafts different
Not to mention the french version, and the previous attempts at the novel.
It would be wrong for this to be anywhere but in private hands, the mercy of fate, or lack thereof, dangerous to actualy own and handle and the actuality of what it is preclude an institutional end. Burn it first. I'd love to read it in real life over a week or two, but I am the wrong person to own it.