A striking quote

Howard Cunnell is the name of a man who brought the original scroll manuscript of Jack Kerouac's "On The Road" to book form. Kerouac wrote the book in a frenzied typefest in 1951, using a continuous roll of teletype paper in those pre-PC days so he wouldn't have to keep changing paper. There were to be plenty of edits and amendments over the years, and the book in which Cunnell presents the warts-and-all original (first line, as typed: "I first met met Neal not long after my father died.") contains essays and background information, all worth the reader's time.

Of course, I find it particularly galling that the now-crumbling original roll is owned by one Jim Irsay, about whose family, the less said, the better.

I also found it upsetting that while Jack lived, he enjoyed little acclaim, and died in 1969 after what can be best be described as a dissolute ten or twelve years. Today, he is a revered literary figure. In re-reading the book today, I found this statement by Cunnell quite trenchant:

"Kerouac's clattering typewriter is folded in with Jackson Pollock's furious brushstrokes and Charlie Parker's escalating and spiraling alto saxophone choruses in a trinity representing the breakthrough of a new postwar counterculture seemingly built on sweat, immediacy, and instinct, rather than apprenticeship, craft and daring practice."

Truman Capote rather snippily dismissed Kerouac, claiming, "There's a difference between writing and typing." Carl Sandburg piled on with, "If you're going to be obscure, be obscure about something."

They were better writers than critics.

It says here, Jack honored life:




Too bad "here" is his gravestone.