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On the Road

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For other uses, see On the Road (disambiguation).
On the Road
File:OnTheRoad.jpg
1st edition
AuthorJack Kerouac
LanguageEnglish
GenreNovel
Beat
PublisherViking Press
Publication date
September 5, 1957
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages320 pages
ISBN978-0-141-18267-4
OCLC43419454
Preceded byThe Town and the City
(1950) 
Followed byThe Subterraneans
(1958) 

On the Road is a novel by American writer Jack Kerouac, written in April 1951, and published by Viking Press in 1957. It is a largely autobiographical work that was based on the spontaneous road trips of Kerouac and his friends across mid-century America. It is often considered a defining work of the postwar Beat Generation that was inspired by jazz, poetry, and drug experiences. While many of the names and details of Kerouac's experiences are changed for the novel, hundreds of references in On the Road have real-world counterparts.

When the book was originally released, The New York Times hailed it as "the most beautifully executed, the clearest and the most important utterance yet made by the generation Kerouac himself named years ago as "beat," and whose principal avatar he is."[1] In 1998, the Modern Library ranked On the Road 55th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. The novel was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005.[2]

Origins

The scroll, exhibited at the Boott Cotton Mills Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts, summer 2007

Kerouac often promoted the story about how in April 1951 he wrote the novel in three weeks, typing continuously onto a 120-foot roll of teletype paper.[3] Although the story is true per se, the book was in fact the result of a long and arduous creative process. Kerouac carried small notebooks, in which much of the text was written as the eventful span of road trips unfurled. He started working on the first of several versions of the novel as early as 1948, based on experiences during his first long road trip in 1947. However, he remained dissatisfied with the novel.[4] Inspired by a thousand-word rambling letter from his friend Neal Cassady, Kerouac in 1950 outlined the "Essentials of Spontaneous Prose" and decided to tell the story of his years on the road with Cassady as if writing a letter to a friend in a form that reflected the improvisational fluidity of jazz.[5]

The first draft of what was to become the published novel was written in three weeks in April 1951 while Kerouac lived with Joan Haverty, his second wife, at 454 West 20th Street in Manhattan, New York. The manuscript was typed on what he called "the scroll":[6] a continuous, one hundred and twenty-foot scroll of tracing paper sheets that he cut to size and taped together. The roll was typed single-spaced, without margins or paragraph breaks. In the following years, Kerouac continued to revise this manuscript, deleting some sections (including some sexual depictions deemed pornographic in the 1950s) and adding smaller literary passages.[7] Kerouac authored a number of inserts intended for On the Road between 1951 and 1952, before eventually omitting them from the manuscript and using them to form the basis of another work, Visions of Cody.[8] On the Road was championed within Viking Press by Malcolm Cowley and was published by Viking in 1957, based on revisions of the 1951 manuscript.[9] Besides differences in formatting, the published novel was shorter than the original scroll manuscript and used pseudonyms for all of the major characters.

Viking Press released a slightly edited version of the original manuscript on 16 August 2007 titled On the Road: The Original Scroll corresponding with the 50th anniversary of original publication. This version has been transcribed and edited by English academic and novelist, Dr. Howard Cunnell. As well as containing material that was excised from the original draft due to its explicit nature, the scroll version also uses the real names of the protagonists, so Dean Moriarty becomes Neal Cassady and Carlo Marx becomes Allen Ginsberg etc.[10]

In 2007, Gabriel Anctil, a journalist of the Montreal's daily Le Devoir discovered, in Kerouac's personal archives in New York, almost 200 pages of his writings entirely in Quebec French, with colloquialisms. The collection included ten manuscript pages of an unfinished version of On the Road, written on January 19, 1951. The date of the writings makes Kerouac one of the earliest known authors to use colloquial Quebec French in literature.[11]

Plot summary

The two main characters of the book are the narrator, Salvatore “Sal” Paradise and his new friend Dean Moriarty, much admired for his care-free attitude and sense for adventure, a free-spirited maverick eager to explore all kicks, and an inspiration and catalyst for Sal’s travels. The novel contains five parts, three of them describing, each: a road trip from New York to the West Coast; one to Mexico; and the last part relating their final encounter when Dean comes to visit Sal in New York. During their trip and searches, they change and their relationship changes. The narrative takes place in the years 1947 to 1950, and is full of Americana and marks a specific era in jazz history, “somewhere between its Charlie Parker Ornithology period and another period that began with Miles Davis.” The novel is largely autobiographical, Sal being the alter ego of the author, and Dean standing for Neal Cassady.

Part One

Sal has just been divorced and gotten over an illness. His life changes when he meets Dean Moriarty, who is "tremendously excited with life." As he says, “with the coming of Dean Moriarty began the part of my life you could call my life on the road”. Dean is “a side-burned hero of the snowy West” visiting New York with Marylou, his first wife. After having been thrown out by her he visits Sal who is living with his aunt in Paterson, New Jersey, wanting to learn “how to write”. In New York Dean meets an eclectic group of people, among them Carlo Marx, the poet. Sal describes their meeting as between “the holy con-man with the shining mind [Dean], and the sorrowful poetic con-man with the dark mind that is Carlo Marx." Carlo and Dean share stories about their friends and adventures around the country, and Sal gets the itch. After Dean’s departure, Sal is ready to go: ”Somewhere along the line I knew there would be girls, visions, everything; somewhere along the line the pearl would be handed to me.”

Invited by Remi Boncoeur from San Francisco, Sal sets off in July 1947 with fifty dollars in his pocket. A false start leads him to Bear Mountain and Newburgh, and after his return to New York, he spends half his money taking the bus to Chicago. Mostly hitchhiking, he moves further west to Denver, meeting interesting characters along the way, such as Mississippi Gene and Montana Slim. In Denver, Sal hooks up with Carlo Marx, Dean, and their friends. There are parties — among them an excursion to the ghost town of Central City. Eventually Sal leaves by bus and gets to San Francisco, where he meets Remi Boncoeur and his girlfriend Lee Ann. Remi arranges for Sal to take a job as a night watchman at a boarding camp for merchant sailors waiting for their ship. Not holding this job for long, Sal hits the road again. “Oh, where is the girl I love?” he wonders. Soon, he meets the “cutest little Mexican girl” on the bus to Los Angeles. They stay together, travelling back to Bakersfield, then to Sabinal, “her hometown”, where her family works in the fields. He meets Terry's brother Ricky, who teaches him the true meaning of "mañana". Working in the cotton fields, Sal realizes that he is not made for this type of work. Leaving Terry behind, he takes the bus back to New York, and walks the final stretch from Times Square to Paterson, just missing Dean, who had come to see him, by two days.

Part Two

In December 1948 Sal is visiting relatives in Testament, Virginia, for Christmas. Dean shows up with Marylou, having left his second wife Camille and their newborn baby, Amy, in San Francisco. Dean also brings along Ed Dunkel. Sal’s Christmas plans are shattered as “now the bug was on me again, and the bug’s name was Dean Moriarty and I was off on another spurt around the country.” First they drive to New York, where they meet Carlo, and party. Dean wants Sal to make love to Marylou, but Sal declines. In Dean’s Hudson they take off from New York in January of 1949, pass through Washington, DC, where Harry Truman’s inauguration takes place, and after an interlude with police, make it to New Orleans. In Algiers they stay with the morphine-addicted Old Bull Lee (“let’s just say now, he was a teacher”) and his wife Jane. Galatea joins her husband Ed Dunkel in New Orleans while Sal, Dean, and Marylou continue their trip. Lack of gas money forces them repeatedly to look for hitchhikers who would share travel expenses. Once in San Francisco, Dean rejoins with his wife Camille. “Dean will leave you out in the cold anytime it is in the interest of him” Marylou tells Sal. Both of them stay briefly in a hotel, but soon she moves out, following a nightclub owner. Sal is alone, and on Market Street has visions of past lives, birth and rebirth. Dean finds him and invites him to stay with his family. Together, they visit nightclubs and listen to Slim Gaillard and other jazz musicians. The stay ends on a sour note: "what I accomplished by coming to Frisco I don’t know,” and Sal departs taking the bus back to New York.

Part Three

In the spring of 1949, Sal takes a bus from New York to Denver. He is depressed and “lonesome”; none of his friends are around. Envious of the life of black people, he feels that the “white world” does not offer “enough ecstasy… life, joy, kicks, darkness, music, not enough night.” After receiving some money, he leaves Denver for San Francisco to see Dean. Dean’s wife is pregnant and unhappy, and Dean has injured his thumb by hitting Marylou, who was going with other men. “The thumb became the symbol of Dean’s final development. He no longer cared about anything (as before), but now he cared about everything in principle; that is to say it was all the same to him and he belonged to the world....” Camille throws them out, and Sal invites Dean to come to New York, planning to travel further to Italy. They meet Galatea who tells Dean off: ”You have absolutely no regard for anybody but yourself and your kicks.” Sal realizes she is right, Dean is the “HOLY GOOF”, but also defends him, as “he’s got the secret that we’re all busting to find out....” After a night of jazz and drinking in Little Harlem on Folsom Street, they depart. On the way to Sacramento they meet a "fag" who propositions them. Deans tries to hustle some money out of this but is turned down. During this part of the trip Sal and Dean have ecstatic discussions having found “IT” and “TIME”. Sal exclaims "the road is life." In Denver, however, a brief argument shows the growing rift between the two, when Dean reminds Sal of his age, Sal being the older of the two. Dean steals a car, but with his record — he had already been in jail for car theft — it is too dangerous to use it for travel. Instead, they get a '47 Cadillac from the travel-bureau that needs to be brought to Chicago. Dean drives most of the way, crazy, careless, often speeding over 100 miles per hour, bringing it in in a disheveled state. By bus they move on to Detroit and spend a night on Skid Row, Dean hoping to find his hobo father. From Detroit they share a ride to New York and arrive at the aunt’s new flat in Long Island. They go on partying in New York, where Dean meets Inez and gets her pregnant, while his wife is expecting their second child.

Part Four

In the spring of 1950, Sal gets the itch to travel again, while Dean is working as a parking lot attendant in Manhattan, living with his girl friend Inez. Sal notices that he has been reduced to simple pleasures, listening to baseball games, and doing card tricks. By bus Sal takes the road again passing Washington, Ashland, Cincinnati, then St. Louis, and eventually reaching Denver. There he meets Stan Shephard, and the two plan to go to Mexico City, when they learn that Dean had bought a car and is on the way to join them. In a rickety '37 Ford sedan the three set off across Texas to Laredo, where they cross the border. They are ecstatic, having left “everything behind us and entering a new and unknown phase of things.” Their money buys more (10 cents for a beer), police are laid back, cannabis is readily available, and people are curious and friendly. The landscape is magnificent. In Gregoria, they meet Victor, a local kid, who leads them to a bordello where they have their last grand party, dancing to mambo, drinking, and having fun with under-age prostitutes. In Mexico City Sal becomes ill from dysentery and is “delirious and unconscious.” Dean leaves him, and Sal later reflects that “when I got better I realized what a rat he was, but then I had to understand the impossible complexity of his life, how he had to leave me there, sick, to get on with his wives and woes.”

Part Five

Dean, having obtained divorce papers in Mexico, had first returned to New York to marry Inez, only to leave her and go back to Camille. After his recovery, Sal returns to New York in the fall. He finds a girl, Laura, and plans to move with her to San Francisco. Dean arrives to pick them up, but while Sal is taking a walk, he and Laura are left together. Sal realizes that it is all over. Dean heads back to Camille and Sal denies him a final ride. All that remains for Sal is the memory: he reflects on the images of the road, and closes “… I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty."

Reception and comments

The book initially received mixed reviews. In his review for The New York Times, Gilbert Millstein wrote, "its publication is a historic occasion in so far as the exposure of an authentic work of art is of any great moment in an age in which the attention is fragmented and the sensibilities are blunted by the superlatives of fashion," and praised it as "a major novel."[1] David Dempsey wrote that Kerouac delivered, "great, raw slices of America that give his book a descriptive excitement unmatched since the days of Thomas Wolfe."[12]

Other reviewers were less impressed. Phoebe Lou Adams in Atlantic Monthly wrote that it "disappoints because it constantly promises a revelation or a conclusion of real importance and general applicability, and cannot deliver any such conclusion because Dean is more convincing as an eccentric than as a representative of any segment of humanity.[13]

Kerouac scholar Matt Theado points to the book's multi-layered reputation: "Kerouac's most famous novel comes with many associations that work to inform and mislead the reader before the cover is opened. The book is both a story and a cultural event."[14] David Ulin says in Book Forum that "even the most frantic of Kerouac’s writings were really the sagas of a solitary seeker: poor, sad Jack, adrift in a world without mercy when he’d rather be 'safe in Heaven dead.'"[15] "Kerouac was this deep, lonely, melancholy man," said Hilary Holladay at the University of Massachusetts.[15] "And if you read the book closely, you see that sense of loss and sorrow swelling on every page."[15] John Leland, author of Why Kerouac Matters: The Lessons of On the Road (They're Not What You Think), says "We're no longer shocked by the sex and drugs. The slang is passé and at times corny. Some of the racial sentimentality is appalling" but adds "the tale of passionate friendship and the search for revelation are timeless. These are as elusive and precious in our time as in Sal's, and will be when our grandchildren celebrate the book's hundredth anniversary."[16]

Kerouac later commented, On the Road "was really a story about two Catholic buddies roaming the country in search of God. And we found him. I found him in the sky, in Market Street San Francisco (those 2 visions), and Dean (Neal) had God sweating out of his forehead all the way. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY OUT FOR THE HOLY MAN: HE MUST SWEAT FOR GOD. And once he has found Him, the Godhood of God is forever Established and really must not be spoken about."[17]

Influence

On the Road has been a huge influence on many poets, writers, actors and musicians, including Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, Hunter S. Thompson and many more. "It changed my life like it changed everyone else's," Dylan would say many years later. Tom Waits, too, acknowledged its influence, hymning Jack and Neal in a song, and calling the Beats "father figures." At least two great American photographers were influenced by Kerouac: Robert Frank, who became his close friend — Kerouac wrote the introduction to Franks' book, The Americans — and Stephen Shore, who set out on an American road trip in the 1970s with Kerouac's book as a guide. It would be hard to imagine Hunter S. Thompson's road novel, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, had On the Road not laid down the template; likewise, films such as Easy Rider, Paris, Texas, even Thelma and Louise.[18]

American pop singer Katy Perry has cited the book as the inspiration behind her song "Firework".

The scroll exhibition

The original "scroll" still exists. It was bought in 2001 by Jim Irsay (Indianapolis Colts football team owner), for 2.43 million US dollars. It is available for public viewing, with the first 30 feet (9 m) unrolled. Between 2004 and 2005, the scroll was displayed in a number of museums and libraries in the US, Ireland and the UK.

Film adaptation

Main article: On the Road (film)

A film adaptation of On the Road has been in the works for years. Russell Banks wrote a screenplay for producer Francis Ford Coppola, who bought the film rights for $95,000 in 1980.[19] The Brazilian director Walter Salles is now heading the project. After seeing Salles's The Motorcycle Diaries, Coppola decided on Salles and the production is underway.[20] In preparation for the film, Salles traveled the United States, tracing Kerouac's journey and filming a documentary on the search for On the Road.[21] Jose Rivera adapted the book into a screenplay. Coppola's American Zoetrope is producing the film, in association with MK2, Film4 in the U.K. and Videofilmes in Brazil. Sam Riley starred as Kerouac's alter ego Sal Paradise. Garrett Hedlund was cast as Dean Moriarty.[21] Kristen Stewart was cast as Mary Lou.[22] Kirsten Dunst will be playing Camille.[23] Filming started on August 2, 2010.[24] Filming will take place in New Orleans, Montreal, Mexico and Argentina with a $25 million budget.[21][25]

Cultural references

In conjunction with the manuscript "scroll" tour stop at Columbia College Chicago Center for Book & Paper Arts in 2008, A+D Gallery of Columbia College presented an art exhibit called "Off the Beaten Road", curated by Julianna Cuevas and Megan Ross, "a 21st century take on the innovative ways of communication and dissemination in American life put forth by the Beats and encapsulated in Jack Kerouac’s seminal novel, 'On the Road'...through sound, installation, performance, video and fine art...Artists included Greg Stimac, Diana Guerrero-Macia, Dylan Strzynski, Third Coast International Audio Festival, and Jeff Gabel, among others.

Character key

"Because of the objections of my early publishers I was not allowed to use the same person's name in each work."[26]

Real-life person[27] Character name
Jack Kerouac Sal Paradise
Gabrielle Kerouac Sal's Aunt
Alan Ansen Rollo Greb
William S. Burroughs Old Bull Lee
Joan Vollmer Jane
Lucien Carr Damion
Neal Cassady Dean Moriarty
Carolyn Cassady Camille
Hal Chase Chad King
Henri Cru Remi Boncoeur
Bea Franco Terry
Allen Ginsberg Carlo Marx
Diana Hansen Inez
Alan Harrington Hal Hingham
Joan Haverty Laura
Luanne Henderson Marylou
Al Hinkle Ed Dunkel
Helen Hinkle Galatea Dunkel
Jim Holmes Tom Snark
John Clellon Holmes Tom Saybrook
Herbert Huncke Elmer Hassel
Frank Jeffries Stan Shephard
Gene Pippin Gene Dexter
Ed Stringham Tom Saybrook
Allan Temko Roland Major
Bill Tomson Roy Johnson
Helen Tomson Dorothy Johnson
Ed Uhl Ed Wall

References

  1. ^ a b Millstein, Gilbert (September 5, 1957). "Books of the Times" (PDF). The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-03-18. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  2. ^ "Time Magazine - ALL-TIME 100 Novels: The Complete List"
  3. ^ Interview on the Steve Allen Show, 1959
  4. ^ Brinkley, Douglas (1998). "In the Kerouac Archive." Atlantic Monthly. November 1998, 49-76.
  5. ^ Charters, Ann (1973). Kerouac: A Biography. San Francisco, Straight Arrow Books
  6. ^ Nicosia, Gerald (1994), Memory Babe: A Critical Biography of Jack Kerouac, Berkeley: University of California Press.
  7. ^ Sante, Luc. "On The Road Again" New York Times Book Review August 19, 2007
  8. ^ Latham, A. (1973). Visions of Cody. The New York Times, Jan. 28, 1973.
  9. ^ Malcolm Cowley, Thomas Daniel Young, Conversations with Malcolm Cowley (Univ. Press of Mississippi, 1986), p. 111.
  10. ^ Bignell, Paul (July 29, 2007). "On the Road (uncensored). Discovered: Kerouac "cuts"". The Independent. London. Retrieved 2007-08-02. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  11. ^ Anctil, Gabriel (5 September 2007). "Le Devoir: 50 years of On The Road - Kerouac wanted to write in French". Le Devoir (in French). Quebec, Canada. Retrieved 2010-12-13. {{cite news}}: More than one of |author= and |last= specified (help)
  12. ^ Dempsey, David (September 8, 1957). "In Pursuit of 'Kicks'". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-03-18. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  13. ^ Atlantic Monthly, October 1957.
  14. ^ Theado, Matt. Understanding Jack Kerouac. Columbia SC: University of SC Press, 2000.
  15. ^ a b c The New York Times. "Sal Paradise at 50" by David Brooks. October 2, 2007.
  16. ^ Amazon Books. "Why Kerouac Matters: The Lessons of On the Road (They're Not What You Think)." "Questions for John Leland."
  17. ^ Fellows, Mark The Apocalypse of Jack Kerouac: Meditations on the 30th Anniversary of his Death, Culture Wars Magazine, November 1999
  18. ^ O'Hagan, Sean (August 5, 2007). "America's first king of the road". London: The Guardian. Retrieved May 20, 2010.
  19. ^ Maher, Paul Jr. Kerouac: The Definitive Biography. Lanham, Md.: Taylor Trade Publishing, 1994, 317.
  20. ^ Soloman, Karen (August 17, 2010). "Hollywood comes to Gatineau to film On the Road". CTV News. Retrieved 2010-08-18. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  21. ^ a b c Kemp, Stuart (May 6, 2010). "Kristen Stewart goes On the Road". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2010-05-07. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  22. ^ "Kristen Stewart to star in Jack Kerouac story". USA Today. May 5, 2010. Retrieved 2010-05-07. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  23. ^ Hopewell, John (May 12, 2010). "Dunst joins Stewart On the Road". Variety. Retrieved 2010-05-13. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  24. ^ "'On the Road' Officially Starts Filming in Montreal". August 2, 2010. Retrieved 2010-08-03. {{cite news}}: |first= missing |last= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  25. ^ Sperling, Nicole (May 6, 2010). "Kristen Stewart squeezes Walter Salles On the Road in between Twilight duties". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2010-05-07. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  26. ^ Kerouac, Jack. Visions of Cody. London and New York: Penguin Books Ltd. 1993.
  27. ^ Sandison, Daivd. Jeck Kerouac: An Illustrated Biography. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. 1999

See also

Wikiquote has quotations related to On the Road.

Further reading

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