Re: Kerouac
Erin McLaughlin (erinseyes@hotmail.com)
Wed, 04 Nov 1998 17:22:03 -0800 (PST)
ok, so I stand corrected in that regard, but, despite the revisions and
the rare moments of great writing, his writing still sucks, I think.
Misinformed? Perhaps. But that's the nice thing about opinions. They
really don't matter much.
----Original Message Follows----
Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 09:05:57 -0600
From: Matthew_Stevenson@baylor.edu
Subject: Re: Kerouac
To: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu
Reply-to: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu
>So if you thought you were in trouble for your response, just guess how
>many retorts this post will generate.
>
how right you are, erin...
>
>I have trouble taking Kerouac seriously. You know he wrote that damn
>book in about a day straight, just typing on this big roll of paper.
All
>stream-of-consciousness, all in one spurt of awakeness (not necessarily
>awareness). It stands as a testament to the time in which it was
written
>by a guy who was part of a generation. That's pretty much what I see it
>as. He has moments of really writing, but most of his writing sucks.
>
i think you've heard some fairly misinformed things about the writing of
this
book. kerouac had written substantial portions of his "traveling" book
before
he got disgusted with them and started over. he did type the manuscript
of
the book that finally became _on the road_ in three weeks on one giant
roll of
paper so that he wouldn't have to stop to reload the typewriter after
every
page (an inconvenience we of the word processor generation know little
about,
but i can imagine how that might break one's concentration). but what
you
failed to mention was the months of revision and editing and rewriting
that
went into that manuscript before it became the published _on the
road_.--matt
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