Re: Kerouac

Matthew_Stevenson@baylor.edu
Mon, 09 Nov 1998 12:01:06 -0600 

erin,

this is growing tedious.  i direct my posts to ideas, you direct yours to me.
and you don't even do that correctly as i never wrote that bit about a bad
start etc.

as for your analogy to painting, the idea that practice does not lead to
improvement is counter-intuitive and counter to my personal experiences in
every facet of life.  why isn't the very first story ever written by salinger
preserved in our hearts and memories as well as CITR?  because he got better
as he wrote more and revised more.

and your opinion of kerouac as a writer and a man are yours and they are
wonderful opinions.  opinions i don't share, but wonderful none the less.  yet
your opinions are not the issue here.  neither are mine.  ideas about the
composition and quality of a piece of literature are.  at least these are the
issues i have been addressing all along.

none taken, not so obviously,

matt

On Mon, 09 Nov 1998 08:47:16 -0800 (PST) erinseyes@hotmail.com (Erin
McLaughlin) wrote:

>That's interesting. I guess I'll have to chck it out, because I was just
>thinking, while I was checking my miserable 130 messages, about how you
>wrote that even if Kerouac did write that crumby book =) in one big
>spurt and then spent so much time revising it, etc., that it still
>wouldn't matter because a bad start is a bad start is a tautology, I
>think.
>
>I mean, if you're inspired to paint a picture, and you sit down not
>knowing much about painting, and you end up painting a crappy (but
>somewhat unique) picture, you could "revise it" all you want. Crap
>begets crap.
>
>Now despite the fact that little of what I post here is well said or
>even well thought out, I'm just wondering what the implications are of
>Kerouac actually mulling around that book for years. I think I'd lose
>even more respect for him.
>
>No offense, obviously.
>
>Erin
>
>----Original Message Follows----
>Date: Fri, 06 Nov 1998 18:16:31 -0600
>From: Matthew_Stevenson@baylor.edu
>Subject: Re: Kerouac
>To: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu
>Reply-to: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu
>
>one more little bit about kerouac...in the back of this week's TIME
>magazine
>is a review of some book that purports to debunk the myth of kerouac's
>having
>written On The Road all in one three-month-long,
>benzedrine-and-caffeine-fueled sprint.  the article says there are
>something
>like three years of notebooks outlining plots, characters, etc. for the
>book.
>
>beating a dead horse,
>
>matt
>
>
>
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