On the Road--the Original Scroll.
On view at the NYPL. Pic is blurry as hell, but put up anyway to give a sense of the length of it. Photography wasn't allowed, but I thought that unacceptable, so I had to sneak a FAST (!!!) coupla pics. An amazing sight, this. |
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4 comments so far...
so... miss d, this is probably a stupid question (are there any other kind?) is it a continuous roll of paper he was typing on? or is it several pages display as a roll... as you can see i am not such a beatnik expert, haven't finished this book btw, i started reading in spanish a while ago, but for beatniks i got more into allen ginsberg's poetry and of course i read (in spanish) the Naked Lunch... a mess indeed! ha... but i do remember some of the road adventures of mister kerouac, after seeing these photos wanna read it now... mmm? do you think is good plane material? i have a 15 plane ride coming soon!
And NO it's not a stupid question! Kerouac fastened large pieces of paper together to make a pseudo-continuous roll. He also trimmed the edges so that it would fit into his typewriter. I believe he wrote On the Road in a stream of consciousness sort of state in only 3 weeks. There are no paragraph indentions in the original text (the scroll) & just this year, the 50th Anniversary of the publication, a new edition without paragraph breaks was released. I like a good paragraph break now and then, so I don't think I'll be reading the new edition!
Did you know that Kerouac was responsible for Burroughs writing Naked Lunch? Burroughs said he never thought of himself as a writer but at Kerouac's insistence, he put pen to paper and out came Naked Lunch. I've never read it, had heard that it's a mess, but now I'm curious and want to.
Yes, yes! It is good and probably safe to say On the Road is GREAT plane reading material. So that is your travel assignment young lady!
thank you miss d!
Well, my blog would be very short. :) If I write what I know . . . . heh heh
I'm glad I could help you line out your reading for the airy road! And I'll look forward to your thoughts on the book after you finsh!