3. In 1952 (when people still wrote letters to each other), Allen Ginsberg penned these words to Kerouac about the manuscript of On the Road: "I don't see how it will ever be published, it's so personal, it's so full of sex language, so full of our local mythological references, I don't know if it would make sense to any publisher." What is your reaction to this?
Initially, this made no sense to me. The book was neither full of inside references nor explicitly sexual, although this may not have been true for earlier versions. Then I remembered the abundance of casually dropped names in the book that are obviously familiar to Kerouac, but not to the reader. These names can be overwhelming and leave you with the feeling of not being properly introduced to many people. It is unreliable of Kerouac to do this: he always implies interesting personalities and stories and then fails to expand beyond his allusions.
One example of this is Camille. She is very important to the story, or stories, of the book. However, when I finished reading, I didn't feel like I knew very much about her. She was the rival of Mary Lou, mother of Dean's children, and correspondent to Inez. She did cast Dean out, but instead of finding this a mark of her personality, it just seems like an inevitable move any self-respecting person would (and did) make. She is one of many characters who was never given their worth in writing.
Then again, because the book is semi-autobiographical it would be impossible to mention everyone, especially because a bulk of the details are used to describe life on the road, Dean, and Sal—the focus of the book. After making the decision of what to focus on (though it may not have been conscious) I think Kerouac decided to be meticulous and reliable enough to at least mention most of the important people on his journey, but made the cutoff at describing why these people were important.
For a reader in awe of his colorful lifestyle and writing style this is a choice to approve, but for a reader like me who values getting to know a book’s characters so well you miss them when you finish reading I would rather have read more about a few interesting people (besides Dean and Sal) than a few sentences about dozens. So in terms of references to friends I do think Allen Ginsberg’s comment about the personal, local-reference-full writing is true. Clearly, this did not stop the publisher.
3 comments:
The book was defiantly extremely personal when it came to the characters. I agree with you when you say that Sal didn’t go out of his way to overly describe anyone other than Dean. However, this sort of makes the book more understandable. Sal was obsessed with Dean so it wouldn’t make much sense for him to truly expand on another character.
- Sinéad Brennan
I completely agree with Esther. In order to enjoy a book I must feel some sort of sympathy for them. It took about 100 pages for me to become familiar with the characters, and even then it was difficult to keep them straight. The description of Camille (or lack thereof, rather) probably had to do something with the fact that she was a woman, who didn't deserve as much analysis as Sal's male friends.
In terms of the other people, I found it interesting that the book was less about the plot and more about the individuals' actions. Additionally, this added to the indirect characterization of Sal as both a narrator and a protagonist.
I agree with Lilly about Camille. Because she was a woman her description wasn't rounded, or rather important for that matter. It's obvious from the lack of characterization that the role of women in the novel is taken lightly.
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