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An epic journey through the life of Jack Kerouac
| November 16 - 22, 2007
By Stephen Wolf
Last Friday, in honor of the 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac's
highly influential novel "On the Road," the largest collection ever
assembled of Kerouac's manuscripts, diaries, journals, notebooks,
photographs, painting, and personal memorabilia opened to the public
at the New York Public Library on Fifth Ave. at 42nd St. in an
exhibition entitled "Beatific Soul: Jack Kerouac on the Road."
Accompanying the exhibition, which runs through March 16, 2008, is a
stunning and meticulously researched book, abundant with photographs
and end notes, by Issac Gewirtz, curator of the exhibit as well as
the Library's Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and
American Literature.
Upon immediately entering the exhibition hall on the library's first
floor with a lime-green neon "Kerouac" above the entrance we see
a raised, yellowed, cabinet-enclosed highway dividing line extending
to the far wall where that line continues into the distance along a
photograph of a highway. But the line is not that at all; rather, it
is the epic scroll upon which Kerouac typed the first version of "On
the Road" in three weeks while living on the second floor of 454 W.
20th Street in April '51. Perhaps the most revered artifact in
American literature, this 120-foot roll of teletype paper from United
Press was given to him by his friend Lucian Carr, and this marvelous,
striking, thematic creation by graphic designer Daniel Kitae
introduces a remarkable journey through the life and work of one of
America's most controversial and innovative writers. Included in the
exhibit are manuscript drafts of "On the Road" proof that Kerouac's
"spontaneous prose" did not exclude revision along with his own
drawing of what he hoped would be the novel's cover.
Besides many other of his drawings and paintings, there are his
notebooks and journals that reveal what a serious writer concerned
with literary expression he truly was despite his reputation (often
self-promoted) to the contrary. There are photographs of other Beat
notables like Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs (whose novel titled
"Naked Lust" was misread by Kerouac as "Naked Lunch" which Burroughs
liked better), Gregory Corso, Neal Cassady, and Peter Olovsky (though
none, regrettably, of poet and novelist John Clellon Holmes who, by
Kerouac's own admission, is credited with coining the phrase "Beat"
and whose 1952 novel "Go" served as both inspiration and model for
"On the Road"). But this omission aside, the exhibit includes
handwritten drafts of other novels, stories, and poems, a 1935 crayon
valentine to his mother, and hand-drawn maps of the United States
with penciled routes he took and planned to take in his cross-country
journeys. The exhibit portrays Kerouac's spiritual side, his interest
in Buddhism and the classic, archetypical metaphor that an odyssey
in his case the road trip implies. Of special allure for even
casual Kerouac fans are display cases of such personal items as his
childhood inventive sports games, the crutches he hobbled on after
breaking his leg playing football for Columbia University (which he
attended on a football scholarship), the brakeman's lantern he
carried while working on the railroad, his worn, ankle-high brown
boots, his sunglasses, harmonicas, Swiss Army knife, compass, and
Zig-Zag rolling papers.
A rock star of American literature, Kerouac inspired generations of
envious young men to want to quit school or their jobs and hitch-hike
cross country or at least home from college. Similar to running up
the steps at Philadelphia's art museum, we made pilgrimages to New
York and headed for 206 E. 7th Street to see the fire escape upon
which Kerouac smoked a cigarette, drank at the San Remo on Bleecker
Street and the White Horse on Hudson before ambling over to 501 E.
11th for a glimpse of the inner courtyard referred to by the Beats as
"Paradise Alley." Imitated, emulated, and revered, Jack Kerouac
remains one of this nation's most popular and influential writers,
his legacy displayed free of charge in grandeur at the people's
palace on Fifth Avenue. And one more thing: before the opening
presentation of the exhibit to the press last Wednesday morning, the
case holding the long, highway-line scroll of "On the Road" was
dusted. This created enough static electricity for the hallowed
artifact to rise, yet in our hearts we knew it wasn't static at all
but the spirit of Jack Kerouac himself, newly risen in this most
wondrous exhibition of his life and his work.
Stephen Wolf edited "I Speak of the City: Poems of New York" which
includes poems by Beat poets Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, John
Clellon Holmes, and Jack Kerouac.
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