4 posts tagged “anti-americanism”

The TLS reviews the newly-released original manuscript of On the Road, a book I have never read and expect never to read — but I must now say that if I had to read it, I'd much rather have the "original scroll."  Is this kind of thing really still happening? — I mean, can you really still suppress the unbowdlerized version of a widely-read novel for 50 years?

The most striking feature is that the scroll uses the real names of characters who were lightly disguised in On the Road.  The real-life Neal Cassady returns to usurp the legendary Dean Moriarty, as if by right.  Where On the Road begins, "I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up.  I had just gotten over a serious illness . . .", the scroll opens, "I first met met [sic] Neal not long after my father died . . . I had just gotten over a serious illness". On the Road's Carlo Marx is the scroll's Allen Ginsberg; Dean's three wives, Marylou, Camille and Inez, feature in the scroll under their real names, Carolyn Robinson, Luanne Henderson and Diane Hansen, whom Neal married in New York while still husband to Carolyn (the legality of his marriage to Luanne is likewise questionable, since she was underage at the time). . . . On the Road is a non-fiction novel, predating In Cold Blood by nine years. [. . .]  [Malcolm] Cowley had worked hard to persuade an increasingly disorganized Kerouac that Viking could not publish a "novel" in which living people were depicted stealing, committing adultery and indulging in illegal sexual acts.

So the buggery is excised, names are changed, fig leaves are applied where needed and, as the reviewer puts it: "It might have been paternal feeling towards his young author that led Cowley to excise many mentions of women as 'whores'.  Now they are back, and the rampant misogyny of the early Beat Generation is as plain as can be."  What sense would a book, "improvised" over three weeks, that contains all these elements make without them?  What strange confusion it must have sown in the minds of young readers.  Nothing can make your skin crawl like a shoddy cover-up.  But on the other hand, it's easy to underestimate the strength of taboos, or their auras, even when they're utterly absurd: the absurdity is the last thing you encounter when you break them, like hope creeping out of Pandora's box.

Still: sounds like a marvelously ugly, hateful all-American text.  Tasty, like Rocky Mountain oysters dipped in ketchup.  I never made it past Kesey and Ferlinghetti as a teenager: I don't think Kerouac or Cassady ever seemed much like kindred spirits; they seemed more antsy than zany.  On the road with a bunch of semi-closeted misogynists?  Sounds pretty boring to me.  I think I'll read popular science books and Camus instead.

Cheney's on the news telling everyone the insurgents want us to vote Democratic!  Paul points out that I'll be in Belgium by the time the election results come in—"so you could just not come back."  It's true.  It's going to hurt, as usual.

Author, at library: I have a lot of work to do, gee, don't I though!
Chat program: Meeee!
Author, one hour later: [hungry] [leaving library]
Book of Modern Urdu Poetry on Shelf: Meeee!
Author, trudging towards food: I still have a lot of work to do, don't I.
Chat program, book: [guilty silence]

As usual.

I am still at a total loss to imagine how anyone in this country, with a normal amount of political power, could have prevented any of this from happening.  I mean, I hear a lot of things, I hear that many "easy" steps could be taken to combat the erosion of the Constitution and the ever-increasing toxicity of political discourse and so on and so forth.  I cannot predict the future, but in my privileged position as one U.S. citizen among millions, I will say that none of it looks very promising to me.  No large-scale economic or social or political developments in this country seem likely to favor the Democrats or any other liberal party.  Disgust with the Republicans or the war is not enough.

A couple of years ago I would have argued that ideas and idealism don't matter in politics, what matters is praxis.  But we've had nothing but praxis for six years, leavened with various forms of cracked nonsense about freedom and democracy and evil which doesn't quite add up to an "idea." 

People are getting used to it.  That, God only knows, is not without historical precedent.

My mistrust of idealism in politics remains, however, strong enough to allow me to shift directly from "there's some hope" to "but then again, not enough to mention; what to do now?" without much sermonizing.  You can find that all over the web today without looking too hard.  You can probably find a whole mess of prescriptions for political action, too, and who am I to tell you they won't work?  I realized we were fucked while looking out of the Roosevelt Island trolley at First Avenue on February 15th, 2003 — a bit later than some — but seriously, if you can find a reason to keep trying, keep trying.  Something will happen.

This is all I have to say.  Here's to you, J.S. Mill, for correctly pointing out that you can scream until you're blue in the face in a free society and no one will care.

...

But, no, I can't actually end there.  The unspoken assumption behind all of this is that I would do anything, anything morally and legally feasible to usher the current government out of power, and I have been racking my fucking brains for six years in vain to figure out what anything would have a positive chance of success, and every one of those six years has been worse than the one before.  I no longer have the heart to throw myself behind a single further losing strategy, even though I know this is the only life and the only world we've got and I ought to do something, no pietistic-quietistic cowardice etc.  But people, nothing fucking works!  What are we supposed to do now?  What does anyone do at this point?  It has happened before, it will happen again, where is the lesson?  Where can I find it?

Today I am 27.  These are getting to be uncountably large numbers.

Numbers.  Beside me, at the café, two people are talking about their GRE scores.  I feel that, among the people I know, everyone was too discreet to have this conversation -- actually comparing numbers, over coffee.  It's some sort of extension of the salary taboo.  I've heard that one broken at cafés as well, though, discussions of starting salaries and so forth.  I suppose I'm not meant to be eavesdropping anyway, but it's so gauche that I can't tune it out.  Listen, everyone!  This guy got a 770!  This girl's going to do just fine!

But leave them alone.  They're not yet 27.  There is a season for everything under the sun.  The sun hasn't made much of an appearance today, which suits me fine -- I like the mist, the coolness, the mysterium.  I can sit in a café and plan.  I have to deal with all this rubbish too, GRE scores and application deadlines and "first choice" and "second choice" and "doing just fine."  I want to believe, and I've been telling myself, that this is the last possible year for me to do it.  If it doesn't work out, I'll do something else, away from the sick fetishistic culture of U.S. universities, in which by some magic all the top schools are Incredibly Competitive but the odds of your running across a loudmouth on the train who went to one of them are higher than the odds of getting in.

The people beside me got up and left.  Two girls sat down at their table.  Now they are talking about the GRE.  Hey, everyone!  Remember Hurricane Katrina?  Hurricane Katrina totally aced the verbal section, but it's still a little worried about the subject test in Destroying a Major American City.  But you know, it's really not about the numbers.  If you've got what it takes, people will figure it out.  Maybe it's time for me to get away from the campus.  Not permanently, of course -- just for a couple of hours -- so I can plan this gruesomeness in peace and give thanks for the many gifts and honors I have received over the last 3x3x3 years...