WEBVTT 00:01.680 --> 00:03.450 Professor Amy Hungerford: 00:03.452 --> 00:06.342 So, today we find ourselves in a very different novelistic 00:06.339 --> 00:09.019 world than we've been in for the last week and a half: 00:09.023 --> 00:10.293 On the Road. 00:10.290 --> 00:14.620 Did anyone take this course because they love On the 00:14.618 --> 00:17.738 Road? Anybody? 00:17.740 --> 00:19.340 One, sort of ambivalently. 00:19.340 --> 00:19.960 Yes. Okay. 00:19.962 --> 00:24.322 Sometimes I do get students who have just an image of this novel 00:24.316 --> 00:27.496 in their mind, or they read it when they were 00:27.502 --> 00:30.482 in high school and have a sort of irrational, 00:30.480 --> 00:32.390 passionate love for it. 00:32.390 --> 00:36.180 And so, sometimes people approach it in that way, 00:36.178 --> 00:40.828 and I think in a way it holds that aura around itself in our 00:40.834 --> 00:45.414 culture and in the history of the novel in this period that 00:45.412 --> 00:47.782 we're studying together. 00:47.780 --> 00:52.630 I'm going to talk a little bit about its publishing history, 00:52.629 --> 00:57.229 its compositional history, actually, at the end of my two 00:57.232 --> 00:59.372 lectures on the novel. 00:59.370 --> 01:02.710 So, I would ask you just to reserve whatever curiosity you 01:02.713 --> 01:04.603 have about that. So, in a way, 01:04.604 --> 01:07.874 I'm flipping my usual practice; I would tell you a little bit 01:07.865 --> 01:09.855 about its publication history at the beginning. 01:09.860 --> 01:14.180 I'm going to do that at the end for this reason: 01:14.175 --> 01:19.405 that it has such a special place in the imagination of our 01:19.408 --> 01:22.398 culture. And so, I'm going to talk about 01:22.402 --> 01:26.002 that after we have a better understanding of what's going on 01:26.004 --> 01:29.564 in the book. My point, at the end of my 01:29.560 --> 01:35.040 lecture on Lolita on Monday, was that Nabokov is 01:35.043 --> 01:41.243 trying to imagine an autonomous work of art that has a life to 01:41.237 --> 01:44.677 it, that is in some sense animated 01:44.680 --> 01:48.450 or personified, and that this desire to make 01:48.451 --> 01:53.711 the aesthetic something living introduces to the world of the 01:53.712 --> 01:57.222 aesthetic the problem of mortality. 01:57.220 --> 02:03.710 It's mortality that gives it that sense of ephemeral value, 02:03.709 --> 02:09.749 but it's also mortality that threatens to cancel it out 02:09.751 --> 02:14.201 altogether. The language that the Beats 02:14.201 --> 02:17.491 tried to imagine, tried to write, 02:17.486 --> 02:23.436 takes up some of these problems that we saw in Nabokov. 02:23.439 --> 02:27.639 Unlike Nabokov, these writers are not trying to 02:27.638 --> 02:32.658 make a language that is autonomous and separate from the 02:32.657 --> 02:36.807 world, so you will not see the kind of 02:36.806 --> 02:41.396 artifice and the labored attention to form. 02:41.400 --> 02:45.570 You're not going to have a writer spending a month on the 02:45.565 --> 02:48.685 representation of a barber from Kasbeam. 02:48.690 --> 02:51.630 You're not going to get that in the Beats. 02:51.629 --> 02:57.639 Instead, you're getting something, a language that tries 02:57.642 --> 03:02.782 to come as close as possible--not necessarily to 03:02.780 --> 03:09.340 life in all its facets--but to life as we experience it. 03:09.340 --> 03:13.530 In a certain way, this is not a rejection of 03:13.525 --> 03:18.685 modernism and its desire for the autonomous work of art, 03:18.689 --> 03:21.679 because partly, as I've shown, 03:21.679 --> 03:27.449 the desire for the autonomous work of art shades into the 03:27.450 --> 03:30.440 desire to replicate life. 03:30.439 --> 03:34.629 There is that desire much more explicitly in the writing of 03:34.634 --> 03:37.244 Jack Kerouac, the desire to replicate 03:37.237 --> 03:40.977 experience as you read, the feeling of having the 03:40.979 --> 03:45.489 experience that the writer wants you to have and that the writer 03:45.489 --> 03:48.729 himself has had. That's always going to be 03:48.726 --> 03:51.576 important to understanding this work. 03:51.580 --> 03:55.510 So, that's one aspect in which it shares something with 03:55.505 --> 03:58.335 modernism, even though stylistically, 03:58.340 --> 04:01.670 and as a matter of craft and composition, it looks very 04:01.671 --> 04:04.761 distinct. The other way it shares an 04:04.762 --> 04:09.502 ambition of modernism is precisely in that effort to 04:09.495 --> 04:13.295 communicate experience, consciousness. 04:13.300 --> 04:18.080 So, if you've read at all in the novels of Virginia Woolf, 04:18.078 --> 04:21.598 for example, or in James Joyce's novels, 04:21.600 --> 04:26.920 you know that part of modernist innovation, part of the 04:26.915 --> 04:31.505 stylistic difficulty, is the effort to put on the 04:31.510 --> 04:36.780 page what happens in the mind, that sense of the mind drifting 04:36.776 --> 04:41.606 from one idea to another that you get in Virginia Woolf's 04:41.610 --> 04:45.260 prose, so magically in Woolf's prose. 04:45.259 --> 04:50.679 So, that is something these writers share with modernism, 04:50.677 --> 04:56.367 but there is one big difference and I want to exemplify that for 04:56.365 --> 05:00.875 you just by reading to you two parallel texts, 05:00.879 --> 05:06.479 one from the modernist canon and one from the Beat canon. 05:06.480 --> 05:10.750 So, first I want to read to you the footnote to T.S. 05:10.752 --> 05:13.352 Eliot's The Wasteland. 05:13.350 --> 05:17.360 Now The Wasteland was the first poem to have 05:17.361 --> 05:22.091 footnotes, and you have to ask yourself: what do you have to 05:22.094 --> 05:26.514 think the poem is in order to think that it needs 05:26.506 --> 05:30.226 footnotes? So, I'm going to say a little 05:30.233 --> 05:34.283 bit more about that, but let me just read to you, 05:34.277 --> 05:38.487 first, from the notes on The Wasteland: 05:38.490 --> 05:42.250 Not only the title, but the plan and a good deal of 05:42.254 --> 05:46.154 the incidental symbolism of the poem were suggested by Miss 05:46.154 --> 05:48.514 Jessie L. Weston's book on the Grail 05:48.507 --> 05:52.807 legend, From Ritual to Romance (Cambridge)." 05:52.810 --> 05:54.830 He has a little bibliography, there: 05:54.829 --> 05:57.069 Indeed, so deeply am I indebted, 05:57.074 --> 06:00.234 Miss Weston's book will elucidate the difficulties of 06:00.229 --> 06:03.019 the poem much better than my notes can do; 06:03.019 --> 06:06.799 and I recommend it (apart from the great interest of the book 06:06.799 --> 06:10.449 itself) to any who think such elucidation of the poem worth 06:10.452 --> 06:13.142 the trouble. To another work of anthropology 06:13.137 --> 06:16.007 I am indebted in general, one which has influenced our 06:16.006 --> 06:19.506 generation profoundly; I mean The Golden Bough; 06:19.509 --> 06:22.889 I have used especially the two volumes Adonis, 06:22.891 --> 06:24.301 Attis, Osiris. 06:24.300 --> 06:27.470 Anyone who is acquainted with these works will immediately 06:27.467 --> 06:30.407 recognize in the poem certain references to vegetation 06:30.412 --> 06:33.172 ceremonies. And then there are particular 06:33.166 --> 06:35.516 notes for the different parts of the poem. 06:35.519 --> 06:39.889 That's the introduction to the footnotes. 06:39.889 --> 06:46.839 What I want you to note there is the sense that the matter of 06:46.844 --> 06:53.404 the poem comes from an archive, an archive of scholarly work, 06:53.400 --> 06:57.260 a body of knowledge that you read about. 06:57.259 --> 07:00.469 And I also want you to note that language: 07:00.469 --> 07:02.269 "Miss Jessie Weston." 07:02.269 --> 07:06.009 It's a very mannered, decorous language. 07:06.009 --> 07:11.319 Now I would like to read to you from the footnote to 07:11.319 --> 07:15.899 Howl, Allen Ginsberg's famous poem, 07:15.899 --> 07:22.059 that for many people embodied at the time what it meant to be 07:22.057 --> 07:26.057 engaged in this new literary project. 07:26.060 --> 07:30.400 So, this is footnote to Howl: 07:30.399 --> 07:32.279 Holy! holy! 07:32.276 --> 07:33.446 Holy! Holy! 07:33.449 --> 07:34.619 Holy! Holy! 07:34.622 --> 07:35.802 Holy! Holy! 07:35.795 --> 07:36.965 Holy! Holy! 07:36.968 --> 07:38.138 Holy! Holy! 07:38.142 --> 07:42.542 holy! The world is holy! 07:42.540 --> 07:44.290 The soul is holy! 07:44.290 --> 07:45.790 The skin is holy! 07:45.790 --> 07:47.290 The nose is holy! 07:47.290 --> 07:51.700 The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy! 07:51.700 --> 07:53.130 Everything is holy! 07:53.130 --> 07:54.840 Everybody's holy! 07:54.840 --> 07:56.450 Everywhere is holy! 07:56.450 --> 07:58.660 Every day is in eternity! 07:58.660 --> 08:03.210 Everyman's an angel! The bum's as holy as the 08:03.209 --> 08:06.619 seraphim! the madman is holy as you my 08:06.618 --> 08:10.138 soul are holy! The typewriter is holy! 08:10.139 --> 08:14.749 the poem is holy the voice is holy the hearers are holy the 08:14.751 --> 08:19.451 ecstasy is holy! Holy Peter holy Allen 08:19.448 --> 08:24.918 holy Solomon holy Lucien holy Kerouac holy Huncke holy 08:24.922 --> 08:31.222 Burroughs holy Cassady holy the unknown buggered and suffering 08:31.222 --> 08:36.182 beggar holy the hideous human angels! 08:36.179 --> 08:37.949 A little different tone, don't you think? 08:37.950 --> 08:41.560 08:41.559 --> 08:46.069 A few things I want to note about that besides the obvious. 08:46.070 --> 08:53.480 The fount of poetic inspiration is not to be found in an 08:53.482 --> 08:58.232 archive. It is not to be found in Miss 08:58.230 --> 09:03.390 Jessie Weston's book on ritual and romance. 09:03.389 --> 09:09.609 It is not to be found with a bibliography saying "Cambridge." 09:09.610 --> 09:16.030 That's not where you find the fount of the great poem. 09:16.029 --> 09:18.429 The footnote to Howl says that the source of 09:18.425 --> 09:20.385 Howl--that's what footnotes are; 09:20.389 --> 09:26.629 they're an indication of the source--it says that the source 09:26.625 --> 09:31.775 of the poetry is that holy, lived experience, 09:31.778 --> 09:38.538 and a particular slice of lived experience: the formerly 09:38.535 --> 09:43.255 rejected, the indecorous, the ecstatic. 09:43.260 --> 09:47.750 09:47.750 --> 09:51.720 I noticed that several of you were smiling, 09:51.719 --> 09:55.429 in a way, as I read, that suggested you were 09:55.429 --> 09:58.449 embarrassed by the performance. 09:58.450 --> 10:04.270 Right? I did not elicit this by 10:04.271 --> 10:09.911 accident. Embarrassment is something that 10:09.906 --> 10:14.596 the Beats value. When Ginsberg first read 10:14.600 --> 10:19.760 Howl, he was on stage, and there was a little 10:19.764 --> 10:23.404 bathroom. It was--I think it was--in a 10:23.402 --> 10:25.282 book store. (I can't remember; 10:25.279 --> 10:30.189 I didn't reread my notes on Howl.) And so, 10:30.191 --> 10:35.001 when the show started he was in the bathroom, 10:35.000 --> 10:39.140 on the pot with the door open, and then he got up, 10:39.136 --> 10:44.446 and he hiked up his pants, and he waltzed out and he gave 10:44.453 --> 10:47.213 his reading of Howl. 10:47.210 --> 10:52.870 This is indicative of the sense that he wants to lay bare, 10:52.865 --> 10:57.525 in a literal way, all the seaminess of human 10:57.529 --> 11:04.479 life, all the aspects of what it means to be an embodied person, 11:04.480 --> 11:07.400 all the ecstasies that come from that embodiment. 11:07.399 --> 11:11.309 And, of course, this is not at all original to 11:11.305 --> 11:14.185 Ginsberg. If you read Walt Whitman, 11:14.185 --> 11:18.875 you will see much of the same ethos (and probably a lot better 11:18.882 --> 11:21.782 poetry). So, Ginsberg is not the first 11:21.777 --> 11:25.017 to do this in the American tradition, for sure, 11:25.024 --> 11:29.194 but it's a very important part of what the Beats revive. 11:29.190 --> 11:34.180 And I want to get at that question of embarrassment, 11:34.177 --> 11:38.967 because it comes up very explicitly on page 36. 11:38.970 --> 11:45.910 Embarrassment is thematized in On the Road, and 11:45.914 --> 11:53.094 it's assigned what I think is a very interesting provenance. 11:53.090 --> 11:57.830 11:57.830 --> 12:04.400 So, this is Chad King talking to Sal Paradise: 12:04.399 --> 12:07.069 A quavering twang comes out when he speaks. 12:07.070 --> 12:10.690 "The thing I always liked, Sal, about the Plains Indians, 12:10.688 --> 12:14.438 was the way they always got s'danged embarrassed after they 12:14.436 --> 12:17.146 boasted the number of scalps they got. 12:17.149 --> 12:20.569 In Ruxton's Life in the Far West there's an Indian who 12:20.567 --> 12:23.697 gets red all over blushing because he got so many scalps 12:23.700 --> 12:27.120 and he runs like hell into the plains to glory over his deeds 12:27.118 --> 12:32.108 in hiding. Damn, that tickled me!" 12:32.110 --> 12:39.230 The sense of embarrassment is the sense that the excess 12:39.234 --> 12:43.324 of--what?--joy, in this passage, 12:43.323 --> 12:48.213 the Indian's bravery, his achievement, 12:48.205 --> 12:54.015 his success; all of that is in excess of the 12:54.017 --> 13:00.557 decorous presentation of that experience, of that real world 13:00.559 --> 13:04.329 of life, of that excessive joy. 13:09.340 --> 13:15.630 noble origin with the Native American, the Plains Indian. 13:15.629 --> 13:19.779 So, there is a sense, in the Plains Indian, 13:19.778 --> 13:26.098 that he is both the embodiment of a noble, restrained lineage; 13:26.100 --> 13:34.000 but also, deep in that American past, is this sense of great 13:33.995 --> 13:38.025 excess. Embarrassment tells us we're in 13:38.034 --> 13:42.974 the presence of the excess, and that's why Beat writers 13:42.972 --> 13:48.332 court it. That's why I courted it today 13:48.328 --> 13:52.478 for you. The excess requires, 13:52.484 --> 13:57.094 for the Beats, a new kind of language. 13:57.090 --> 14:00.550 One aspect of their language which maybe you've noticed in 14:00.552 --> 14:04.202 On the Road--it's not quite so pronounced in On the 14:04.196 --> 14:08.146 Road as it is elsewhere, certainly--in the letters that 14:08.147 --> 14:10.487 these figures write to each other. 14:10.490 --> 14:15.420 Part of that is the elimination of small words, 14:15.421 --> 14:19.351 "the," "and"; the abbreviation of certain 14:19.351 --> 14:21.331 words, "your" to "yr." 14:21.330 --> 14:24.310 There are all kinds of little abbreviations they make, 14:24.309 --> 14:27.569 and it suggests that language has to be wrenched out of its 14:27.570 --> 14:31.500 conventions; syntax can be set aside; 14:31.500 --> 14:36.270 language needs to move at the speed of experience and at the 14:36.265 --> 14:37.795 speed of ecstasy. 14:37.799 --> 14:42.099 So, that's one small way in the language that they practiced 14:42.095 --> 14:46.095 tried to imitate the experience that they were immersing 14:46.099 --> 14:51.509 themselves in. But there were more formulated 14:51.512 --> 14:57.942 ways of capturing that experience in language. 14:57.940 --> 15:04.740 Jack Kerouac had a list of essentials that he taped up on 15:04.744 --> 15:12.404 his wall when he was writing, and this is what they include: 15:12.399 --> 15:16.739 Scribbled secret notebooks and wild typewritten 15:16.736 --> 15:21.486 pages for your own joy [and that's "yr," your own joy]. 15:21.490 --> 15:26.050 Submissive to everything, open, listening. 15:26.049 --> 15:30.329 Try never to get drunk outside your own house.[Well, 15:30.325 --> 15:34.055 this is a piece of advice clearly he never took.] 15:34.056 --> 15:36.696 Be in love with your life. 15:36.700 --> 15:40.690 Be crazy dumb saint of the mind. 15:40.690 --> 15:43.770 Blow as deep as you want to blow. 15:43.769 --> 15:47.609 Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the 15:47.612 --> 15:51.092 mind. The unspenspeakable visions 15:51.093 --> 15:52.913 of the individual. 15:52.909 --> 15:57.349 In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before 15:57.345 --> 16:01.505 you. And then, my favorite one is: 16:01.509 --> 16:04.929 "You're a genius all the time." 16:04.929 --> 16:06.809 Now, try putting that up in front of your desk: 16:06.810 --> 16:08.160 "You're a genius all the time." 16:08.159 --> 16:09.889 It will help you to produce a lot of writing; 16:09.890 --> 16:16.750 I guarantee. Kerouac tried over and over 16:16.752 --> 16:22.612 again to write On the Road, and it was an effort 16:22.609 --> 16:28.139 to practice this kind of free language that would be 16:28.141 --> 16:34.651 uninhibited and that would gesture towards some deeper, 16:34.649 --> 16:39.919 bottomless part of the human experience, the human soul. 16:39.920 --> 16:42.340 Sometimes it was spiritualized. 16:42.340 --> 16:45.570 In this sense, this is why I put this quote up 16:45.570 --> 16:49.370 on the board from On the Road: "We've got to go 16:49.374 --> 16:51.604 someplace, find something." 16:51.600 --> 16:56.990 There is a relentless seeking sense that's at the heart of 16:56.986 --> 17:00.506 this work. Now, for those of you who 17:00.512 --> 17:05.632 don't know, On the Road does document pretty closely the 17:05.627 --> 17:10.327 actual road trips that Jack Kerouac took with Neal Cassady 17:10.329 --> 17:14.989 and a whole host of others, and I can do a little decoding 17:14.985 --> 17:18.135 for you. Old Bull Lee is William 17:18.137 --> 17:22.677 Burroughs, and his wife, Jane, Jane Lee. 17:22.680 --> 17:41.670 So, Allen Ginsberg is Carlo Marx, and Ginsberg went to 17:41.668 --> 17:47.498 Columbia. He was kicked out of Columbia, 17:47.503 --> 17:49.273 and then sort of went back. 17:49.270 --> 17:51.070 He was in and out of school. 17:51.069 --> 17:54.589 So, a lot of them were in this little community, 17:54.585 --> 17:59.065 and they picked up wanderers and various people who wanted to 17:59.073 --> 18:03.583 learn from them. And that's what Neal Cassady 18:03.581 --> 18:08.961 was to them at first, a kind of wanderer who wanted 18:08.959 --> 18:13.369 to be in their intellectual, but bohemian, 18:13.369 --> 18:17.829 circle. So, you see the kind of 18:17.830 --> 18:25.580 language that Neal represents at the very beginning of the novel. 18:25.579 --> 18:31.829 First of all, he's introduced in this very 18:31.825 --> 18:38.065 mysterious way: "First reports of him." 18:38.069 --> 18:41.989 This is on the first page of Part One, the middle of that 18:41.990 --> 18:45.140 first paragraph: "First reports of him came to 18:45.140 --> 18:48.960 me through Chad King, who had shown me a few letters 18:48.960 --> 18:52.410 from him, written in a New Mexico reform school." 18:52.410 --> 18:56.570 So, his letters come out of this western land, 18:56.568 --> 19:02.018 New Mexico, and a land of criminality, the reform school. 19:02.019 --> 19:05.319 So, he's exotic just from the very beginning, 19:05.319 --> 19:07.569 and it's an exotic language. 19:07.569 --> 19:13.129 It's the letters that come out of this exotic place that first 19:13.131 --> 19:15.321 catch their attention. 19:15.319 --> 19:17.999 I was tremendously interested in the letters 19:18.001 --> 19:21.181 because they so naively and sweetly asked Chad to teach him 19:21.176 --> 19:24.456 all about Nietzsche and all the wonderful intellectual things 19:24.460 --> 19:27.550 that Chad knew. At one point Carlo and I talked 19:27.545 --> 19:30.975 about the letters and wondered if we would ever meet the 19:30.979 --> 19:32.539 strange Dean Moriarty. 19:32.539 --> 19:35.829 This is all far back, when Dean was not the way he is 19:35.825 --> 19:39.485 today, when he was a young jail kid shrouded in mystery. 19:39.490 --> 19:42.630 Then news came that Dean was out of reform school and was 19:42.634 --> 19:44.884 coming to New York for the first time; 19:44.880 --> 19:48.500 also there was talk that he had just married a girl called 19:48.495 --> 19:51.565 Marylou. It's that passive sense: 19:51.572 --> 19:53.122 "There was talk." 19:53.120 --> 19:55.510 Who's talking? We don't know. 19:55.509 --> 20:01.559 That passive verb, "there was talk," gives you the 20:01.562 --> 20:08.972 sense that there is this wide community passing word mouth to 20:08.974 --> 20:15.404 mouth of the coming of a mysterious spiritual figure: 20:15.397 --> 20:20.337 "first reports of him;" "news came;" 20:20.340 --> 20:23.600 "there was talk." 20:23.599 --> 20:30.099 So, language is this communal set of rumors spiritualized by 20:30.095 --> 20:34.495 its very vagueness and shared quality. 20:34.500 --> 20:40.720 And then, it's just fascinating to listen to what Dean says. 20:40.720 --> 20:42.310 Now this on page 2. 20:42.310 --> 20:44.580 This is how he talks: 20:44.580 --> 20:47.850 20:47.849 --> 20:50.779 All this time Dean was telling Marylou things like 20:50.777 --> 20:52.057 this. "Now, darling. 20:52.059 --> 20:55.319 Here we are in New York and although I haven't quite told 20:55.315 --> 20:58.505 you everything that I was thinking about when we crossed 20:58.512 --> 21:01.882 the Missouri and especially at the point when we passed the 21:01.883 --> 21:05.723 Booneville Reformatory which reminded me of my jail problem, 21:05.720 --> 21:09.500 it is absolutely necessary now to postpone all those leftover 21:09.500 --> 21:13.220 things concerning our personal love things and at once begin 21:13.217 --> 21:15.987 thinking of specific worklife plans ..." 21:15.990 --> 21:17.800 and so on in, the way that he had in those 21:17.801 --> 21:21.951 early days." His language is a sort of 21:21.945 --> 21:29.915 mishmash of poorly used academic locutions: "worklife plans." 21:29.920 --> 21:33.480 It sounds almost like corporate speak, in a way. 21:33.480 --> 21:39.780 It has that dry quality to it. 21:39.779 --> 21:44.249 And then, on the top of 3, we get another example: 21:44.250 --> 21:46.830 "In other words we've got to get on the ball, 21:46.834 --> 21:49.994 darling, what I'm saying, otherwise it'll be fluctuating 21:49.989 --> 21:52.979 and lack of true knowledge or crystallization of our 21:52.981 --> 21:56.211 plans." So, this is not yet that 21:56.211 --> 22:02.131 idealized speech that Kerouac is dreaming of when he writes the 22:02.129 --> 22:06.329 list of Essentials for Spontaneous Prose. 22:06.329 --> 22:10.269 Dean's language is not that in these passages. 22:10.269 --> 22:18.449 His desire for the intellectual download from Chad is not what's 22:18.454 --> 22:26.124 going to make him the figure of the new language for Sal. 22:26.119 --> 22:32.429 Rather, it is another kind of language that he represents that 22:32.430 --> 22:38.120 will be that kind of germ of what Sal is looking for. 22:38.119 --> 22:44.089 This is, you see, also on 2 at the beginning 22:44.089 --> 22:46.529 here: I went to the cold-water 22:46.529 --> 22:49.189 flat with the boys and Dean came to the door in his shorts. 22:49.190 --> 22:50.930 Marylou was jumping off the couch. 22:50.930 --> 22:53.820 Dean had dispatched the occupant of the apartment to the 22:53.818 --> 22:57.128 kitchen probably to make coffee while he proceeded with his love 22:57.127 --> 23:00.377 problems for to him sex was the one and only holy and important 23:00.383 --> 23:03.743 thing in life although he had to sweat and curse to make a living 23:03.744 --> 23:06.224 and so on. You saw that in the way he 23:06.218 --> 23:08.748 stood bobbing his head, always looking down, 23:08.745 --> 23:12.205 nodding like a young boxer to instructions to make you think 23:12.213 --> 23:17.313 he was listening to every word, throwing in a thousand "yes"es 23:17.308 --> 23:21.978 and "that's right." There is this sense of 23:21.977 --> 23:27.127 enthusiasm, so his response is not an articulation of some 23:27.127 --> 23:30.197 thought, but an effusion: "Yes; 23:30.200 --> 23:34.550 that's right." It's a visceral response, 23:34.552 --> 23:39.862 and you see it even more clearly on 4. 23:39.859 --> 23:44.429 So, he's staying, Dean is staying with Sal, 23:44.425 --> 23:47.355 and Sal has been writing. 23:47.359 --> 23:51.139 And they're ready to go out, and Sal says: 23:51.140 --> 23:51.810 "Hold on a minute. 23:51.809 --> 23:54.649 I'll be right with you as soon as I finish this chapter," and 23:54.651 --> 23:56.831 it was one of the best chapters in the book. 23:56.829 --> 24:00.449 Then I dressed and off we flew to New York to meet some girls." 24:03.459 --> 24:05.229 little bit. ("I was…" 24:05.230 --> 24:07.150 Oh, let's see. "As we…"Actually, 24:07.154 --> 24:08.524 I am going to read that part.) 24:08.519 --> 24:12.549 As we rode in the bus in the weird phosphorescent void of 24:12.553 --> 24:15.573 the Lincoln Tunnel, we leaned on each other with 24:15.567 --> 24:18.797 fingers waving and yelled and talked excitedly and I was 24:18.803 --> 24:21.043 beginning to get the bug like Dean. 24:21.039 --> 24:23.869 He was simply a youth tremendously excited with life 24:23.869 --> 24:27.029 and though he was a con man he was only conning because he 24:27.031 --> 24:30.361 wanted so much to live and get involved with people who would 24:30.360 --> 24:32.580 otherwise pay no attention to him. 24:32.579 --> 24:36.489 He was conning me and I knew it for room and board and how to 24:36.492 --> 24:38.712 write, etc., and he knew I knew. 24:38.710 --> 24:41.790 This had been the basis of our relationship but I didn't care 24:41.788 --> 24:43.018 and we got along fine. 24:43.020 --> 24:44.560 No pestering, no catering. 24:44.559 --> 24:47.229 We tiptoed around each other like heartbreaking new friends. 24:47.230 --> 24:51.080 I began to learn from him as much as he probably learned from 24:51.079 --> 24:52.439 me. As far as my work was 24:52.441 --> 24:53.981 concerned, he said, "Go ahead. 24:53.980 --> 24:56.090 Everything you do is great." 24:56.089 --> 24:59.209 He watched over my shoulder as I wrote stories yelling, 24:59.207 --> 25:00.417 "Yes, that's right. 25:00.420 --> 25:08.160 Wow, man," and "Phew!" "Wow" is Dean's word. 25:08.160 --> 25:13.270 "Wow" is the kind of word that means nothing, 25:13.272 --> 25:19.432 but it suggests the immediacy of Dean's engagement. 25:19.430 --> 25:24.120 So, all that talking on the bus, and the way they're moving 25:24.124 --> 25:28.254 their hands, the bug, that's all where this language 25:28.252 --> 25:33.252 is rising from. That's where the new language 25:33.247 --> 25:38.607 is going to come from, and you can see how Sal 25:38.613 --> 25:42.313 assimilates that on page 35. 25:42.309 --> 25:44.899 This is just as he is coming into Denver: 25:44.900 --> 25:50.710 25:50.710 --> 25:54.850 I said to myself, Wow, what'll Denver be like? 25:54.849 --> 25:58.709 I got on that hot road and off I went in a brand-new car driven 25:58.706 --> 26:01.066 by a Denver businessman of about 35. 26:01.070 --> 26:02.880 He went 70. I tingled all over. 26:02.880 --> 26:05.370 I counted minutes and subtracted miles. 26:05.369 --> 26:09.319 Just ahead over the rolling wheat fields all golden beneath 26:09.323 --> 26:13.553 the distant snows of Estes I'd be seeing old Denver at last. 26:13.549 --> 26:17.979 I pictured myself in a Denver bar that night with all the gang 26:17.983 --> 26:22.273 and in their eyes I would be strange and ragged and like the 26:22.272 --> 26:26.632 prophet who has walked across the land to bring the dark word 26:26.633 --> 26:30.053 and the only word I had was "wow." 26:30.049 --> 26:37.479 So Neal's--sorry--Dean's sense (I will do this and please 26:37.477 --> 26:41.427 forgive me. I will sometimes slip in to 26:41.432 --> 26:45.202 calling him Dean because he, Dean… 26:45.200 --> 26:47.760 nevermind. You know what I'm saying. 26:47.759 --> 26:55.049 I will sometimes slip in to calling him Neal when his name 26:55.053 --> 27:02.353 is Dean.) Dean has already projected this mode of language 27:02.346 --> 27:05.796 into Sal, so even as he's saying to Sal, 27:05.804 --> 27:09.334 "Teach me how to write," what he's doing is teaching Sal how 27:09.332 --> 27:13.612 to write, how to write this kind of book, 27:13.607 --> 27:17.277 how to be the prophet of "wow." 27:17.280 --> 27:19.290 This is all over the text. 27:19.289 --> 27:28.479 If you look at page 62, it's in these little stories: 27:28.480 --> 27:31.310 Remi woke up and saw me come in the window. 27:31.309 --> 27:35.149 His great laugh, one of the greatest laughs in 27:35.148 --> 27:38.218 the world, dinned in my ear. 27:38.220 --> 27:42.770 And then, if you just skip up to the top of 63: 27:42.769 --> 27:46.029 The strange thing was that next door to Remi lived a 27:46.029 --> 27:48.719 Negro called Mr. Snow whose laugh I swear on the 27:48.716 --> 27:52.196 Bible was positively and finally the one greatest laugh in all 27:52.204 --> 27:55.594 this world. The laugh is a lot like the 27:55.592 --> 27:58.072 "wow." It's that sound you make just 27:58.070 --> 28:01.880 because you're experiencing something, just because you're 28:01.884 --> 28:05.034 having a response to what's in front of you, 28:05.030 --> 28:06.350 something someone says. 28:06.350 --> 28:09.230 Okay. That's another example. 28:09.230 --> 28:14.920 And the last one I'll give you is on 55. 28:14.920 --> 28:20.470 This is when they've gone up to the mountain pass after getting 28:20.468 --> 28:25.388 in fights in the bars in Denver: In the whole eastern dark 28:25.387 --> 28:28.497 wall of the divide this night there was silence and the 28:28.500 --> 28:31.900 whisper of the wind except in the ravine where we roared and 28:31.902 --> 28:35.482 on the other side of the divide was the great Western Slope and 28:35.477 --> 28:38.757 the big plateau that went to Steamboat Springs and dropped 28:38.763 --> 28:41.883 and led you to the western Colorado desert and the Utah 28:41.876 --> 28:45.156 desert all in darkness now as we fumed and screamed in our 28:45.163 --> 28:48.663 mountain nook, mad, drunken Americans in the 28:48.660 --> 28:51.600 mighty land. We were on the roof of America 28:51.601 --> 28:55.401 and all we could do was yell I guess across the night, 28:55.400 --> 28:59.950 eastward over the plains where somewhere an old man with white 28:59.947 --> 29:03.897 hair was probably walking towards us with the word and 29:03.898 --> 29:07.848 would arrive any minute and make us silent. 29:07.849 --> 29:14.659 Their yell at the top of the world seems to Sal something 29:14.660 --> 29:21.120 that calls for a replacement; it calls for some other prophet 29:21.119 --> 29:26.329 to come walking ragged towards them and make them fall silent 29:26.325 --> 29:29.465 with his word. But, in the meantime, 29:29.466 --> 29:34.066 what you have is the continual reproduction of that yell, 29:34.069 --> 29:39.449 that laugh, that "wow," that "yes," that "that's all right," 29:39.449 --> 29:45.099 all those things that they say just to register their existence 29:45.102 --> 29:48.752 and their relation with one another. 29:48.750 --> 29:52.910 I want to note something else, though, 29:52.911 --> 29:57.991 about the first time that Dean and Sal meet and the 29:57.986 --> 30:01.636 contextualizing of that meeting. 30:01.640 --> 30:04.930 When they first meet in that passage that I read to you, 30:04.925 --> 30:08.685 he's just rising up from having sex on the couch with Marylou in 30:08.687 --> 30:10.417 someone else's apartment. 30:10.420 --> 30:13.170 He sent the owner of the apartment into the kitchen so he 30:13.169 --> 30:15.279 could have sex with Marylou on the couch. 30:15.279 --> 30:20.459 In other versions he says that Dean got up and was naked, 30:20.460 --> 30:23.420 not that he was in his shorts. 30:23.420 --> 30:26.660 There is an immediate sexual sense that charges the 30:26.664 --> 30:29.004 relationship between these people. 30:29.000 --> 30:33.030 30:33.029 --> 30:37.679 Those relationships take place in the context of continual 30:37.682 --> 30:40.622 negotiations of sexual relationships, 30:40.620 --> 30:45.110 and so the book begins with that explanation that: 30:45.109 --> 30:51.009 I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up. 30:51.009 --> 30:53.399 I had just gotten over a serious illness that I won't 30:53.400 --> 30:56.300 bother to talk about except that it had something to do with the 30:56.297 --> 30:59.147 miserably weary splitting up and my feeling that everything was 30:59.148 --> 31:02.158 dead. Dean's negotiations between 31:02.159 --> 31:05.959 Marylou and Camille in Denver--where he has his 31:05.958 --> 31:08.638 schedule, and he has his exact time he 31:08.638 --> 31:12.198 has to get from one hotel to the other to sleep with each of 31:12.197 --> 31:15.427 them, and then he has to meet Carlo 31:15.425 --> 31:19.965 Ginsberg, Carlo Marx, in the basement to have his 31:19.969 --> 31:25.549 conversations to get to the "bottomlessness" of each other's 31:25.554 --> 31:30.954 mind--all those negotiations are absolutely crucial. 31:30.950 --> 31:34.230 It's what they spend their time talking about, 31:34.227 --> 31:37.537 often. It's what they spend their time 31:37.543 --> 31:40.903 negotiating. So, the search for the 31:40.898 --> 31:45.988 immediate language of experience is part and parcel of a very 31:45.994 --> 31:51.264 complex negotiation of sexual ties between multiple people. 31:51.259 --> 31:54.119 And it's not just between the men and the women. 31:54.119 --> 31:55.609 It's between the men and the men. 31:55.609 --> 32:00.959 And that moment when Sal meets Dean at the door, 32:00.956 --> 32:05.596 and he's naked; it's reflected when he sees 32:05.595 --> 32:07.495 Dean with Camille. 32:07.500 --> 32:11.300 Camille opens the door to their room when they're in Denver, 32:11.298 --> 32:13.678 and he finally sees Dean in Denver. 32:13.680 --> 32:17.390 He opens the door to the room, and there is a picture that 32:17.387 --> 32:20.897 Camille has drawn of Dean: a portrait of him completely 32:20.899 --> 32:26.359 naked, and it notes his penis in that 32:26.357 --> 32:30.227 picture. It's as if Sal's first 32:30.227 --> 32:35.077 experience of Dean is already, in that scene, 32:35.082 --> 32:40.712 assimilated into the image of Dean: the disembodied, 32:40.710 --> 32:43.910 aesthetic image of Dean. 32:43.910 --> 32:48.330 But that aesthetic image of Dean is all bound up in these 32:48.334 --> 32:51.174 negotiations. So, it's a picture that Camille 32:51.174 --> 32:54.544 has drawn, and of course Camille doesn't know that he's sleeping 32:54.535 --> 32:57.145 with Marylou in another hotel on the same day, 32:57.150 --> 33:00.690 and so on. So, all of that is very 33:00.686 --> 33:06.116 palpable, and Sal's own desire for Dean is sublimated in those 33:06.122 --> 33:11.472 scenes, but it's everywhere at the level of the language. 33:11.470 --> 33:16.080 And, if you note the repeated presence of that question, 33:16.076 --> 33:18.876 where was Dean? Where was Dean? 33:18.880 --> 33:21.710 He's always missing. 33:21.710 --> 33:24.550 When Sal gets to Denver, that's what he wants to know. 33:24.549 --> 33:29.629 When he gets back to New York, finally, at the end of this 33:29.625 --> 33:33.005 first road trip, he has missed Dean. 33:33.009 --> 33:37.819 There's always the sense that Dean evades him, 33:37.815 --> 33:44.215 and I think part of that sense of an evading object of desire 33:44.222 --> 33:48.762 is, again, the pursuit of sex in 33:48.763 --> 33:51.753 this novel; it's part of the pursuit of sex. 33:51.750 --> 33:57.640 33:57.640 --> 34:00.600 You might think, given all this, 34:00.604 --> 34:05.014 and given the ultimate plot of On the Road, 34:05.009 --> 34:10.059 that being on the road is about pursuing that kind of desire, 34:10.055 --> 34:13.665 and that it is necessitated by leaving home: 34:13.672 --> 34:18.552 you have to leave home in order to pursue that desire. 34:18.550 --> 34:22.600 But I would suggest to you that home is absolutely crucial to 34:22.599 --> 34:24.759 the production of this desire. 34:24.760 --> 34:27.640 And I want to point you to page 26. 34:27.640 --> 34:33.330 34:33.329 --> 34:41.329 This is Sal's story about Big Slim Hazard, a hobo that he once 34:41.331 --> 34:45.931 knew. He was a hobo by choice: 34:45.929 --> 34:48.629 As a little boy, he'd seen a hobo come up to ask 34:48.630 --> 34:51.690 his mother for a piece of pie and she had given it to him and 34:51.687 --> 34:54.997 when the hobo went off down the road the little boy had said, 34:55.000 --> 34:56.730 "Ma, what was that fellow?" 34:56.730 --> 34:58.330 "Why, that's a hobo." 34:58.329 --> 35:01.949 "Ma, I want to be a hobo someday." 35:01.950 --> 35:02.780 "Shut your mouth. 35:02.780 --> 35:05.500 That's not for the like of the Hazards." 35:05.500 --> 35:09.320 But he never forgot that day and when he grew up after a 35:09.317 --> 35:13.827 short spell playing football at LSU he did become a hobo. 35:13.829 --> 35:18.619 Being a hobo is produced in this little vignette by the 35:18.615 --> 35:23.485 experience of seeing a hobo get pie from your mother. 35:23.489 --> 35:27.719 Now, did any of you notice how often Sal eats pie? 35:27.719 --> 35:34.979 Let me just demonstrate the litany of pie. 35:34.980 --> 35:41.820 Okay, page 15. Actually, let's start on 14, 35:41.818 --> 35:45.398 or perhaps on 13: "Along about three in the 35:45.402 --> 35:49.922 morning after an apple pie and ice cream in a roadside 35:49.923 --> 35:52.903 stand…." That's Sal. 35:52.900 --> 35:55.320 Top of 14: I ate another apple pie 35:55.319 --> 35:57.359 and ice cream. That's practically all I ate 35:57.359 --> 35:58.969 all the way across the country. 35:58.969 --> 36:01.919 I knew it was nutritious and it was delicious. 36:01.920 --> 36:06.530 Fifteen, bottom: I ate apple pie and ice 36:06.531 --> 36:09.111 cream. It was getting better as I got 36:09.107 --> 36:10.997 deeper in to Iowa, the pie bigger, 36:10.996 --> 36:12.366 the ice cream richer. 36:12.369 --> 36:15.229 There were the most beautiful bevies of girls everywhere I 36:15.226 --> 36:17.126 looked in Des Moines that afternoon. 36:17.130 --> 36:20.410 They were coming home from high school but I had no time now for 36:20.410 --> 36:23.430 thoughts like that and promised myself a ball in Denver. 36:23.429 --> 36:29.089 And if you look on 107, the first thing Sal does when 36:29.087 --> 36:31.307 he gets home is eat. 36:31.309 --> 36:34.399 When I got home I ate everything in the icebox. 36:34.400 --> 36:35.630 My mother got up and looked at me. 36:35.630 --> 36:38.480 "Poor little Salvatore," she said in Italian. 36:38.480 --> 36:40.250 "You're thin. You're thin. 36:40.250 --> 36:42.720 Where have you been all this time?" 36:42.719 --> 36:44.809 I had on two shirts and two sweaters. 36:44.809 --> 36:47.979 My canvas bag had torn cottonfield pants and the 36:47.980 --> 36:51.150 tattered remnants of my huarache shoes in it. 36:51.150 --> 36:54.650 My aunt and I decided to buy a new electric refrigerator with 36:54.650 --> 36:57.160 the money I had sent her from California; 36:57.159 --> 37:00.949 it was to be the first one in the family. 37:00.949 --> 37:05.359 There is a sense in which hunger, the hunger generated by 37:05.361 --> 37:10.561 the road, in Sal's case in this last scene--he's been penniless; 37:10.559 --> 37:16.019 all he had was cough drops to eat at the very end--that the 37:16.020 --> 37:21.480 hunger generated by the road exists in a necessary relation 37:21.481 --> 37:24.401 to the consumption of home. 37:24.400 --> 37:28.210 And I would suggest to you that the consumption of home is 37:28.205 --> 37:31.205 driven by a certain kind of desire as well, 37:31.210 --> 37:37.730 that desire to move up in the American class structure: 37:37.726 --> 37:43.636 "the first electric refrigerator in my family." 37:43.639 --> 37:47.319 He's earned a little money on the road and sent it home. 37:47.320 --> 37:52.910 What it does for him is allow him to buy his aunt this symbol 37:52.910 --> 37:56.730 of a middle-class American domesticity, 37:56.730 --> 38:01.770 and he is a happy participant in this new purchase. 38:01.769 --> 38:05.509 This is not exactly just what the women do while the boys 38:05.509 --> 38:06.879 are out on the road. 38:06.880 --> 38:09.640 The boys want the pie. 38:09.639 --> 38:14.949 The boys want to become hobos because there's a kind of hunger 38:14.949 --> 38:18.799 that's generated at home; it's satisfied at home, 38:18.799 --> 38:20.949 but it's also generated at home. 38:20.949 --> 38:26.319 And I want to suggest to you that part of the misogyny of the 38:26.320 --> 38:30.890 novel--which I'm sure is palpable to all of us as we 38:30.885 --> 38:36.165 read--part of that misogyny is connected to this consumptive 38:36.165 --> 38:40.055 ethos. So, when we talk about desire 38:40.060 --> 38:45.990 for something--"we've got to go someplace, find something--the 38:45.993 --> 38:52.223 very vagueness of that desire is connected with the basic hungers 38:52.218 --> 38:59.488 of the body for sex, for food, for sleep even. 38:59.489 --> 39:04.809 We see Dean sort of begging for sleep after his conversation 39:04.805 --> 39:08.765 with Carlo Marx in the basement in Denver. 39:08.769 --> 39:14.329 Those kinds of desires are connected also with that 39:14.326 --> 39:17.616 American habit of consumption. 39:17.620 --> 39:23.020 This is a consumer society; in the 1950s it was already 39:23.020 --> 39:27.860 very much so. The mass production after World 39:27.860 --> 39:30.900 War II had already taken hold. 39:30.900 --> 39:34.490 Supermarkets, as we saw in Wise Blood, 39:34.488 --> 39:38.438 are already something one can be fond of, 39:38.435 --> 39:42.645 as Enoch was. And so, if this is a novel 39:42.654 --> 39:47.014 whose aura has always said to us, "Be free, 39:47.006 --> 39:49.386 be countercultural," 39:49.390 --> 39:52.480 39:52.480 --> 39:57.620 what I'm suggesting is that it's structured around a very 39:57.619 --> 40:02.849 deeply embedded American cultural trait of consumption. 40:02.849 --> 40:10.089 It spiritualizes that kind of desire, and my symbol for it is 40:10.086 --> 40:10.806 pie. 40:10.810 --> 40:22.270 40:22.269 --> 40:26.029 I want to show you one last thing about how the language 40:26.030 --> 40:28.070 works, and this is on page 49. 40:28.070 --> 40:38.720 40:38.719 --> 40:44.009 To set aside the critique of that search for a moment, 40:44.012 --> 40:50.002 I just want to move back into it in these spiritual terms and 40:50.003 --> 40:52.403 see what we can see. 40:52.400 --> 40:56.290 When Dean and Carlo are talking to each other, 40:56.291 --> 41:01.221 there's a lot of anxiety on either part about whether they 41:01.219 --> 41:05.979 have actually attained that thing that they were looking 41:05.975 --> 41:09.865 for. On 48, their talk is described 41:09.869 --> 41:12.899 as business in the beginning. 41:12.900 --> 41:14.600 Then they got down to business. 41:14.599 --> 41:17.849 They sat on the bed cross-legged and looked at each 41:17.849 --> 41:20.209 other. I slouched in a nearby chair 41:20.210 --> 41:21.460 and saw all of it. 41:21.460 --> 41:24.080 They began with an abstract thought, discussed it, 41:24.080 --> 41:27.340 reminded each other of another abstract point forgotten in the 41:27.343 --> 41:30.073 rush of events. Dean apologized but promised he 41:30.069 --> 41:32.879 could get back to it and manage it fine, bringing up 41:32.881 --> 41:36.201 illustrations. And then, they have this very 41:36.203 --> 41:40.453 complicated back-and-forth about things that they remembered, 41:40.450 --> 41:43.920 or didn't, and they hashed these things over: 41:43.920 --> 41:47.930 Then Carlo asked Dean if he was honest and specifically 41:47.934 --> 41:51.954 if he was being honest with him in the bottom of his soul. 41:51.949 --> 41:53.329 "Why do you bring that up again?" 41:53.329 --> 41:55.429 "There is one last thing I want to know.'" 41:55.430 --> 41:57.080 "But dear Sal, you're listening. 41:57.080 --> 41:58.170 You are sitting there. 41:58.170 --> 42:01.230 We'll ask Sal. What would he say?" 42:01.230 --> 42:06.030 And I said, "That last thing is what you can't get, 42:06.031 --> 42:08.631 Carlo. Nobody can get to that last 42:08.626 --> 42:12.066 thing. We keep on living in hopes of 42:12.073 --> 42:14.743 catching it once for all." 42:17.032 --> 42:20.472 produced because you can't ever get to that last thing; 42:20.469 --> 42:22.219 you have to keep hashing it over. 42:22.219 --> 42:28.769 But if you go to the next page you can see--or actually two 42:28.765 --> 42:35.195 pages over--you can see that already Sal is taking what he 42:35.198 --> 42:41.178 can get from this language and transposing it into his 42:41.179 --> 42:44.339 experience of reality. 42:44.340 --> 42:51.710 So Carlo had earlier--sorry to flip back and forth so much--had 42:51.706 --> 42:57.286 read earlier his poem--this is on 47--to Sal. 42:57.290 --> 43:02.600 He had been reading poetry. 43:02.599 --> 43:04.929 Carlo woke up in the morning and heard the vulgar 43:04.927 --> 43:07.037 pigeons yakking in the street outside his cell. 43:07.039 --> 43:09.869 He saw the sad nightingales nodding on the branches and they 43:09.869 --> 43:11.259 reminded him of his mother. 43:11.260 --> 43:13.190 A gray shroud fell over the city. 43:13.190 --> 43:15.850 The mountains, the magnificent Rockies that 43:15.848 --> 43:18.698 you can see to the west from any part of town, 43:18.697 --> 43:20.087 were papier-mache. 43:20.090 --> 43:22.770 The whole universe was crazy and cockeyed and extremely 43:22.774 --> 43:25.104 strange. So, this is what Carlo 43:25.096 --> 43:26.896 represents in his poetry. 43:26.900 --> 43:29.820 Well, if you look, Sal, after witnessing what it 43:29.817 --> 43:32.857 means--what their business is with one another, 43:32.860 --> 43:39.360 the way they try to get to the bottom of each other's soul--he 43:39.361 --> 43:45.331 looks out, and he sees the world through Carlo's eyes. 43:45.329 --> 43:47.999 He's been awake all this time listening: 43:48.000 --> 43:50.510 "What were you thinking, Sal?" 43:50.510 --> 43:54.330 I told them that I was thinking they were very amazing maniacs 43:54.327 --> 43:58.077 and that I had spent the whole night listening to them like a 43:58.081 --> 44:01.961 man watching the mechanism of a watch that reached clear to the 44:01.961 --> 44:05.901 top of Berthoud Pass and was yet made with the smallest works of 44:05.904 --> 44:08.724 the most delicate watch in the world. 44:08.720 --> 44:11.310 They smiled. I pointed my finger at them and 44:11.311 --> 44:14.461 said, "If you keep this up, you'll both go crazy but let me 44:14.458 --> 44:16.518 know what happens as you go along." 44:16.519 --> 44:20.929 I walked out and took a trolley to my apartment and Carlo Marx's 44:20.929 --> 44:25.199 papier-mache mountains grew red as the great sun rose from the 44:25.199 --> 44:29.939 eastward plains. So, the poetry that is part and 44:29.937 --> 44:35.297 parcel of the conversation between Dean and Carlo--Carlo's 44:35.302 --> 44:39.352 poetry--seeps out of that basement room. 44:39.349 --> 44:43.679 And there's a real spatial sense here, that it's being 44:43.678 --> 44:46.698 generated at the base of the world, 44:46.699 --> 44:50.739 and it goes up and it transforms these mountains into 44:50.735 --> 44:54.665 papier-mache. It makes them in one sense 44:54.673 --> 44:57.833 false; there is a falseness to the 44:57.829 --> 45:03.629 overlay that Carlo gives to Sal, and through which he then sees. 45:03.630 --> 45:06.750 There's a falseness, a craftedness, 45:06.746 --> 45:10.226 but it's a kind of folk craftedness. 45:10.230 --> 45:12.570 This is not the craftedness of modernism. 45:12.570 --> 45:17.420 This is papier-mache, a fairly crude folk art. 45:17.420 --> 45:18.680 Anyone can do it. 45:18.679 --> 45:22.199 Get your strips of newspaper and paste them up. 45:22.199 --> 45:27.329 So, it has a quality that is different from Humbert's 45:27.328 --> 45:32.558 elaborate world view through which we see or don't see 45:32.555 --> 45:36.555 Lolita. It's a very different kind of 45:36.559 --> 45:41.899 crafting, but yet it does replace reality in a similar 45:41.896 --> 45:48.236 way, or it makes demands on reality that push the real back. 45:48.239 --> 45:54.139 And so, even though they can never get to the bottom of 45:54.140 --> 45:58.670 their souls--they can never get, as Sal says, 45:58.667 --> 46:02.307 that last thing, that's what you can never 46:02.314 --> 46:10.604 have--even though that's true, it has this world-making power. 46:10.599 --> 46:13.629 To what end will that power be used? 46:13.630 --> 46:17.270 This is one question I want you to think about as you finish 46:17.268 --> 46:20.558 this novel. What do these figures think 46:20.556 --> 46:22.946 language can be used for? 46:22.950 --> 46:26.500 What's it good for? 46:26.500 --> 46:29.830 What can it do for them? 46:29.829 --> 46:33.659 What beyond that kind of economics of desire, 46:33.655 --> 46:39.365 that accounting? If you look on 107-108, 46:39.365 --> 46:49.635 again at the very end of the section: "I had my home to go 46:49.638 --> 46:52.818 to, my place to lay my head down 46:52.818 --> 46:57.238 and figure the losses and figure the gain that I knew was in 46:57.241 --> 46:59.041 there somewhere too." 46:59.040 --> 47:00.140 What are the losses? 47:00.140 --> 47:02.230 What are the gains? 47:02.230 --> 47:07.390 Is it just a representation of an imaginative and desireful 47:07.386 --> 47:12.716 economy, or is there some other thing being produced here? 47:12.720 --> 47:14.180 What is the something? 47:14.180 --> 47:17.100 What is the someplace? 47:17.099 --> 47:20.629 So, in that relation, I'd like you to think about the 47:20.627 --> 47:23.207 representation of America in the novel. 47:23.210 --> 47:27.920 What do you see there when you think about the America they're 47:27.917 --> 47:30.307 giving us, all these figures? 47:30.310 --> 47:31.330 So, that's for your reading. 47:31.329 --> 47:34.329 In section please bring Lolita. 47:34.329 --> 47:36.729 I think you're going to spend most of your time talking 47:36.726 --> 47:39.096 about Lolita. Section for On the Road 47:39.099 --> 47:42.469 will probably be next week unless your TF wants to bring up 47:42.467 --> 47:46.997 some brief questions about it, but that's all for today.