WEBVTT 00:01.470 --> 00:03.590 Professor Amy Hungerford: All right. 00:03.586 --> 00:06.436 I've put two quotations on the board for your consideration. 00:06.440 --> 00:08.290 The first is from Norman Mailer. 00:08.290 --> 00:11.570 This is from Advertisements for Myself. 00:11.570 --> 00:14.720 He says, "Jack Kerouac lacks discipline, 00:14.721 --> 00:17.651 intelligence, honesty, and a sense of the 00:17.653 --> 00:20.573 novel." Of course, some people might 00:20.572 --> 00:25.332 apply those adjectives to Mailer himself, but that's what Mailer 00:25.326 --> 00:26.446 said. "On the 00:26.448 --> 00:29.658 Road"--this is from a critic named George Dardess; 00:29.660 --> 00:32.760 this is from a 1974 article about On the 00:32.764 --> 00:37.274 Road--"is a love story, not a travelogue and certainly 00:37.272 --> 00:39.492 not a call to revolution." 00:39.490 --> 00:45.000 So, I put these up here to sort of sit in the background of what 00:45.001 --> 00:50.341 I'm going to talk to you about today about the ultimate payoff 00:50.338 --> 00:54.448 for Kerouac's effort and the Beats' effort, 00:54.450 --> 00:59.510 more generally, to imagine a language that is 00:59.510 --> 01:03.650 the adequate analog to experience, 01:03.649 --> 01:08.159 a language that is itself a kind of experience, 01:08.159 --> 01:11.589 and further, that is an ecstatic, 01:11.590 --> 01:15.820 mystical kind of experience. 01:15.819 --> 01:20.439 Last time, in addition to introducing that 01:20.444 --> 01:25.794 idea of language to you, I conducted a reading of the 01:25.787 --> 01:32.057 first part of the novel where I suggested that Kerouac tells a 01:32.056 --> 01:38.016 story that is not so much about the escape from an American 01:38.016 --> 01:44.176 consumer culture of the postwar period as it is a story about 01:44.181 --> 01:50.451 the absolute immersion in a culture of consumption. 01:50.450 --> 01:57.120 So, what Sal Paradise consumes on the road extends from pie, 01:57.122 --> 02:03.232 as I demonstrated to you by the multiple references, 02:03.230 --> 02:08.710 the simple food that the body needs and wants; 02:08.710 --> 02:13.480 to girls, all the women that he tries to sleep with and that 02:13.481 --> 02:18.011 Dean tries to sleep with over the course of the novel; 02:18.009 --> 02:22.749 to money and the consumer goods that come with it in order to 02:22.750 --> 02:27.020 build a middle-class American life with his aunt in New 02:27.017 --> 02:30.017 York--remember he buys the icebox, 02:30.020 --> 02:32.940 the first electric icebox of their family, 02:32.935 --> 02:35.845 the first refrigerator of their family, 02:35.849 --> 02:43.159 when he comes back from his first road trip--to a kind of 02:43.162 --> 02:49.522 mystical access to America, a history of jazz. 02:49.520 --> 02:56.310 There's a whole set of mystical cultural artifacts that Sal 02:56.314 --> 03:03.934 Paradise and his friends consume over the course of this novel. 03:03.930 --> 03:08.550 So, I want to begin just by pointing to you, 03:08.546 --> 03:12.766 on page 297, a somewhat more complex example 03:12.769 --> 03:18.269 of what this looks like toward the end of the novel. 03:18.270 --> 03:27.940 03:27.939 --> 03:30.179 This is at the bottom of that page. 03:30.180 --> 03:36.590 They're driving out of Mexico, Sal and Dean, 03:36.592 --> 03:43.902 and they meet indigenous people along the road. 03:43.900 --> 03:47.010 As we climbed the air grew cooler and the Indian girls 03:47.012 --> 03:50.022 on the road wore shawls over their heads and shoulders. 03:50.020 --> 03:51.540 They hailed us desperately. 03:51.540 --> 03:53.240 We stopped to see. 03:53.240 --> 03:56.670 They wanted to sell us little pieces of rock crystal. 03:56.669 --> 03:59.719 Their great brown, innocent eyes looked into ours 03:59.720 --> 04:03.720 with such soulful intensity that not one of us had the slightest 04:03.723 --> 04:05.633 sexual thought about them. 04:05.629 --> 04:08.999 Moreover, they were very young, some of them eleven and looking 04:09.000 --> 04:11.540 almost thirty. "Look at those eyes," breathed 04:11.544 --> 04:13.674 Dean. They were like the eyes of the 04:13.670 --> 04:15.820 Virgin Mother when she was a child. 04:15.819 --> 04:20.379 We saw in them the tender and forgiving gaze of Jesus and they 04:20.381 --> 04:22.701 stared unflinching into ours. 04:22.699 --> 04:25.959 We rubbed our nervous blue eyes and looked again. 04:25.959 --> 04:30.349 Still they penetrated us with sorrowful and hypnotic gleam. 04:30.350 --> 04:35.950 When they talked they suddenly became frantic and almost silly. 04:35.949 --> 04:39.749 In their silence they were themselves. 04:39.750 --> 04:43.310 "They"ve only recently learned to sell these crystals since the 04:43.307 --> 04:45.657 highway was built about ten years back. 04:45.660 --> 04:50.290 Up until that time this entire nation must have been silent." 04:53.810 --> 04:58.320 In this fantasy about the indigenous girls, 04:58.318 --> 05:04.648 what you see is a commitment to language and the activity of 05:04.651 --> 05:07.651 selling, buying and selling, 05:07.653 --> 05:10.903 entirely entwined with one another. 05:10.899 --> 05:15.119 So, the fantasy here is that it's selling and buying that 05:15.123 --> 05:19.353 produces in them a language that looks very much like the 05:19.346 --> 05:22.736 language that's frequently attributed to Dean: 05:22.740 --> 05:26.350 frantic and silly, almost silly. 05:26.350 --> 05:31.000 Remember, as the novel goes on and Dean gets more and more 05:31.001 --> 05:35.821 hyper, sort of "wigged out," his language becomes more and 05:35.815 --> 05:38.995 more frantic, and more and more actually 05:38.995 --> 05:42.115 silly. So this is here attributed to 05:42.124 --> 05:44.744 them. There are other fantasies at 05:44.742 --> 05:46.412 work here, obviously. 05:46.410 --> 05:51.720 One is that they are reading a kind of Christian essentialism 05:51.717 --> 05:54.987 into these people, into their eyes. 05:54.990 --> 05:59.020 They see the Virgin Mary, and they see Jesus. 05:59.019 --> 06:03.289 There is a whole mystical objectification of these people 06:03.294 --> 06:06.814 that's going on, that's allied to the religious 06:06.805 --> 06:10.875 strains of this novel, which I'm going to pick up 06:10.876 --> 06:14.806 again a little bit later on in my lecture today. 06:14.810 --> 06:18.210 So, this is a more complex and, sort of, 06:18.212 --> 06:21.142 dense example of how that consumer, 06:21.139 --> 06:25.089 that push to consume, that consumer sense drives and 06:25.090 --> 06:29.660 motivates the novel and plays out in what they see when they 06:29.660 --> 06:31.210 are on the road. 06:31.210 --> 06:35.580 06:35.579 --> 06:39.899 In that passage that I read to you when they're in the 06:39.903 --> 06:44.553 mountains in Colorado drunk, yelling, they call themselves 06:44.554 --> 06:46.924 "mad, drunken Americans." 06:46.920 --> 06:49.790 Well, what does America mean in this novel? 06:49.790 --> 06:53.080 And what does it mean to be an American in this novel? 06:53.079 --> 06:59.349 So, that's the question I'd like to take up today first. 06:59.350 --> 07:02.890 Coming from Lolita, the vision of America in 07:02.887 --> 07:05.927 On the Road looks quite different. 07:05.930 --> 07:10.940 In Lolita the vision of America is minute; 07:10.940 --> 07:15.730 it's detailed; it's concrete. 07:15.730 --> 07:21.610 Remember, for example, the Komfee Kabins that Nabokov 07:21.610 --> 07:28.170 gives us as Lolita and Humbert tour around: the painful, 07:28.170 --> 07:34.270 luminous, tiny detail of all that they see on the road. 07:34.270 --> 07:35.240 Think to yourself. 07:35.240 --> 07:38.770 Do you see any of that kind of detail in this book? 07:38.770 --> 07:39.670 I see shaking heads. 07:39.670 --> 07:41.370 No. We really don't. 07:41.370 --> 07:42.750 What do we see instead? 07:42.750 --> 07:44.750 What America do we see? 07:44.750 --> 07:49.830 I'm going to look back to a passage I talked about in a 07:49.828 --> 07:53.158 different vein last time, on 26 and 27, 07:53.155 --> 07:55.865 just for one quick example. 07:55.870 --> 07:59.030 This is, remember, when he's hitched a ride in 07:59.027 --> 08:03.237 this truck, and it's a truck bed full of men who have hitched 08:03.238 --> 08:06.048 rides. And he's talking with 08:06.045 --> 08:07.845 Mississippi Gene. 08:07.850 --> 08:11.520 This is at the bottom of 26: There is something so 08:11.517 --> 08:15.517 indubitably reminiscent of Big Slim Hazard in Mississippi 08:15.516 --> 08:19.426 Gene's demeanor that I said, "Do you happen to have met a 08:19.425 --> 08:21.965 fellow called Big Slim Hazard somewhere?" 08:21.970 --> 08:24.540 And he said, "You mean that tall fellow with 08:24.535 --> 08:26.955 the big laugh?" "Well, that sounds like him. 08:26.960 --> 08:28.770 He came from Ruston, Louisiana." 08:28.770 --> 08:31.130 "That's right. Louisiana Slim he's sometimes 08:31.127 --> 08:32.307 called. Yes, Sir. 08:32.310 --> 08:34.990 I sure have met Big Slim. 08:34.990 --> 08:37.500 And he used to work in the east Texas oil fields?" 08:37.500 --> 08:40.870 "East Texas is right and now he's punching cows," and that 08:40.868 --> 08:44.198 was exactly right, and still I couldn't believe 08:44.202 --> 08:48.582 Gene could really have known Slim whom I have been looking 08:48.583 --> 08:51.353 for more or less for years. 08:51.350 --> 08:56.070 In this scene Big Slim Hazard is an American type, 08:56.069 --> 08:59.729 just as Mississippi Gene is himself. 08:59.730 --> 09:06.770 Their names tell you that they're almost cartoonishly 09:06.768 --> 09:12.028 American types. The fact that Mississippi Gene 09:12.034 --> 09:15.994 knows this vague person, Big Slim Hazard, 09:15.986 --> 09:21.516 gives you the feeling that America is a tiny community in 09:21.520 --> 09:27.760 which these types loom large, that anyone from anywhere--if 09:27.756 --> 09:32.806 he's the right kind of American--will know the other 09:32.814 --> 09:37.084 members of that American tribe of types. 09:37.080 --> 09:41.480 So, Mississippi Gene knows the America that Sal knows, 09:41.484 --> 09:46.724 and it's America populated by these larger-than-life figures. 09:46.720 --> 09:52.680 The very vagueness of the description: "You mean the tall 09:52.682 --> 09:55.772 fellow with the big laugh?" 09:55.769 --> 09:59.289 How many people can we imagine who might fit that description? 09:59.289 --> 10:01.589 It's like telling your horoscope; 10:01.590 --> 10:05.570 if you're general enough, you're going to make a match. 10:05.570 --> 10:11.150 So, Sal is convinced--he wants to be convinced; 10:11.149 --> 10:16.119 he desperately wants to be convinced--that Mississippi Gene 10:16.115 --> 10:18.165 knows Big Slim Hazard. 10:18.169 --> 10:23.869 Let's look at another example on page 59. 10:23.870 --> 10:29.090 10:29.090 --> 10:32.670 This is something else Sal wants. 10:32.669 --> 10:37.009 I wanted to see Denver ten years ago when they were all 10:37.011 --> 10:41.281 children--[That's Chad and Dean and the other Denver natives 10:41.279 --> 10:43.739 they have among them in their gang] 10:43.739 --> 10:48.009 and in the sunny cherry blossom morning of springtime in the 10:48.008 --> 10:51.988 Rockies rolling their hoops up the joyous alleys full of 10:51.987 --> 10:54.607 promise, the whole gang, 10:54.606 --> 10:59.166 and Dean ragged and dirty, prowling by himself in his 10:59.171 --> 11:03.961 preoccupied frenzy. There is a nostalgia here, 11:03.961 --> 11:07.011 not for the past of the old West. 11:07.009 --> 11:08.489 It's important that Denver is in the West. 11:08.490 --> 11:13.030 The nostalgia here is not for the old West, 11:13.034 --> 11:15.744 but for the young West. 11:15.740 --> 11:20.660 The West in On the Road is an area of youth. 11:20.659 --> 11:23.989 It's always, in American lore, 11:23.993 --> 11:30.663 been an area of adventure and imagination, but this is well 11:30.661 --> 11:35.031 after the end of Manifest Destiny. 11:35.030 --> 11:37.050 There is no border in the West. 11:37.049 --> 11:42.619 So Sal has to reinvent one, and in some sense it's a border 11:42.619 --> 11:46.849 of time. It's a spring of youth that's 11:46.851 --> 11:50.121 inaccessible, somehow, to Sal, 11:50.123 --> 11:56.783 that these men he's with who are so exciting to him as their 11:56.779 --> 12:01.179 own kind of western American type, 12:01.179 --> 12:05.339 that they blossomed and grew in this particular place, 12:05.343 --> 12:08.803 and he wants to have been there with them. 12:08.799 --> 12:12.349 So, in a way, by longing to be where they 12:12.353 --> 12:17.243 were when they were children, by longing to inhabit that 12:17.239 --> 12:21.059 time, as well, he wants to become them. 12:21.059 --> 12:24.879 So, this is just one of the ways that Sal longs to 12:24.879 --> 12:27.139 assimilate them to himself. 12:27.139 --> 12:29.499 The other big way, of course, is through Dean's 12:29.496 --> 12:31.336 language, but this is another way. 12:31.340 --> 12:35.940 It's a vision of the West as a place of, generally, 12:35.935 --> 12:37.125 male youth. 12:37.130 --> 12:42.450 12:42.450 --> 12:50.240 When he's back in New York--this is on page 125--his 12:50.237 --> 12:59.247 New York friends meet his road friends, and are delighted by 12:59.245 --> 13:03.045 them. This is one of his friends: 13:03.049 --> 13:08.539 "'Sal, where did you find these absolutely wonderful people? 13:08.539 --> 13:11.169 I've never seen anyone like them.' 13:11.169 --> 13:13.679 'I found them in the West.'"So, 13:13.680 --> 13:18.330 there is that sense of the West as a source, and what he's going 13:18.333 --> 13:20.773 to do is take them back East. 13:20.769 --> 13:26.209 So, the West is a fountain of youthful energy that Sal 13:26.208 --> 13:31.338 continually draws back to the East, to New York. 13:31.340 --> 13:35.620 Sal is never really going to be gone from New York that long. 13:35.620 --> 13:39.810 He never really wants to leave, and one sign of it is that 13:39.812 --> 13:44.372 icebox, but the other sign of it is that he continually returns 13:44.372 --> 13:47.022 and takes these people with him. 13:47.019 --> 13:53.049 And part of the pleasure for him is to do that transaction, 13:53.054 --> 13:57.844 to enliven the old East with the young West. 13:57.840 --> 14:04.210 These are all stereotypes of America, but Sal really believes 14:04.205 --> 14:07.595 them and really inhabits them. 14:07.600 --> 14:09.310 Now look on 172. 14:09.310 --> 14:18.200 14:18.200 --> 14:24.700 This is Sal in one of his major moments of vision. 14:24.700 --> 14:31.160 He's in New Orleans, and he's on Market Street. 14:31.160 --> 14:34.620 Oh, sorry. He's in San Francisco, 14:34.620 --> 14:38.180 and he's on Market Street. 14:38.180 --> 14:41.390 This is the middle of 172. 14:41.389 --> 14:43.879 I looked down Market Street. 14:43.879 --> 14:46.809 I didn't know whether it was that or Canal Street in New 14:46.807 --> 14:48.517 Orleans. It led to water, 14:48.524 --> 14:52.674 ambiguous, universal water, just as 42^(nd) Street in New 14:52.672 --> 14:56.822 York leads to water and you never know where you are. 14:56.820 --> 14:59.320 I thought of Ed Dunkel's ghost on Times Square. 14:59.320 --> 15:02.690 I was delirious. I wanted to go back and leer at 15:02.686 --> 15:05.836 my strange Dickensian mother in the hash joint. 15:05.840 --> 15:08.890 I tingled all over from head to foot. 15:08.889 --> 15:13.969 It seemed I had a whole host of memories going back to 1750 in 15:13.971 --> 15:18.801 England and that I was in San Francisco now only in another 15:18.803 --> 15:21.223 life and in another body. 15:21.220 --> 15:24.660 "No," that woman seemed to say with that terrified glance. 15:24.659 --> 15:27.909 "Don't come back and play your honest, hardworking mother. 15:27.909 --> 15:31.319 You are no longer like a son to me and like your father, 15:31.324 --> 15:34.064 my first husband, 'ere this kindly Greek took 15:34.056 --> 15:36.946 pity on me." The proprietor was a Greek with 15:36.946 --> 15:38.636 hairy arms. "You are no good, 15:38.636 --> 15:41.666 inclined to drunkenness and routs and final disgraceful 15:41.673 --> 15:44.323 robbery of the fruits of my 'umble labors in the 15:44.317 --> 15:46.617 haberdashery. Oh, Son. 15:46.620 --> 15:49.820 Did you not ever go on your knees and pray for deliverance 15:49.821 --> 15:52.181 from all your sins and scoundrel's acts? 15:52.180 --> 15:53.910 Lost boy, depart. 15:53.910 --> 15:56.160 Do not haunt my soul. 15:56.160 --> 15:57.810 I have done well forgetting you. 15:57.810 --> 15:59.470 Reopen no old wounds. 15:59.470 --> 16:03.350 Be as if you had never returned and looked in to me to see my 16:03.348 --> 16:06.628 laboring humilities, my few scrubbed pennies, 16:06.625 --> 16:09.095 hungry to grab, quick to deprive, 16:09.100 --> 16:12.760 sullen, unloved, mean-minded son of my flesh. 16:12.760 --> 16:15.000 Son! Son!" 16:15.000 --> 16:19.930 It made me want to think of the big Pop Vision in Graetna with 16:19.930 --> 16:22.580 Old Bull. And for just a moment I had 16:22.582 --> 16:26.502 reached the point of ecstasy that I always wanted to reach, 16:26.500 --> 16:30.320 which was the complete step across chronological time into 16:30.321 --> 16:34.411 timeless shadows and wonderment in the bleakness of the mortal 16:34.411 --> 16:38.571 realm and the sensation of death kicking at my heels to move on 16:38.568 --> 16:42.588 with a phantom dogging its own heels and myself hurrying to a 16:42.590 --> 16:46.750 plank where all the angels dove off and flew into the holy void 16:46.747 --> 16:50.837 of uncreated emptiness, the potent and inconceivable 16:50.840 --> 16:53.590 radiancies shining in bright mind essence, 16:53.592 --> 16:57.622 innumerable lotuslands falling open in the magic mothswarm of 16:57.621 --> 17:01.391 heaven. That language at the end there 17:01.391 --> 17:03.441 is pure Allen Ginsberg. 17:03.440 --> 17:08.390 So, that's that incantatory Beat mysticism. 17:08.390 --> 17:13.580 It's a mysticism of emptiness, in the end, but what fills that 17:13.575 --> 17:18.335 emptiness as we lead up to that moment is this fantasy of 17:18.335 --> 17:24.375 trans-historical existence, that he can somehow embody a 17:24.382 --> 17:28.162 whole human story across time. 17:28.160 --> 17:30.570 Where's that story coming from? 17:30.569 --> 17:34.489 Well, this is a Dickensian mother. 17:34.490 --> 17:40.560 It's Dickens in part, that stereotype of old London, 17:40.557 --> 17:47.217 of the urban working class, but it's not just Dickens. 17:47.220 --> 17:49.180 Moby Dick is here too. 17:49.180 --> 17:52.890 If you look at that litany of streets that lead down to the 17:52.885 --> 17:56.645 water, any of you who have read Moby Dick will recall 17:56.654 --> 17:59.214 that Ishmael talks at the beginning, 17:59.210 --> 18:03.680 before he gets on the Pequod, he talks about how streets that 18:03.684 --> 18:06.374 lead to water draw you inevitably, 18:06.369 --> 18:09.459 and he talks about all the streets in New York that end in 18:09.456 --> 18:12.206 water. And he has this long meditation 18:12.212 --> 18:14.762 on that aspect of city geography. 18:14.759 --> 18:18.109 Well, here is Sal having that meditation, too. 18:18.109 --> 18:23.099 So, what you see in this passage is not only a sort of 18:23.098 --> 18:27.998 mystical trans-historical fantasy, but a literary one. 18:28.000 --> 18:34.310 He's getting his mythology not just from the cupboard of 18:34.312 --> 18:40.972 stereotypes that are proper to American self-conception. 18:40.970 --> 18:44.410 He's looking back to literary stories, too, 18:44.406 --> 18:49.476 that he can assimilate into his experience and read through, 18:49.480 --> 18:54.450 experience through, so that every little thing he 18:54.446 --> 18:59.306 experiences, like this moment of abandonment. 18:59.310 --> 19:02.890 Dean has gone off with Camille; Marylou is off somewhere else; 19:02.890 --> 19:07.690 he's starved; he doesn't have any place to go. 19:07.690 --> 19:11.750 But it becomes a moment of vision, and it can be a moment 19:11.749 --> 19:15.809 of vision because he has these ways of layering over that 19:15.808 --> 19:19.648 experience with mythic and literary significance. 19:19.650 --> 19:22.740 19:22.740 --> 19:26.960 Finally, on 147, we have another example of 19:26.959 --> 19:32.479 this, and it shows us something even a little different, 19:32.484 --> 19:36.004 or it pushes the point further. 19:36.000 --> 19:41.010 This is in New Orleans: There was a mythic wraith 19:41.005 --> 19:44.075 of fog--[this is the middle of that big paragraph] 19:44.081 --> 19:47.221 over the brown waters that night together with dark 19:47.220 --> 19:51.050 driftwoods and across the way New Orleans glowed orange bright 19:51.049 --> 19:53.559 with a few dark ships at her hem, 19:53.559 --> 19:58.219 ghostly, fog-bound Cereno ships with Spanish balconies and 19:58.217 --> 20:01.627 ornamental poops, 'til you got up close and saw 20:01.625 --> 20:05.075 they were just old freighters from Sweden and Panama. 20:05.079 --> 20:07.129 The ferry fires glowed in the night. 20:07.130 --> 20:10.380 The same Negroes plied the shovel and sang. 20:10.380 --> 20:14.320 Old Big Slim Hazard had once worked on the Algiers ferry as a 20:14.321 --> 20:16.211 deck hand. This made me think of 20:16.212 --> 20:19.202 Mississippi Gene too and as the river poured down from mid 20:19.203 --> 20:22.123 America by starlight I knew, I knew like mad, 20:22.116 --> 20:26.536 that everything I had ever known and would ever know was 20:26.537 --> 20:28.077 One. Strange to say, 20:28.078 --> 20:31.728 too, that night we crossed the ferry with Bull Lee a girl 20:31.732 --> 20:35.782 committed suicide off the deck either just before or just after 20:35.778 --> 20:39.438 us. We saw it in the paper the next 20:39.436 --> 20:42.426 day. Here you get a dream, 20:42.433 --> 20:47.823 not just of trans-historical time, the old Spanish ships that 20:47.816 --> 20:52.926 turn out just to be freighters from Sweden and Panama; 20:52.930 --> 20:56.860 you get another nod to Melville, Cereno ships 20:56.856 --> 21:02.206 (Benito Cereno is one of Melville's famous novels). 21:02.210 --> 21:10.200 "That everything I would ever know was One." 21:10.200 --> 21:14.090 The oneness that he is looking for is partly that oneness of 21:14.087 --> 21:17.577 mystical emptiness that we saw in the last passage. 21:17.579 --> 21:22.949 But here we get the sense of the racial oneness that comes 21:22.948 --> 21:26.998 out in some of the other parts of the novel: 21:26.997 --> 21:31.327 the Negroes plying the shovel and singing, 21:31.330 --> 21:33.100 another American type. 21:33.099 --> 21:38.639 But this is a type with which Sal longs to merge. 21:38.640 --> 21:48.070 And this is how--on 179 and 180--this is how he images a way 21:48.072 --> 21:50.792 out of himself. 21:50.790 --> 22:01.540 22:01.540 --> 22:04.750 So this is on 179. 22:04.750 --> 22:07.980 So, I'm moving from the question of "What does America 22:07.980 --> 22:10.660 look like; what's the mythic vocabulary 22:10.660 --> 22:12.090 that Sal is using?" 22:12.089 --> 22:17.409 to, "How does he find his identity as an American?" 22:17.410 --> 22:22.540 So, first he makes America mythic, rather than specific (if 22:22.541 --> 22:27.951 we compare him back to Nabokov), and then he enters into that 22:27.950 --> 22:31.550 mythology through acts of identification. 22:31.549 --> 22:36.189 And here is one of the most important. 22:36.190 --> 22:38.510 At dusk I walked. 22:38.509 --> 22:41.069 I felt like a speck on the surface of the sad, 22:41.067 --> 22:43.297 red earth. I passed the Windsor Hotel 22:43.299 --> 22:46.339 where Dean Moriarty had lived with his father in the 22:46.337 --> 22:49.387 Depression '30s. As of yore, I looked everywhere 22:49.392 --> 22:52.122 for the sad and fabled tinsmith of my mind. 22:52.119 --> 22:55.949 Either you find someone who looks like your father in places 22:55.950 --> 22:59.850 like Montana or you look for a friend's father where he is no 22:59.845 --> 23:02.235 more. At lilac evening I walked with 23:02.238 --> 23:05.858 every muscle aching along the lights of 27^(th) and Welton in 23:05.855 --> 23:09.045 the Denver colored section wishing I were a Negro, 23:09.049 --> 23:13.109 feeling that the best the white world had offered was not enough 23:13.105 --> 23:15.625 ecstasy for me, not enough life, 23:15.628 --> 23:20.358 joy, kicks, darkness, music, not enough night. 23:20.360 --> 23:25.650 23:25.650 --> 23:30.720 He goes on in this vein for that whole paragraph if you just 23:30.719 --> 23:33.029 skim down. I was only myself, 23:33.034 --> 23:35.284 Sal Paradise, sad, strolling in this violet 23:35.283 --> 23:38.333 dark, this unbearably sweet night wishing I could exchange 23:38.334 --> 23:40.524 worlds with the happy, true-hearted, 23:40.519 --> 23:42.509 ecstatic Negroes of America. 23:42.509 --> 23:48.029 Well, this is hugely stereotypical, 23:48.027 --> 23:51.757 hugely appropriative. 23:51.759 --> 23:57.119 Sal wants to take the entire life experience of a group of 23:57.121 --> 24:00.321 people and suck it into himself. 24:00.319 --> 24:06.749 Now, you want to ask yourself: What is the sadness that 24:06.749 --> 24:13.549 motivates this appropriation; why does he want to become the 24:13.545 --> 24:16.995 Negro? He says in another moment, 24:16.996 --> 24:21.926 "I was Mexican." He's always trying to be more 24:21.931 --> 24:27.041 exotic than himself, than simple Sal Paradise. 24:27.039 --> 24:30.909 Well, Baldwin had something to say about this. 24:30.910 --> 24:35.280 James Baldwin characterized this passage as "absolute 24:35.281 --> 24:38.981 nonsense, and offensive nonsense, at that. 24:38.980 --> 24:41.930 And yet, there is real pain in it, and real loss, 24:41.928 --> 24:45.838 however thin. And it is thin, 24:45.842 --> 24:54.622 thin because it It does not refer to reality, 24:54.619 --> 24:59.209 but to a dream." That's what it is: 24:59.214 --> 25:01.364 "It does not refer to reality, but to a dream." 25:01.359 --> 25:04.339 And he says of his own writing, "I had tried to convey 25:04.341 --> 25:06.821 something of what it felt like to be a Negro, 25:06.816 --> 25:09.006 and no one had been able to listen. 25:09.010 --> 25:11.890 They wanted their romance." 25:11.890 --> 25:15.930 Well, I think that's a pretty clear-eyed view, 25:15.927 --> 25:19.797 and a clear indictment, of what Kerouac is doing 25:19.800 --> 25:22.520 through the character of Sal. 25:26.855 --> 25:31.185 history, of actual lived history of his own country. 25:31.190 --> 25:34.790 But, as you've seen, the mythic quality of America 25:34.785 --> 25:37.055 has pushed all of that aside. 25:37.059 --> 25:40.119 So, it's not just the Komfee Kabins that we don't see; 25:40.119 --> 25:42.959 it's the whole history of slavery. 25:42.960 --> 25:47.300 And when he goes picking in the cotton fields, 25:47.304 --> 25:51.074 he imagines that he could be a slave. 25:51.069 --> 25:54.139 And then he makes some comments about how, well, 25:54.135 --> 25:56.805 he could never pick cotton fast enough; 25:56.809 --> 26:02.109 he's just not able to do it as black men are. 26:02.109 --> 26:07.259 So, it's motivated by a huge blindness about the racial 26:07.255 --> 26:12.205 history of the United States in any of its detail. 26:12.210 --> 26:18.050 That sense of the oneness, I think, points to why and how 26:18.054 --> 26:22.024 he makes that illusion, the oneness. 26:22.020 --> 26:25.440 He felt that it was all one. 26:25.440 --> 26:31.690 The oneness is elevated from this sense of appropriation, 26:31.686 --> 26:34.136 to a mystical level. 26:34.140 --> 26:39.760 So that oneness looks something like the Buddhism that Kerouac 26:39.763 --> 26:44.503 studied for a time; it looks like something more 26:44.496 --> 26:49.786 than the effort for Sal just to be something exotic. 26:49.789 --> 26:53.379 It looks like, by entering into that oneness, 26:53.380 --> 26:57.540 by adopting all these different identities, that Sal 26:57.542 --> 27:01.462 participates into some larger mystical body. 27:01.460 --> 27:06.720 But, what is that larger mystical body? 27:06.720 --> 27:09.690 We have been given one candidate: that it's America, 27:09.689 --> 27:11.319 that it's somehow America. 27:11.319 --> 27:13.889 And I want you to keep this in mind and make a note to 27:13.887 --> 27:16.337 yourself. Think about this vision of an 27:16.339 --> 27:20.379 American mystical oneness when you go to read Crying of Lot 27:20.376 --> 27:24.076 49 'cause you're going to see something quite similar 27:24.082 --> 27:26.622 there. There's actually a wonderful 27:26.617 --> 27:30.297 episode in On the Road that is nearly a carbon copy 27:30.298 --> 27:33.848 of what you'll see later in Crying of Lot 49, 27:33.849 --> 27:37.429 where Dean looks down on Salt Lake City at night, 27:37.429 --> 27:41.199 and he looks at the pattern of the lights down below him. 27:41.200 --> 27:46.540 Oedipa Maas in Crying of Lot 49 will sit up on a bluff 27:46.540 --> 27:51.080 overlooking San Narciso, and she'll look down at the 27:51.080 --> 27:52.950 pattern of light. 27:52.950 --> 27:57.220 And it's an important moment in that novel, a moment of 27:57.220 --> 28:00.950 religious revelation, but what's being revealed 28:00.954 --> 28:04.634 remains in Pynchon quite difficult to pin down. 28:04.630 --> 28:06.930 Here, it's equally vague. 28:06.930 --> 28:10.740 28:10.740 --> 28:12.880 So, on 5, back to that question. 28:12.880 --> 28:17.830 What can motivate this kind of effort? 28:17.830 --> 28:22.640 On page 181 he says: There was excitement and 28:22.639 --> 28:27.429 the air was filled with the vibration of really joyous life 28:27.432 --> 28:31.812 that knows nothing of disappointment and white sorrows 28:31.812 --> 28:34.922 and all that. The old Negro man had a can of 28:34.923 --> 28:38.223 beer in his coat pocket which he proceeded to open and the old 28:38.223 --> 28:41.633 white man enviously eyed the can and groped in his pocket to see 28:41.632 --> 28:43.312 if he could buy a can too. 28:43.310 --> 28:47.150 How I died. I walked away from there. 28:47.150 --> 28:49.850 [And then this wonderful transition] 28:49.849 --> 28:52.549 I went to see a rich girl I knew. 28:52.549 --> 28:55.119 In the morning she pulled a hundred-dollar bill out of her 28:55.115 --> 28:57.495 silk stocking and said, "You've been talking of a trip 28:57.500 --> 28:59.210 to Frisco. That being the case, 28:59.205 --> 29:00.975 take this and go have your fun." 29:00.980 --> 29:05.440 So all of my problems were solved. 29:05.440 --> 29:12.940 Sal needs the rich girl to keep his vision fueled, 29:12.943 --> 29:21.063 but the white sorrows are part of what it pays for. 29:21.059 --> 29:26.079 The rich girl provides him with---in a way--with these 29:26.075 --> 29:28.725 white sorrows; she funds them. 29:28.730 --> 29:33.360 You can have white sorrows, whatever those really are. 29:33.359 --> 29:37.679 You can have white sorrows if you have the hundred-dollar bill 29:37.682 --> 29:40.732 to send you off on one of these odysseys. 29:40.730 --> 29:43.660 You're not pinned down to a place working for a living. 29:43.660 --> 29:47.570 29:47.569 --> 29:51.219 I'm not going to talk about jazz, and the way it figures, 29:51.223 --> 29:55.073 but I hope that you will have a chance to talk about that in 29:55.072 --> 29:58.662 section because that brings together several elements of 29:58.661 --> 30:01.011 what's important in the novel. 30:01.009 --> 30:05.549 I want to focus now on the sadness. 30:05.549 --> 30:09.039 I don't know if you noticed how often that adjective appears in 30:09.043 --> 30:11.733 the novel. Did any of you notice that? 30:11.730 --> 30:14.860 "Sadness… sadness…sad night." 30:14.859 --> 30:19.499 One of the saddest things, after Dean and Sal get into 30:19.495 --> 30:23.605 their only fight, really, is the uneaten food on 30:23.606 --> 30:27.016 Dean's plate, the sadness of the uneaten 30:27.017 --> 30:30.457 food. What's sad in this novel, 30:30.455 --> 30:35.605 I think, is the way the specificity of persons pushed 30:35.605 --> 30:41.245 back against that general collapse into mystical communing 30:41.251 --> 30:43.431 with one another. 30:43.430 --> 30:48.900 What's sad: Dean's wife, Camille, and their baby. 30:48.900 --> 30:52.330 It's sad. He abandons them, 30:52.325 --> 30:55.665 and she is left with them. 30:55.670 --> 31:00.990 All the women in Dean's life call him to the carpet and tell 31:00.994 --> 31:02.984 him of all his sins. 31:02.980 --> 31:08.690 That's a sad moment in the novel, a moment of difficulty, 31:08.689 --> 31:11.849 a moment of specificity also. 31:11.850 --> 31:13.300 What else is sad? 31:13.299 --> 31:19.319 It's sad when Dean leaves Sal feverish in Mexico. 31:19.320 --> 31:22.670 He's off. He has his girls to chase, 31:22.668 --> 31:27.158 his wife to go back to, to divorce, whichever one is 31:27.157 --> 31:30.467 which. He has all of these 31:30.473 --> 31:34.063 machinations to attend to. 31:34.059 --> 31:39.409 The friendship between the two, in the end, doesn't seem to 31:39.414 --> 31:43.574 mean very much, or, at least in that moment it 31:43.568 --> 31:46.798 doesn't seem to mean very much. 31:46.799 --> 31:51.669 If George Dardess is right that this is a love story, 31:51.670 --> 31:55.410 it's the love story between Sal and Dean. 31:55.410 --> 31:59.620 And I hope, as you are reading, you notice that chapter opening 31:59.620 --> 32:03.630 where once again Dean appears at the door when Sal shows up, 32:03.626 --> 32:05.456 and he's totally naked. 32:05.460 --> 32:07.830 I hope you noticed that. 32:07.829 --> 32:11.929 It's the third time that we see that so there is an eroticism 32:11.933 --> 32:15.733 between them. And there is this heartbreaking 32:15.729 --> 32:21.089 love that Sal has for Dean, and, if you track that through, 32:21.089 --> 32:27.019 the major turning points in the second two thirds of the novel 32:27.024 --> 32:32.764 are moments when Sal makes it clear to Dean that he actually 32:32.764 --> 32:37.034 cares about him. And I can point you to some of 32:37.026 --> 32:39.586 these pages. This is on 189. 32:39.589 --> 32:43.039 I'm not going to do them all, 'cause there is something else 32:43.040 --> 32:44.620 I want to show you today. 32:44.620 --> 32:48.410 32:48.410 --> 32:55.430 This is after Dean has been, sort of, called to the carpet, 32:55.433 --> 32:58.883 and he says: The -[This is on 188] 32:58.882 --> 33:02.332 the thumb became the symbol of Dean's final development. 33:02.329 --> 33:06.269 He no longer cared about anything as before but now he 33:06.268 --> 33:09.908 also cared about everything in principle. 33:09.910 --> 33:13.050 That's such a great encapsulation of not caring 33:13.050 --> 33:16.530 about any specific thing, but still being incredibly 33:16.532 --> 33:19.982 invested. But this is mirrored by Sal's 33:19.975 --> 33:25.085 very specific investment in Dean, and this is on the bottom 33:25.087 --> 33:27.817 of the facing page, on 189: 33:27.819 --> 33:30.369 Resolutely and firmly I repeated what I said. 33:30.370 --> 33:31.610 "Come to New York with me. 33:31.610 --> 33:32.640 I've got the money." 33:32.640 --> 33:35.960 I looked at him. My eyes were watering with 33:35.955 --> 33:38.495 embarrassment and tears. 33:38.500 --> 33:40.070 Still he stared at me. 33:40.069 --> 33:43.399 Now his eyes were blank and looking through me. 33:43.400 --> 33:47.860 It was probably the pivotal point of our friendship when he 33:47.858 --> 33:52.318 realized I had actually spent some hours thinking about him 33:52.316 --> 33:56.466 and his troubles and he was trying to place that in his 33:56.466 --> 33:59.616 tremendously involved and tormented mental 33:59.618 --> 34:03.758 categories. So, he finally realizes that 34:03.762 --> 34:08.602 Sal actually has a specific love for him, not caring about him 34:08.604 --> 34:14.144 somehow in principle, which is the way of course that 34:14.136 --> 34:18.416 Dean cares. So, this is the sadness of the 34:18.418 --> 34:22.368 novel. It's this unrequited love; 34:22.369 --> 34:28.979 Dean is never capable of loving Sal in the same way that Sal 34:28.982 --> 34:33.062 loves Dean. And, at the very end, 34:33.061 --> 34:40.551 when Sal has to leave Dean on the street, I actually love how 34:40.552 --> 34:46.372 this works. He's in the back of a Cadillac. 34:46.369 --> 34:53.819 His friend, Remi, is taking him in a limousine to 34:53.821 --> 34:59.721 a concert, a Duke Ellington concert. 34:59.719 --> 35:03.959 Remi won't have Dean in the car, so the car drives on. 35:03.960 --> 35:10.920 Sal is with a new girlfriend, Laura, about--to whom he's told 35:10.918 --> 35:13.528 all about Dean. "Dean, 35:13.527 --> 35:16.607 ragged in a moth-eaten overcoat he bought specially for the 35:16.605 --> 35:18.565 freezing temperatures of the East, 35:18.570 --> 35:21.740 walked off alone and the last I saw of him he rounded the corner 35:21.735 --> 35:24.295 of Seventh Avenue, eyes on the street ahead and 35:24.298 --> 35:25.298 bent to it again. 35:25.300 --> 35:28.430 Poor little Laura, my baby, to whom I had told 35:28.434 --> 35:31.574 everything about Dean, began almost to cry. 35:31.570 --> 35:33.670 "Oh, we shouldn't let him go like this. 35:33.670 --> 35:37.730 What'll we do?" Old Dean's gone I thought and 35:37.734 --> 35:40.884 out loud I said, "He'll be all right," and off 35:40.875 --> 35:45.055 he went to the sa--and off we went to the sad and disinclined 35:45.064 --> 35:48.834 concert for which I had no stomach whatever and all the 35:48.833 --> 35:53.233 time I was thinking of Dean and how he got back on the train and 35:53.231 --> 35:57.631 rode over 3,000 miles over that awful land and never knew why he 35:57.629 --> 36:01.119 had come anyway except to see me. 36:01.119 --> 36:06.329 In that moment Sal supplies the answer for why Dean came, 36:06.326 --> 36:09.856 "never knew why he had come anyway," 36:09.860 --> 36:15.030 and then Sal supplies "except to see me," and his own pain and 36:15.025 --> 36:17.815 tears are routed through Laura. 36:17.820 --> 36:24.310 It's Laura who cries at Dean's abandonment, while he maintains 36:24.307 --> 36:28.557 this composure, this masculine composure: 36:28.561 --> 36:31.221 "he'll be all right." 36:31.219 --> 36:34.979 But, the sadness here is surely Sal's. 36:34.980 --> 36:39.910 36:39.909 --> 36:42.679 By the end, the language of 36:42.678 --> 36:48.488 experience--this is on 304--the language of experience that Dean 36:48.491 --> 36:52.091 represents is completely exhausted. 36:52.090 --> 36:56.950 This is how Dean talks at the very end: 36:56.950 --> 36:59.220 He couldn't talk anymore. 36:59.220 --> 37:00.470 He hopped and laughed. 37:00.469 --> 37:03.019 He stuttered and fluttered his hands and said, 37:03.021 --> 37:05.121 "Ah, ah, you must listen to, hear." 37:05.119 --> 37:09.359 We listened all ears, but he forgot what he wanted to 37:09.360 --> 37:10.630 say. "Really, listen. 37:10.630 --> 37:11.880 Ahem. Look. 37:11.880 --> 37:12.910 Dear Sal, sweet Laura. 37:12.909 --> 37:15.389 I've come, I've gone, but wait, ah, 37:15.393 --> 37:19.413 yes," and he stared with rocky sorrow into his hands. 37:19.410 --> 37:20.390 "Can't talk no more. 37:20.389 --> 37:24.039 You understand that it is, or might be, 37:24.036 --> 37:26.926 but listen." We all listened. 37:26.929 --> 37:29.239 He was listening to sounds in the night. 37:29.240 --> 37:30.910 "Yes," he whispered with awe. 37:30.909 --> 37:35.159 "But you see, no need to talk anymore and 37:35.155 --> 37:38.795 further." Dean's language has gone from 37:38.800 --> 37:42.350 this sort of quasi-academic gibberish of the beginning of 37:42.354 --> 37:45.644 the novel, to this completely fragmented, 37:45.639 --> 37:50.309 broken version of the "yes"s and "ah"s and "wow"s of those 37:50.312 --> 37:53.572 early, ecstatic days. 37:53.570 --> 37:58.330 So, Sal's language, by the end, has absorbed some 37:58.327 --> 38:03.977 of this, and yet gone on to honor a kind of coherence that 38:03.978 --> 38:09.978 Dean cannot inhabit anymore, or maybe that Dean never 38:09.981 --> 38:13.711 inhabited. So, the last sentence of 38:13.712 --> 38:18.232 the book, which I want to read to you--I think I have 38:18.229 --> 38:23.439 time--just because this is the language that Sal comes out of 38:23.440 --> 38:27.610 it with, or that Kerouac comes out with 38:27.608 --> 38:32.868 as, the payoff for opening language, in the ways that 38:32.874 --> 38:37.234 Dean's language of immediacy represents. 38:37.230 --> 38:43.650 So this is one sentence, page 307, the last paragraph. 38:43.650 --> 38:47.350 So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the 38:47.348 --> 38:50.408 old, broken-down river pier watching the long, 38:50.409 --> 38:54.499 long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that 38:54.496 --> 38:58.686 rolls in one unbelievable, huge bulge over the West Coast 38:58.688 --> 39:02.758 and all that road going, all the people dreaming and the 39:02.755 --> 39:06.265 immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the 39:06.265 --> 39:10.765 children must be crying in the land where they let the children 39:10.766 --> 39:15.116 cry and tonight the stars will be out and don't you know that 39:15.122 --> 39:16.722 God is Pooh Bear? 39:16.719 --> 39:19.869 The evening star must be drooping and shedding her 39:19.868 --> 39:23.648 sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming 39:23.650 --> 39:27.230 of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all rivers, 39:27.230 --> 39:30.560 cups the peaks, and folds the final shore in 39:30.563 --> 39:35.063 and nobody, nobody knows what is going to happen to anybody 39:35.059 --> 39:38.469 besides the forlorn rags of growing old, 39:38.470 --> 39:41.760 I think of Dean Moriarty. 39:41.760 --> 39:45.690 I even think of old Dean Moriarty, the father we never 39:45.687 --> 39:48.087 found. I think of Dean Moriarty. 39:48.090 --> 39:51.520 39:51.519 --> 39:56.489 So, he's blasted open the syntax of that sentence, 39:56.492 --> 40:00.452 piled clause upon clause upon clause, 40:00.449 --> 40:06.219 phrase on phrase, to include that whole road in 40:06.224 --> 40:08.614 the one sentence. 40:08.610 --> 40:13.760 So, if the dream of Kerouac's language is to pour experience 40:13.759 --> 40:17.599 into language and make language immediate, 40:17.599 --> 40:23.019 this sentence is a very fine example of the payoff. 40:23.020 --> 40:28.610 40:28.610 --> 40:31.090 There is a kind of goofiness at the center of it, 40:31.086 --> 40:32.166 "God is Pooh Bear." 40:32.170 --> 40:34.470 What does that mean? 40:34.470 --> 40:36.490 God is just a toy? 40:36.490 --> 40:40.370 God is a children's story? 40:40.369 --> 40:45.259 But then there is that lyrical, elegiac, always sad sense of 40:45.255 --> 40:50.305 longing, and the excess of the end: "Dean Moriarty…Dean 40:50.306 --> 40:53.946 Moriarty's father…Dean Moriarty." 40:53.950 --> 40:55.750 You can't just say it once. 40:55.750 --> 41:01.470 You have to try to fill that void by saying it two times and 41:01.473 --> 41:05.163 by invoking his father a third time. 41:05.159 --> 41:11.139 So the excess and the longing are there, each trying to drive 41:11.138 --> 41:13.428 or satisfy the other. 41:13.429 --> 41:17.669 Now, if we have any doubts that On the Road is 41:17.674 --> 41:21.314 mythic in itself, I just want to show you quickly 41:21.313 --> 41:24.403 two things. In 2007, On the Road had 41:24.400 --> 41:26.980 its fiftieth anniversary of publication. 41:26.980 --> 41:32.590 It was written in 1951 and it was published in 1957 by Viking. 41:32.590 --> 41:39.250 So last year we were treated to these two books. 41:39.250 --> 41:44.840 One thing that fascinates me about them is that they are 41:44.844 --> 41:50.544 examples of how publishing houses rely on known names for 41:50.540 --> 41:55.400 making money. So, Viking has On the Road 41:55.399 --> 42:01.009 in their backlist, so they can make new copies. 42:01.010 --> 42:03.280 The pagination of this is exactly the same. 42:03.280 --> 42:06.700 All they did was bind; they made a retro cover, 42:06.703 --> 42:10.123 and they bound the original book review from the New York 42:10.116 --> 42:11.576 Times into the front. 42:11.579 --> 42:14.979 They just printed that in, and then they just reproduced 42:14.984 --> 42:17.344 the text again, so it becomes a sort of 42:17.335 --> 42:20.225 keepsake book. I'm not sure that a lot of 42:20.229 --> 42:24.339 people are going to read this book, but a lot of people might 42:24.337 --> 42:25.977 buy it as a keepsake. 42:25.980 --> 42:29.320 This is the original scroll version. 42:29.320 --> 42:31.530 This is like the sop to scholars. 42:31.530 --> 42:33.310 This is for the scholarly buyer. 42:33.309 --> 42:36.389 This is for people like me (or not like me). 42:36.389 --> 42:40.269 This is the original typescript put into pages, 42:40.266 --> 42:44.476 but, as I think I mentioned in my first lecture, 42:44.480 --> 42:50.370 Kerouac wrote the manuscript for On the Road on one 42:50.374 --> 42:53.584 long, 120-foot roll of paper. 42:53.579 --> 42:54.869 He just stuck it in the typewriter. 42:54.870 --> 42:59.540 No paragraphs, no nothing; he just went. 42:59.539 --> 43:03.559 So, this book reproduces that, just breaking it as the pages 43:03.562 --> 43:06.702 demand (instead of actually giving us a scroll, 43:06.698 --> 43:08.878 which would be pretty cool). 43:08.880 --> 43:12.530 But what else they do, is they lard it with scholarly 43:12.528 --> 43:15.218 articles. There are--let's see--three 43:15.223 --> 43:18.783 scholarly articles, and then there is a note on the 43:18.784 --> 43:22.774 editing of the text and there are suggestions for further 43:22.773 --> 43:25.363 reading. It makes it into a real 43:25.358 --> 43:28.818 literary object, sort of like a modernist text. 43:28.820 --> 43:35.330 And what I love here is that, apparently, at the very 43:35.327 --> 43:40.827 beginning of the scroll, Kerouac made a typo, 43:40.834 --> 43:45.344 and the editor says, "I read it. 43:45.340 --> 43:49.400 I let the typo stand." 43:49.400 --> 43:51.330 Here it is, the editor, Howard Cunnell: 43:51.329 --> 43:54.019 "Because it so beautifully suggests the sound of a car 43:54.019 --> 43:56.659 misfiring before starting up for a long journey, 43:56.659 --> 44:01.699 I have left uncorrected the manuscript's opening line, 44:01.702 --> 44:07.412 which is 'I met met Neal not long before my father died.'" 44:07.409 --> 44:11.269 There is the fantasy that the writing approximates the actual 44:11.266 --> 44:12.676 car trip, "met met." 44:12.679 --> 44:14.119 Oh, "it sounds like a car starting. 44:14.119 --> 44:15.939 I'm going to leave that in there." 44:15.940 --> 44:21.790 So, the editors just buy--completely buy--the text's 44:21.791 --> 44:28.791 own mythology and produce all this apparatus around it to help 44:28.790 --> 44:31.430 us believe it, too. 44:31.429 --> 44:34.429 Now, the last thing I want to show you is on a less 44:34.434 --> 44:35.384 skeptical note. 44:35.380 --> 44:38.660 44:38.659 --> 44:44.989 If you ever doubt that the legend and the dream of On 44:44.990 --> 44:50.400 the Road is alive and is powerful in art, 44:50.400 --> 44:57.500 literary art and visual art, today, all you need to do is 44:57.500 --> 45:03.080 look at a very recent work of digital art. 45:03.079 --> 45:06.909 This is Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, which is a 45:06.905 --> 45:11.475 collaboration of an American man and a Korean woman who create 45:11.480 --> 45:13.580 online digital artworks. 45:13.579 --> 45:17.499 And this is one of them from 2002 called Dakota, 45:17.503 --> 45:21.983 and I think you will see immediately how and why it is 45:21.975 --> 45:24.325 related to On the Road. 45:24.329 --> 45:27.129 It's also related to Ezra Pound's Cantos, 45:27.126 --> 45:30.126 but I'm not going to burden you with that right now. 45:30.130 --> 45:31.800 What I want you to do is just think about this. 45:31.800 --> 45:36.680 It runs about six minutes, so I'm going to let that go 45:36.677 --> 45:38.917 now. All right. 45:38.920 --> 45:41.660 Okay. So, if you ever doubted that 45:41.657 --> 45:45.817 the dream of an immediate language that is somehow the 45:45.817 --> 45:49.737 correlate to jazz and experience, that's your dream 45:49.742 --> 45:52.002 living on. Okay.