The Scroll draft of On the Road

Dan Fox wrote:

> I want to look at them side by side but haven't yet done so.

I also want to compare the two of them someday. My question is, are the
lyrical passages I remember so well the result of heavy re-writes? There
are so many very delicate blossoms - when the boys are passing through
DC at the time of Truman's inaugural, the row of fierce armament and at
the end of it is an ordinary lifeboat "looking pitiful and foolish in
the snowy grass." "Ah yass, ah, yass, man from Missouri, as I am; that
must be his own boat."

Bits of Road that remain after nigh on fifty years. Possibly there is
more rage at being abandoned by Neal in Mexico City with dysentery which
was chilled over time into the ending: "Okay, old Dean, I'll say nothing."

Maybe there is some clue as to just where it was Neal disappeared to
after he dumped Sal and Marylou in the Tenderloin, SF, on their trip
from the Burroughs place in Algiers. (Carolyn says he didn't go to her.)

"First Thought, Best Thought" he always said, and maybe that's true if
you have two roads in a yellow wood, but prose is improved with
rethinking almost every time, I'd say, and I'll just bet that's the case
here.

--


"When two roads diverge in a yellow wood, you may avoid conflicts with
probability only if you remain - Undecided."
 >> Stay informed about: The Scroll draft of On the Road 

On Aug 31, 9:46 pm, danfoxartNOS... RemoveThis @yahoo.com(Dan Fox) wrote:
> Just got and read the scroll draft of On the Road. Amazing, vital,
> exciting. Far better than you would expect this early draft to be. Buy it.
> Worth the price.
>
> Dan

I've read somewhere something about the existence of an earlier draft
of "On The Road", but I haven't been able to find it anywhere... I've
heard that it's good, too. REAL good. A little "rough around the
edges", they say, but otherwise brilliant.
I wish I will stumble upon it someday...
I'd also like to read "And The Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks"
someday, if I could find it... Early Burroughs w/
Kerouac...interesting.Exciting. Although, by Burroughs' own words "not
a very good novel", but I'd love to read it anyway...
Well, C ya. =)

Peace,
Oliver

"Junk is not, like alcohol or weed, an means to increased enjoyment of
life. Junk is not a kick. It is a way of life." W.S.B
 >> Stay informed about: The Scroll draft of On the Road 

"Oliver Filo" <oliverfilo.TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1188730517.471709.287900@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
>
> I've read somewhere something about the existence of
> an earlier draft of "On The Road", but I haven't been
> able to find it anywhere... I've heard that it's good, too.
> REAL good. A little "rough around the edges", they say,
> but otherwise brilliant. I wish I will stumble upon it someday...

Kerouac made several attempts at his road book before the famous scroll
version of April 1951, but they were all aborted after just a couple of
chapters.

The first, commenced in November 1948, featured hero Ray Smith and amounted
to just 54 pages.

The second was the Ray "Red" Moultrie/ Vern Pomeroy version, begun in March
1949, which also ran to 54 pages.

The third was "Gone on the Road," a 30-page version, featuring Cook Smith
and Dean Pomeray, from August 1950.

Of the first version, nothing much has yet surfaced, apart from some working
notes. There's more of the second version: Jack appears to have sent the
section about Red in jail to various friends, and virtually the same extract
can be found in letters to Ed White (May 9, 1949 - reproduced in The
Missouri Review, 1994); Elbert Lenrow (June 28, 1949 - reproduced in JK:
Selected Letters, Vol.1); Allen Ginsberg (July 5, 1949 - extracts in Tim
Hunt's 1975 thesis, "Off The Road: The Literary Maturation of Jack
Kerouac"). The section sent to Ginsberg is the longest of the three, and
includes extensive explanatory notes.

Parts of "Gone on the Road," may be found in "Windblown World: The Journals
of Jack Kerouac."

> I'd also like to read "And The Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks"
> someday, if I could find it... Early Burroughs w/Kerouac...interesting.
> Exciting. Although, by Burroughs' own words "not a very good novel",
> but I'd love to read it anyway... Well, C ya. =)

One of Burroughs' chapters has been published, in "Word Virus: The William
Burroughs Reader." There are tentative plans to publish the complete work,
sometime.


Dave Moore
 >> Stay informed about: The Scroll draft of On the Road 

"Undecided" <woesong RemoveThis @yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:fba08502rkj@enews1.newsguy.com...
> Dan Fox wrote:
>> Just got and read the scroll draft of On the Road. Amazing,
>> vital, exciting. Far better than you would expect this early
>> draft to be. Buy it. Worth the price.
>
> Can you tell us the differences between the scroll and the
> originally published version of 1957?

The main difference is that all of the material edited out of the scroll
version before publication is now available. This amounted to a sizable
portion of the original text and included descriptions of Jack and Neal in
Detroit, looking up Jack's ex-wife Edie, the visit of Neal and Allen to
William Burroughs in Texas, a party at Alan Harrington's house in Arizona,
and Jack's bus trip across the snowy Northwest in February 1949.


Dave Moore
 >> Stay informed about: The Scroll draft of On the Road 

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 >> Stay informed about: The Scroll draft of On the Road