The Best Minds of My Generation: A Literary History of the Beats

by Allen Ginsberg

  Neal goes on and on about the subject. I thought that the little disquisition was pretty archetypal as a description of teahead subjectivity. I also thought that was a funny sentence about, psychologically, “whereas one had meant it for a caricature.”

  One thing that comes out of this is that this guy was interested in his mind and the process of mind and thought forms. Maybe it was in a very crude way, but quite subtle for a self-taught Denver intellect. Cassady was investigating the phenomena of his own thoughts from a very odd angle. And it had literary ramifications in that it turned Kerouac on to listening to his own mind, also, and then to build a prose based on the ramblings of the mind itself.

  There are a few comments that he makes about Kerouac which get to be a little bit interesting. Neal begins talking about Kerouac’s marriage in the same letter.

  As time passes he’ll loose the strength to be consistent in this (as he knows more) and will hanker elsewhere even if there is great love and they are welded solid, for the actual task of rising to the game is too difficult, unbeknown to us all, and, unless by that time there are other things, Jack will fall prey to this inherent weakness (no hardon) and fuck big only in imagination. But, that’s another problem. So where do we stand? nowhere, yet; I haven’t said anything valid about Jack’s marriage. Where does one begin? I prefer China since it’s furthest away, but, being practical, Ha, how about starting with looking at Jack objectively, Ha, Ha. More shit; I’m dashing it off now—

  The intense drives that affect Jack’s actions are extremely varied and strong; this is of prime importance and I must continually orient to one and then another of these multitudinous forces to escape oversimplification, and so will seem quite contradictory—as he himself is. Ah! but to properly etch in the exact shades of his personality, so that the degrees of conflict can be approximated and his whole upright self stand firmly, sharp and clear. A delineation of his mind seems in order, but, his emotions are so pronounced! Ach, bah, anyway—But, by god, Allen, what a man he is, just stop and think of it. Certain traits stand out so as to make him a true peasant, as he says, “like a potato” and, again, what wisdom he can flash! He lets people bully him, intellectually & otherwise, he shows always a shy diffidence, a gentle nature; witness, tho, his claws as he rants for pages on end and sometimes, at parties, raises up in anger at wrongs (usually social) he imagines inwardly or witnesses; yet, he’ll be the first to wither under any real hint of sweetness on the part of the other person. He has a morbid dread of hassles (he will attempt mightily to escape even the suggestion of one in his marriage) but when it comes down to it won’t knuckle under. He has consideration, but a manly selfishness, boyishness, but a certain poise, etc. etc. Damn it, I don’t want to, and can’t be presumptuous enough to, give you any of this simple trash. You know him a hell-of-a-lot better than I do, longer than I have probably probably love him the more. You see, when I began this I was just struck by the thought of the actual difference between you and Jack. (What if you had married and I was writing Jack your traits?)130

  He goes on and on with more interesting bullshit. What I chose here were comments by Neal on Jack. This is May 10, 1951.

  Great news that Jack’s finished On the Road, I trust in his writing, but fear for it because the theme of On the Road is too trivial for him, as his dissatisfaction shows. He must either forget it or enlarge it into a mighty thing that merely uses what he’s written as a Book 1, since what he’s done doesn’t lend itself to stuffing he should create another and another work (like Proust) and then we’ll have the great American Novel. I think he would profit by starting a Book 2 with the recollections of his early life as they were sent to me and then blend that into his prophetic Dr. Sax. Of course, I’m sure I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I do worry for him and want him happy.131

  That’s actually what Kerouac did. He finished On the Road and then went on to write Visions of Cody, which was precisely what Neal suggested, enlarging it into a mightier thing, more Proustian. The narrative style was dropped as being too slow. He came back to Visions of Cody and continued and concluded that with many different kinds of experiments in spontaneous athletic composition. It includes some chapters which are pure verbal sound and babble and some chapters which are direct transcriptions of taped conversations between him and Neal. Those are the best tape transcriptions I’ve ever seen for stylistics. He catches coughs, and ahh ums and flubs and muffled comments. It is a real actual exact transcription of the events on the tape, rather than complete sentences. Then in the same letter, Neal is talking about Jack on the road and his own situation.

  Tell Jack I become ulcerated old color-blind RR conductor who never writes anything good and dies a painful lingering death from prostate gland trouble (cancer from excessive masturbation) at 45. Unless I get sent to San Quentin for rape of teenager and drown after slipping into slimy cesspool that work gang is unclogging. Of course, I might fall under freight train, but that’s too good since Carolyn would get around 40 or 50 thousand settlement from RR (god’s truth, maybe more—only reason I keep job instead of driving Greyhound bus with gals to sniff at) one thing sure, I’ll just keep withering away emotionally at about same rate as have last 3 years, so unlikely that I can become insane or kill myself because there can be no further explosions except cap-pistol blow offs. Have attained a run-of-the-mill schizophrenia brought on by past dwelling on loss of love and guilt of actions, but it is still a petty watery bluegreen and can’t fade into a real greyness until another 10 years of steady Proustian recollection of life. There is hope for some unhealthy blast sooner tho because my frustrations are at a near-record high. I’m afraid I’ve irrevocably slipped however and in my mediocrity have become precisely what Jack long ago feared was my fate; I am blank and getting more so.132

  Then there’s a long long letter, talking again at great length about [his] writing block and the difficulty of getting anything down on paper. It’s a pretty intelligent analysis of anyone’s sense of inadequacy, the mind going too fast for a writer to get down. He ends the letter talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald.

  What I perhaps mean is that I feel he [Fitzgerald] and I both try with about equal intensity. If I can’t come to eventually write as good as he did I fear I’ll honestly be pretty much of a failure, ego? No, truth. I realize he’s not much and only extolled as American (at least a dozen, including your pal Jack K. are better) and I can see him as a baby compared to Proust or Celine. I halt these digressions so that I may begin the next page clean.133

  That was Cassady’s mind as of 1950. In his attitude toward Neal, subsequent to the blankness described by Cassady in these letters, Kerouac took pity on Cassady and, having written most of On the Road and being in the middle of Visions of Cody, he thought I was being too pushy in thinking that Neal was supposed to create some giant, dramatic work of art and turn himself into a big artist like Kerouac. So Jack wrote a little poem letting Neal off the hook as far as ambition. This is from Kerouac’s Scattered Poems.

  He’s your friend, let him dream;

  He’s not your brother, he’s not yr. father,

  He’s not St. Michael he’s a guy.

  He’s married, he works, go on sleeping

  On the other side of the world,

  Go thinking in the great European Night

  I’m explaining him to you my way not yours,

  Child, Dog—listen: go find your soul,

  Go smell the wind, go far.

  Life is a pity. Close the book, go on,

  Write no more on the wall, on the moon,

  At the Dog’s, in the sea in the snowing bottom.

  Go find God in the nights, the clouds too.

  When can it stop this big circle at the skull

  oh Neal; there are men, things outside to do.

  Great huge tombs of Activity

  in the desert of Africa of the heart,

  The black ange
ls, the women in bed

  with their beautiful arms open for you

  in their youth, some tenderness

  Beginning in the same shroud.

  The big clouds of new continents,

  O foot tired in climes so mysterious,

  Don’t go down the outside for nothing.134

  “O foot tired in climes so mysterious.” I remember that was his comment on Neal’s [injuring] his foot in a railroad accident around that time. He prevented a big train crash by jumping on the train just in time to uncouple one car from another so that there wasn’t a giant crash. In the jolt that ensued he fell and had his foot crushed between the trains. He was hospitalized and given $32,000 compensation, with which he bought a house for his wife. I think this “O foot tired in climes so mysterious” relates to that.

  CHAPTER 28

  Kerouac and the “Essentials of Spontaneous Prose”

  By hindsight, the writing method that Kerouac used is explained in his essay “Essentials of Spontaneous Prose.” It gives a very clear practical set of suggestions for how to relate to both natural flow and balance of form. I think it’s one of the great practical writing essays of the century. It’s dated 1958, but it describes the method Kerouac used earlier.

  Set-up. The object is set before the mind, either in reality, as in sketching (before a landscape or teacup or old face) or is set in the memory wherein it becomes the sketching from memory of a definite image-object.

  Procedure. Time being of the essence in the purity of speech, sketching language is undisturbed flow from the mind of personal secret idea-words, blowing (as per jazz musician) on subject of image.

  Method. No periods separating sentence-structures already arbitrarily riddled by false colons and timid usually needless commas—but the vigorous space dash separating rhetorical breathing (as jazz musician drawing breath between outblown phrases)—“measured pauses which are the essentials of our speech”—“divisions of the sounds we hear”—“time and how to note it down.” (William Carlos Williams)

  Amazingly, here he’s quoted the classicist William Carlos Williams.

  Scoping. Not “selectivity” of expression but following free deviation (association) of mind into limitless blow-on-subject seas of thought, swimming in sea of English with no discipline other than rhythms of exhalation and expostulated statement, like a fist coming down on a table with each complete utterance, bang! (the space dash)—Blow as deep as you want—write as deeply, fish as far down as you want, satisfy yourself first, then reader cannot fail to receive telepathic shock and meaning-excitement by same laws operating in his own human mind.

  [That was] demonstrated in some of his sketches, that slight telepathic shock of recognition of “meaning-excitement by same laws operating in his own human mind.”

  Lag in Procedure. No pause to think of proper word but the infantile pileup of scatological buildup words till satisfaction is gained, which will turn out to be a great appending rhythm to a thought and be in accordance with Great Law of timing.

  Timing. Nothing is muddy that runs in time and to laws of time—Shakespearian stress of dramatic need to speak now in own unalterable way or forever hold tongue—no revisions (except obvious rational mistakes, such as names or calculated insertions in act of not writing but inserting).

  He allows for little, additional, calculated insertions in the act of writing. The center of interest applies more to Visions of Cody.

  Center of Interest. Begin not from preconceived idea of what to say about image but from jewel center of interest in subject of image at moment of writing, and write outwards swimming in sea of language to peripheral release and exhaustion—Do not afterthink except for poetic or P.S. reason. Never afterthink to “improve” or defray impressions, as the best writing is always the most painful personal wrung-out tossed from cradle warm protective mind—tap from yourself the song of yourself, blow!—now!—your way is your only way—“good”—or “bad”—always honest, (“ludicrous”), spontaneous, “confessional” interesting because not “crafted.” Craft is crafty.

  [Kerouac] said that a lot, “Craft is crafty.” He was associating with the word “crafty.” “Crafting” was the pejorative. That’s a funny one. It always struck me, because I was a crafty one.

  Structure of Work. Modern bizarre structures (science fiction, etc.) arise from language being dead, “different” themes give illusion of “new” life. Follow roughly outlines in outfanning movement over subject, as river rock, so mindflow over jewel-center need (run your mind over it, once) {In other words, prepare it once by running your mind over the subject before you write} arriving at pivot, where what was dim-formed “beginning” becomes sharp-necessitating “ending” and language shortens in race to wire of time-race of work, following laws of Deep Form, to conclusion, last words, last trickle—Night is The End.

  I’m not quite sure I understand that. “Follow roughly outlines in outfanning,” well that’s kind of complicated, it’s really giving method. “In outfanning movement over subject,” well that’s obvious, “as river rock,” as river flows over rock, “so mindflow over jewel-center need (run your mind over it, once) arriving at pivot,” this is where I get a little confused, “where what was dim-formed ‘beginning’ becomes sharp-necessitating ‘ending.’” Run your mind over it once, come to whatever that jewel center of interest is, the point where you get a little epiphany of what it is you wanted to say, and then begin there, “and language shortens in race to wire of time-race of work, following laws of Deep Form, to conclusion, last words, last trickle—Night is The End.”

  Mental State. If possible write “without consciousness” in semi-trance (as Yeats’ later “trance writing”) allowing subconscious to admit in own uninhibited interesting necessary and so “modern” language what conscious art would censor, and write excitedly, swiftly, with writing-or-typing-cramps, in accordance (as from center to periphery) with laws of orgasm, Reich’s “beclouding of consciousness.” Come from within, out—to relaxed and said.135

  It says “to relaxed and said,” but I think he really was relaxed and sad. So that’s his method.

  CHAPTER 29

  Kerouac and On the Road

  In April 1951 Kerouac wrote On the Road in a one-room studio apartment that Jack shared with his new wife, Joan Haverty. She had been a friend of the fellow Bill Cannastra, who had climbed out of the subway window [and was killed]. There was a general shock in our community and very soon afterward Kerouac married her. They settled down and had a little wifey-husband relationship. While he sat down to write, she went out and did some work. Lucien Carr had given him a teletype roll from the UPI and he put that in the typewriter and began an experiment in writing from the center outward, swimming in seasoned language.

  Around that time T. S. Eliot published an essay on Joyce and Milton as great blind artists who were able to encompass in the sweep of a single syntactical structure the entire panorama from heaven all the way down to hell. Just as Proust was able to encompass the panorama of all Jewish Hebrew history in Baron de Charlus’s hair, so Kerouac was interested in long extended, balanced, symphonic sentences. Kerouac felt that Proust’s technique was too halting an approach to both speech, which was his model, and typewriting athletics. He decided to abandon that cadence of the Proustian sentence [because] although it is balanced it is not an extended breath, it’s a broken breath. Kerouac was interested in a cadence rising out of an extended exhalation. He mentioned that exhalation in his “Essentials of Spontaneous Prose.”

  To write On the Road, Kerouac stopped writing the prose that he [had been] working on for the opening chapters of Visions of Cody. He wanted to do something else and so he took Lucien’s teletype roll and began feeding it into the typewriter. Jack was a swift typist, 120 words a minute, an athletic typist like a football player typist. That was a fact that people didn’t quite understand, the neural rapidity between his brain and hi
s fingers was amazing. Whatever arrived in his larynx or his mind, subvocally, could be immediately translated into typewritten finger pecks fast enough to complete long, long sentences including all his parenthetical subdivisions of thought form.

  The entire manuscript of On the Road was originally one single sentence. I read parts of it at the time, when I would come visiting him. It took about three weeks or four weeks. His wife was complaining that he was lazy, hanging around the house, not going out and getting a job, so it was a classic situation. I’m sure he was very difficult to live with, but I don’t think his wife appreciated the necessities of his artistic situation.

  The completed manuscript was given to Malcolm Cowley, who was the one person who understood it, and he proposed to publish it years later. When it was handed in to Ace Books it was a scandal, because they’d given him an advance and what does he turn in but this vast teletype roll of a single sentence which nobody would ever publish. They thought they were buying some sort of potboiler about hippies or beatniks. It freaked me out too, because I was his business agent and this wasn’t what I had sold them. I had sold them an extended novel, with extended sentence prose, and instead Kerouac gave me this scroll to bring in. I got mad at him and wrote him a stupid letter saying, “Are you trying to fuck us up purposely?”