The Unknown Kerouac

by Jack Kerouac

  309.12–13 Nietzsche . . . turning brown.”] See note 117.32–33.

  310.37 “The pathway . . . through excess”] See William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”

  311.1–2 The derangement of the senses] See Arthur Rimbaud, letter to Paul Demeny, May 15, 1871: “The poet makes himself a seer by an immense, long, deliberate derangement of all the senses.”

  312.3 Gregory Corso] American poet (1930–2001), author of Gasoline (1958), The Happy Birthday of Death (1960), and other books.

  314.6 Malcolm Cowley] Memoirist and literary critic (1898–1989); an editor at Viking Press from the 1940s on.

  314.23 movie of Alice in Wonderland] The Walt Disney animated feature was released in 1951.

  316.28 “Why Was I Born?”] Song (1929) with music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, which enjoyed renewed currency through Billie Holiday’s 1937 recording.

  317.28 Alan Watts] British writer (1915–1973) known for such books as The Way of Zen (1957) and The Joyous Cosmology (1962).

  317.33 Leuconostoc mesenterioides] Class of bacteria involved in the manufacture of sugar.

  318.23 Lipschitz] Modernist sculptor (1891–1973).

  321.14–15 von Braun] Wernher von Braun (1912–1977), German aerospace engineer who helped develop the V-2 rocket for Nazi Germany and later played a major role in the United States space program.

  321.26–35 Lenny Bruce . . . Lawrence] Lenny Bruce (1925–1966), stand-up comedian and satirist; Norman Mailer (1923–2007), novelist and journalist; James Baldwin (1924–1987), novelist, essayist, and social critic; Jean Genet (1910–1986), French playwright and novelist; Jack Gelber (1932–2003), playwright known primarily for The Connection (1959); Thelonious Monk (1917–1982), jazz pianist and composer; Nelson Algren (1909–1981), novelist whose works include The Man with the Golden Arm (1949); Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008), painter and assemblage artist; J. D. Salinger (1919–2010), novelist; James Jones (1921–1977), novelist, author of From Here to Eternity (1951); Ornette Coleman (1930–2015), pioneering free jazz saxophonist and composer; John Rechy, novelist and essayist, author of City of Night (1963); Yevgeny Yevtushenko (b. 1933), Russian poet; Ray Charles (1930–2004), pianist and composer; William Styron (1925–2006), novelist; Gary Snyder (b. 1930), poet, depicted by Kerouac as Japhy Ryder in The Dharma Bums; Mort Sahl (b. 1927), stand-up comedian; Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980), French philosopher, novelist, and playwright; Marquis de Sade (1740–1814), French writer and exponent of libertinism; D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930), English novelist and poet.

  323.30–31 The Counterfeiters . . . The Idiot] The Counterfeiters (1925), novel by André Gide; The Idiot (1868–69), novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

  324.39 Something more may come of this] See the last sentence of Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man (1857): “Something further may follow of this Masquerade.”

  BEAT SPOTLIGHT

  327.4–5 William S. Hart, Conway Tearle, Theda Bara] Hart (1864–1946), star of silent Westerns, including Hell’s Hinges (1916) and The Toll Gate (1920); Tearle (1878–1938), actor who appeared in Bella Donna (1923), The Dancer of Paris (1926), and other films; Bara (1885–1955), silent star nicknamed “The Vamp” whose films include A Fool There Was (1915) and East Lynne (1916).

  328.3–4 “What did your face . . . you were born?”] See Case 23 in the Mumonkan (The Gateless Gate).

  328.31 “draw breath in pain”] Hamlet, V.ii.346.

  330.30 Ciacco] See Dante, Inferno, canto 6, 52–54.

  I WISH I WERE YOU

  343.11–12 Nigger of the Narcissus] The Nigger of the “Narcissus” (1897), novel by Joseph Conrad; the Russian Finn Wamibo is a crew member on board the Narcissus.

  360.12–13 “You Always Hurt the One You Love.”] Song with words by Allan Roberts and music by Doris Fisher, popularized by The Mills Brothers in 1944.

  371.4 Madame de Castaing] Madeleine Castaing (1894–1992), interior designer and patron of the arts.

  372.18 Spengler’s book] See note 308.37.

  374.20–21 Tchelitchev’s Cache-Cache] Painting (1940–42) by Pavel Tchelitchev (1898–1957), also known as “Hide and Seek.”

  379.6–7 Rimbaud’s Season in Hell] Une saison en enfer (1893), visionary prose poem.

  387.20 ‘The Wound and the Bow’] The essay originally appeared in The New Republic, April 21, 1941, and was reprinted (under the title “Philoctetes: The Wound and the Bow”) in The Wound and the Bow: Seven Studies in Literature (1941).

  399.35–36 Plonger au fond du gouffre . . . ciel ou enfer, qu’importe?] See the final lines of Charles Baudelaire, “Le Voyage,” Les Fleurs du Mal (1857): “Plonger au fond du gouffre, Enfer ou Ciel, qu’importe? / Au fond de l’Inconnu pour trouver du nouveau!” (“To plunge into the depths of the abyss, Hell or Heaven, what difference? In the depths of the unknown to find something new!)

  400.2 bateau ivre] Le Bateau Ivre (The Drunken Boat), poem (1871) by Arthur Rimbaud.

  401.15–16 “It is a violent Paradise . . . this savage parade!”] See Arthur Rimbaud, “Parade” (translated by Louise Varèse, in the version quoted here, as “Side Show”), in Les Illuminations (1886).

  403.1 acte gratuite] Acte gratuit, a gratuitous action committed with no apparent motive or incitement; it is used by André Gide to describe the murder committed by the protagonist of his novel Les Caves du Vatican (Lafcadio’s Adventure, 1914).

  408.20 Appassionata Sonata] Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 23 in F Minor, Op. 53, published in 1807.

  418.8–9 The Port of Shadows] Quai des Brumes (1938), film directed by Marcel Carné and starring Jean Gabin, Michel Simon, and Michèle Morgan.