Kerouac's original "On The Road" to be made public

I see that the original scroll is about to be released and published...

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/07/27/kerouacs_road_will_be_unrolled/

Unfortunately, it is not complete, as someone forgot to follow the cocker spaniel around after he was done.

 

im currently reading On the Road

 

yes!

I can't wait to read it. I was unaware that the novel I read had been censored a bit, psh!

Do you know when we can feast our eyes upon it?

And what do you mean it's not done?

Jazz

 

Come on up to Lowell for the Lowell Celebrates Kerouac festival in October! See many of the places mentioned in his books first hand...I know the original manuscript for OTR is going to be displayed at some point soon in Lowell as well. Let me know if you're ever in the area, I'd be glad to show anyone around!

 

The new version of the book is scheduled to come out sometime next year, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the original publication.

Kerouac's own deletions from the original manuscript won't be included in the new book, though the bits taken out by publishers and editors at the time were. You can read about it in a little more detail here:
http://beat.wordpress.com

 

mee too. I didn't know that

 

Interesting, I read a lesser known book by kerouac written when he was older called "lonesome traveller", it was far less fantastical and drunken, yet was full of fucks and shits and the like, while on the road was more along the line of damns and hells.

Wierd too, James Jones' novels about life in the army written around the same era were very graphic and didn't seem to be censored at all, even though they definitely threatened the army's image.

 

Read "On The Road" great book great story. Where's Hassel? Reading "Dharma Bums". Maybe read "Big Sur".

Bustramp

 

I'm sure I read somewhere that Kerouac actually lived with his mother; in On The Road I think he claims to live with an aunt or someone... if anyone reads the original, I'm curious about which he claimed in the original.

The thing that I most remember about my reaction to On The Road when I read it was... well, it seemed that the author was extremely naive and innocent, almost sheltered, and trying almost desparately not to show it- and that only made it more obvious. That appealed to me, somehow. I've not read any of his other work, though one of these days I'll get around to reading more.

 

The same mistake most people make with beat writers - The assumption that their work is almost purely autobiographical. On the Road was highly fictional (though based on real life experiences). You'll gather in Kerouac's later, more autobiographical work that he knows much more than Sal Paradise.