The Prose and Cons of a Kerouac Classic -- On the Road

I finally got around to reading On the Road, the Kerouac classic considered by some to be the most significant book about the Beat generation. Twenty or forty years ago I started Dharma Bums, Kerouac’s follow-up, but couldn’t get into it.

Since I myself have now been a publishing writer more than four decades, I can confess that I’ve always had a beef with this book. Why? Because I’d heard how he wrote the manuscript on a continuous reel of paper and a publisher actually accepted it. Kudos to Kerouac, I suppose. He did it his way and he slid by the gatekeepers of convention.

I know many talented writers who can’t get a publisher to look at their work without an agent and even then, if you sent in a manuscript rolled up like a toilet paper roll, I honestly doubt you’d be taken seriously.

Keep in mind, though, that this was the era of Jackson Pollock, so bad behavior was overlooked if you’d been tapped as a genius.

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My expectations were low for On the Road, despite Time magazine's declaration that this was one of the most important books of the 20th century. Others raved about it and endorsed it, including Dylan, so when I saw it at the library two weeks ago I checked it out.

Photo by Donald Giannatti via Unsplash

Reading On the Road brought two other road trip books to mind--Steinbeck's Travels with Charley and Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Trip. Both of these were written in the 1960s, with On the Road preceding them. On the Road (1957) is about the travels of Sal Paradise (the narrator) and friends, chiefly Dean Moriarty, from 1947-50. Steinbeck's story was a true account of a road trip in 1960 around the country with his poodle. Tom Wolfe's book is an example of what was labeled the New Journalism, a novel-like account of an LSD-infused magic bus trip with Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters. All three go cross-country and back, with Sal and Dean ultimately zagging South into Mexico.

Sidewalk nameplate outside City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco.

The three stories have this in common. They're well-written. On the other hand, I would not go as far as the New York Times went when they described Kerouac's novella, "the most beautifully executed, the clearest and the most important utterance yet made by the generation Kerouac himself named years ago as 'beat,' and whose principal avatar he is."

The central character--almost a fixation for Kerouac--is Dean Moriarty. Wikipedia describes him as "much admired for his carefree attitude and sense of adventure, a free-spirited maverick eager to explore all kicks and an inspiration and catalyst for Sal's travels."

As I read the book--and what makes all this praise feel appalling to me--this hero is essentially a juvenile delinquent who never grew up, who lies, is perpetually looking to get laid, abusive to every female character he has a relationship with, wrecks vehicles, vandalizes, steals, betrays his friends and does whatever he pleases without consideration for the others in his life. Great hero he is not.

The big surprise for me was that Kerouac did produce some good sentences. I enjoyed the skill with which he produced some of the descriptive passages, and everywhere there is a vividness in the writing that makes the action come alive in the reader's mind. Throughout the story I was struck here and there by a turn of phrase, by some of the interesting ways he stated things.

When all is said and done, Kerouac's writing was prose. Dean Moriarty is a con. 

Like Dylan, Artist Daniel Botkin Reconfigures American Classics

Dylan Crossing His Delaware (Detail A)

One of the speakers at this year's Duluth Dylan Fest was Harvard Classics professor Richard Thomas, author of Why Bob Dylan Matters. One of the features of his lecture, extensively expanded upon in his book, was the concept of intertextuality as a response to the accusations of plagiarism in Dylan's work. According to Wikipedia, "Intertextuality is the shaping of a text's meaning by another text. It is the interconnection between similar or related works of literature that reflect and influence an audience's interpretation of the text. Intertextual figures include: allusion, quotation, calque, plagiarism, translation, pastiche and parody. Intertextuality is a literary device that creates an 'interrelationship between texts' and generates related understanding in separate works."

North Country Gothic

Intertextuality has to do with texts, so I don't know what the word would be to describe artists who draw upon the works of other artists. A number of years ago the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art hosted a exhibition of painters whose paintings were influenced by Picasso. Each room would have a Picasso painting with two or three paintings by others that were echoes of what Picasso had done. I specifically recall one piece by Jasper Johns in this show.

All this is by way of introduction to the four paintings Daniel Botkin contributed to this year's Duluth Dylan Fest art show. What follows are his artist statement and descriptions of the four pieces he shared with us in late May.

Bob Dylan borrowed elements of American folk music and wove those elements together to create brand new songs. Following Dylan's method, I have borrowed pieces of popular American folk art and used those compositions to create brand new paintings that blend Dylan and Americana.
-Daniel Botkin

Dylan Crossing His Delaware, full painting

When the Ship Comes In: Dylan Crossing His Delaware
Dylan crossing over from all-acoustic to electric. "Another Side" was his last all-acoustic album. "Bringing It All Back Home," his transitional album, was acoustic on one side and electric on the other. It was followed by "Highway 61 Revisited," his first all-electric album. Some fans considered him a traitor for going electric, one of them famously yelling "Judas!" at a concert. That fellow is in the lower left corner of my painting.
Oil on canvas, $778.

Forever Young
Patterned after Norman Rockwell's Triple Self Portrait. The small pictures on the easel are from Dylan's early career and his childhood home in Duluth.
Oil on canvas $678.

Bobby's World: Stuck Inside of Duluth and Hibbing With the Freight Train Blues Again
Patterned after Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World. The yellow house is the Dylan home in Duluth and the blue house is the Dylan home in Hibbing. The title of my painting is a tweaking of Wyeth's title, followed by a blending of two Dylan song titles, "Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again" and "Freight Train Blues."
Oil on canvas, $578

North Country Gothic
Patterned after Grant Wood's American Gothic. Young Bob Dylan with Echo Helstrom, his high school sweetheart, with the Dylan home in the background. Echo died in January 2018, just about a month before this painting was completed as a tribute to her for being the inspiration for Dylan's song "Girl From the North Country."
Oil on canvas, $578

Dylan Crossing His Delaware (Detail B)

Dylan Crossing His Delaware (Detail C)

Related Lnks

To Purchase, Visit the Daniel Botkin gallery/website.

Ennyman's Dylan-Themed Pictures and Paintings on Flickr

Until death it is all life. Embrace it.