So, my copy of On the Road is some super-special edition that's the original scroll, there's a picture of Jack Kerouac on the back (do you ever say things just because you know they'll rhyme?) and the cover feels cool and not like a smooth tile floor. Though I guess the downside is that it stains in about 30 seconds...
So, in the beginning, there were like 120 introductory forward pages and I'm over here like, "Shut up, these always just want to make me kill myself". (Could we talk about Kerouac one time without talking about his downward spiral into alcoholism and beyond?) So I skipped them. Because anyone can talk about anybody with as many insights and chronicling and notes as they want, and this blog is proof of it. So... Hire me? (No lie, people get hired for their blogs nowadays. This fact and the Lego shirt make me think the future finally has happened, though I'm sure Marky Mark would most vehemently disagree with me on that one.
Oh, and I'm teaching Kerouac the art of the paragraph even if I have to get infected with rabies and involve myself in a highly illegal and life-threatening car chase game.
"...Apparently he was f**king with her. He was always doing so." This made me laugh because it just sounded too much like Alex from Everything is Illuminated to ignore. It was worth the expletive.
"...A traveling epic Hunkey, crossing and recrossing the country every year, south in the winter and north in the summer and only because he has no place he can stay in without getting tired of it and because there's nowhere to go but everywhere." Can I taken a second to reinstate the fact that I love this man?
Oh man, there's a scene I think is incredibly beautiful. I don't why it touched me so, but hey. It's Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady blessing each other and making vows of "eternal friendship and love". I'd copy it down, but in whole context it's at least the two pages full, and as much as I love you guys, I like my wrists more. In this edition (The Viking edition) it's on page 161. But really, I can't do it justice; or maybe you'll read it and you won't be touched. Probably you won't be. In cases like these, it's never the same.
"'The Banana King is your meat.'" For Emma, I had to. Though, you know, it makes a lot more sense in context! (I wonder how he'd feel about Charlie the Unicorn? I saw a Charlie the Unicorn belt at the mall and thought of you...) The Banana King=a guy selling bananas, and "is your meat" is saying, he's your fodder, your inspiration, and so on. Well, I was proud of myself for 'getting it'! At least, I think I 'got it'. Why am I saying everything in quotes? Am I eighty right now?
"Ah it was a fine night, a warm night, a wine-drinking night, a moony night, and a night to hug your girl and talk and spit and be heavengoing." I love that last bit, "heavengoing". I'm not entirely sure what he means, but I think he's referring to those moments when you feel perfect, you know, when you fit in with everything in the world and it's different from ecstasy, it's more like you're pleased and humbled and feel whole and are happy for it. It doesn't have a name, so far as I know, that feeling. (In Perks of Being a Wall Flower, Charlie refers to it as being "infinite")
"Isn't it true that you start your life a sweet child believing in everything under his father's roof, then comes the day... when you know you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked, with the visage of a gruesome greiving ghost you go shuddering through nightmare life." This reminds me of a quote from Doctor Zhivago I love which I can't find because Wikiquote sucks and my yellow notebook apparently got eaten by that bear that appears in the neighborhood every time I want to sleep outside. But it's basically about how when you're a child growing up it's like you're being led by the hand by someone who will protect you and care for you, but then when you're an adult, that hand suddenly leaves and you feel abandoned and alone. Lost, because you've never been in that situation before, and scared. Startled. Man, and it's so good. It's quoted in Into the Wild, too.... I am most enraged. Time to call on my fifties-era gang-member teacher to wrong this right...
"'...she's knitting my doom.'" Again, I just like how it's written. (Well, was said...) And how! Why don't I know anyone that talks like this? Sure, I'm your stereotypical Victorian/1920's speaker, but we need some of this. Anyone care to hop on the trolley? Please?
"He and I suddenly saw the whole country like an oyster for us to open; and the pearl was there, the pearl was there."
"'...because man a road like this must eventually lead to the whole world.'"
"There's always more, a little further--it never ends." I'm sure you're seeing a trend in this type.
I can't find the section I marked, but there's a part where Jack makes love to a Mexican woman whose name I can't remember, but her son Raymond watches some or part of it. It's almost exactly like the scene in Big Sur, only without being amazingly upsetting and horrifying. The sentence was like "Raymond got out of his crib and came in the room", or something like that, and nothing more. Just thought of poor little Elliot.
"'It's the world!' said Neal. 'My God!' he cried slapping the wheel. 'It's the world!'" Okay, so it reminded me a little bit of Watchmen when Rorschach's psychiatrist says to his wife, "'I can't run from it, Gloria... It's the world..." Okay, so I paraphrased a little. But no, that's not just it. It just struck my heart somehow, I guess.
Oh, I probably should have said this book has the same main idea as all his other books.
Oh, and I read Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. First off, I can't imagine why kids complain about having to read this in school. I have a mini edition that just screams it was printed in the seventies that's something like 120 pages. So the school editions are like... 60 pages tops? At least. Gad, what whiners. Second, it's one of the most depressing books I've ever read. But wait! Wait, I still--well, maybe 'liked' it isn't the word, but I... recognize its merit?
Thirdly, it's about these two travelers, looking for work, run out of their hometown. One, the smaller fellow (George) is of normal intelligence, a little on the small side, but besides that, he looks after his fellow traveler (Lennie), who's built like a wall. Unfortunately, his intelligence is exceptionally low. (Hence why he needs to be looked after). But he has a heart of gold, and loves animals--an overpowering love, often accidentally killing animals like mice that he pets because he doesn't know his own strength, he gets angry when they try to bite him, and because his hands are just so huge.
I also can't tell you what the point of this book was, either. On the inside, whoever owned it before me has written "Steinbeck suggests the fulfillment of dreams requires companionship", and maybe he does, but damned if I can figure out how. The end... Jeez. And "Of love and need"? God, maybe George couldn't take it anymore, maybe it's unfair to expect and demand that he continue to take, but I think he's a right slimy bastard.
"'We travel together,' said George coldly. 'Oh, so it's that way.'" I don't really get what Curley means by "that way". I would have thought he was making a jab that he thinks they're gay or some such, but I guess that doesn't really bode with the fact that he always thinks everyone is having sex with his wife, including George and Lennie.
"'He's a nice fella,' said Slim. 'Guy don't need no sense to be a nice fella.'" Yeah, George, they don't. Ugh. I hate George so much.
The scene with the old dog was forshadowing, I guess, now that I think about. I guess that was mostly the reason why George decided he had to be the one to... Ugh. Is it necessary we talk about him? Because seriously, he's a [candy-happy unicorn pony].
You know, I bet that conversation where poor Candy tries to get them not to kill his dog (to wait till tomorrow, at least, to put it off one more day) probably was the final thing that made George do it. I mean, he couldn't right continue with Lennie after the tart got... But, recalling that, when the old man's like "'Maybe tomorra. Let's wait till tomorra.'" and then Carlson says "'I don't see no reason for it...'" and pulls the pistol out then and there and takes the dog... Christ. He's slime too. Maybe the dog wasn't in the best of sorts, but really, anyone who would so eagerly kill a dog... (And not by accident. Which soumds weird if you haven't read the book, but...)
You know what, Lennie isn't a bad guy at all. He wouldn't have hurt Curly if it hadn't been for George goading him on. Maybe Curley had it coming like everyone said, but still, George, I'm egging your house. I don't even care if I have to walk all the way to CA, either.
"'Cause I'm black. They play cards in there, but I can't play because I'm black. They say I stink. Well, I tell you, you all of you stink to me.'" I think Atticus would have smiled a little at this.
I had the final scene marked but I can't write about it. George is a slimy, weak, yellow-bellied spineless clod of dirt. I can't. Sorry. It's too upsetting a scene. Poor Lennie.
To change that dour mood, Robby D remembered Everything is Illuminated. Of course, I immediately started it! Love that booook! I also finished The Illiad, which I won't be reviewing because it's weird to try and review a book that could be your 1,400-year-old father. However, when I have more time I am going to make a belated-birthday-or-something post for Emma of all the hilarious things in it. (PS. The Odyssey > The Illiad)
PS. Hello Alex! Glad you've enjoyed this madness! Hope this most recent hasn't depressed you too much!
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