The Valve - A Literary Organ | On the Road Again

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Wednesday, October 03, 2007

On the Road Again

Posted by Bill Benzon on 10/03/07 at 07:15 AM

David Brooks reflects on the 50th anniversay of On the Road, noting the differences between the joyous reviews it received upon publication and the somber reflections it has inspired upon 50th memorialzation.

And there’s something else going on, something to do with the great taming professionalism of American culture. “On the Road” has been semi-incorporated into modern culture, but only parts have survived.

Students are taught “On the Road” in class, then must write tightly organized, double-spaced term papers on it, and if they don’t get an A, it hurts their admissions prospects. The book is still talked about, but often by professional intellectuals in panel discussions and career-building journal articles.

The effect is that some of the book comes through fine — the longing, the nostalgia for home, the darker pessimism.

But the real secret of the book was its discharge of youthful energy, the stupid, reckless energy that saves “On the Road” from being a dreadful novel. The delightful, moronic, unreflective fizz appears whenever the characters are happiest, when they are chasing girls or urinating from a swerving flatbed truck while going 70 miles an hour.

Those parts haven’t survived. They run afoul of the new gentility, the rules laid down by the health experts, childcare experts, guidance counselors, safety advisers, admissions officers, virtuecrats and employers to regulate the lives of the young. They seem dangerous, childish and embarrassing in the world of professionalized adolescence and professionalized intellect.

Comments

The Brooks algorithm produces another 700 words.

To quote myself:

“Lolita" was published three years before Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road”, making it the first great American road novel. Travel through Colorado is featured in both novels, as it was in the lives of their authors. Someone should put the timelines on a map to see whether Nabokov, Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Humbert Humbert, Sal Paradise, Dean Moriarty, et al, were ever at the same place at the same (real or fictional) time.

By John Emerson on 10/03/07 at 11:47 AM | Permanent link to this comment

I can’t tell if he thinks this is a good thing or a bad thing.

By Keith on 10/03/07 at 03:37 PM | Permanent link to this comment

I never managed to get past the third chapter of On the Road. Couldn’t tolerate the overbearing prose style. Is that a controversial admission/evaluation?

By on 10/03/07 at 10:19 PM | Permanent link to this comment

A great comment by Brooks! I’m going to bookmark this site!

By Eddie Fitzgerald on 10/04/07 at 02:49 PM | Permanent link to this comment

For the curious, Eddie Fitzgerald.

By Bill Benzon on 10/04/07 at 03:12 PM | Permanent link to this comment

So, Eddie Fitzgerald, since I see that you’re in the theory biz and the cartoon biz, both, have you read Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comices? If so, what do you think of it?

By Bill Benzon on 10/04/07 at 03:16 PM | Permanent link to this comment

McCloud’s Understanding Comics is great!

By on 10/04/07 at 07:32 PM | Permanent link to this comment

Houston, we have a problem. A little one, to be sure, but a problem. Someone posting under the name of “Moriarty” posted a comment on this item and I waved it on through. It has since disappeared, perhaps because one of my fellow Valvocrats thinks Moriarty is none other than the Dreaded Troll of Sorrow? I don’t know. But I thought the comment interesting and so am reposting it under my name. If it’s the TOS, well, then it’s the TOS. So be it.

Here it is, raw and uncensored from the keyboard of Moriarty:

“""""....They run afoul of the new gentility, the rules laid down by the health experts, childcare experts, guidance counselors, safety advisers, admissions officers, virtuecrats and employers to regulate the lives of the young. They seem dangerous, childish and embarrassing in the world of professionalized adolescence and professionalized intellect.""""”

Nicely stated, and probably accurate. The New Gentility typically interprets the spirit of Beat adventure and “kicks” (it had its downside as well, obviously) as either rightist or psychotic (ala McMurphy in Kesey’s OFOTCN); or limits it to a few hard-partaying celebrity millionaires in LA or NY. Blogs and websites--even hip PC ones, like DailyKOS, Inc.--- themselves have been professionalized. A cyber-Ti Jean sneaking into KOSland would be changing his s-name and proxies daily, and be forced to deal with the CaCa brownie recipes from the soccer-mommies..............

By Bill Benzon on 10/04/07 at 07:45 PM | Permanent link to this comment

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Wednesday, October 03, 2007

On the Road Again

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