Revisting 'On The Road'

Jack Kerouac's literary classic On The Road is to be republished in its original, unedited form.

There's a full story about it here, in The Age.

Apart from the fact that Jack is one of my literary heroes, this news excites me because of the elements in the original novel that were censored by the publisher when it was first published. The sexual relationship between the thinly-disguised versions of Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady who appear in the book, for example, was largely edited out.

Viking publisher Paul Slovak says that the upcoming version will be in hardcover, and will feature the real names of the characters, "rougher language", and a more "sexually frantic tone."

Should be good! Oh, and if you want to brush up on your knowledge of Kerouac and the Beat Generation, this site over here is a good place to start.

Comments

Mel said…
I think this will be great for Kerouac fans and scholars; however surely the first published text is and will remain the 'original'. I am uneasy with the mythology that's built up over Kerouac's scroll draft (which has become emblematic of Beat creativity, itself an ethos many fiction writers continue to draw from). I can't help thinking that this edition will entrench a perception that the creative process begins and ends with the first draft.

Kerouac extensively redrafted OTR himself - it wasn't only publishers' interference. Making the first draft public is also an editing decision - it's not a return to some original, unmediated Kerouac 'voice'. Ultimately, fiction writing is a collaborative process, and texts ought to be thought of as products of publishing cultures as well as windows to their authors' minds.
31/7/06 18:49
richardwatts said…
I can't help thinking that this edition will entrench a perception that the creative process begins and ends with the first draft.

Great point Mel - and yes, although Jack did say 'first draft best draft' he clearly wrote and re-wrote his own work. Nonetheless, I'm extremely interested in comparing the two editions...
31/7/06 23:43
mskp said…
mel, i quite agree, especially with the last point you made about reader response and cultural context. it's what that rag, the australian, missed when they set patrick white's work up for a fall. a work operates within a context and cultural production always happens at the interface of competing concerns [writer, reader, editor, critic etc]. but like you, richard, i'm curious...
1/8/06 00:22
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