Kerouac

I went into the lecture at the New York Public Library expecting it to be on Kerouac.  I read The Dharma Bums a few summers ago, and On the Road for this class.  That's pretty much the extent of my Kerouac exposure.  I know little about the man.  I was surprised to learn that the lecture was not on Kerouac, nor Ginsberg or Burroughs.  My impression was that the lecture was geared towards people with a keen knowledge of the Beat Generation, and sometimes I got confused.  It was interesting to hear about Diane Di Prima, one of the few women associated with the Beat Generation.  

After the lecture ended, I headed to the exhibit.  I loved the way it was set up, with the scroll unrolled in the middle stemming from a giant image of a road.  It was fitting.  Looking at the yellowed paper that Kerouac wrote on, I realized why I found the book so frantic sounding.  It was written on a never-ending piece of paper, with little regard for paragraph or sentence breaks.   On The Road is truly a work of passion.  

I keep thinking about the discussion we had in class last Monday.  The notion that Jack Kerouac was not the nicest man, especially to women, seems clear to me.  It seemed nearly every female in OTR was a hooker or grossly mistreated by someone she trusted.  However, I think what struck me most about the portrayal of women in OTR was how Sal treated his mother.  He seemed to have little regard for her feelings or well-being.  You can always judge a boy by how he treats his mother.  I was reminded of this while looking at one of Kerouac's scrapbooks.  There was a collage of various mildly promiscuous images of women balanced by newspaper clippings and pictures of cats.  Kerouac had spelled various things out.  The plaque above it informed me that Kerouac had made this for his mother, with no intent on actually giving it to her, about his life.  It was indicative of a troubled relationship.  Perhaps Kerouac portrayed women in a negative light in his books because he had a lot of trouble relating to his mother.