Minor Characters: New York Public Library

Being that it was a Saturday and I was having to go to an event for school I was not particularly enthusiastic about the whole thing. Once I arrived at the New York Public Library I had a little trouble finding the room where Professor Jason Bauman was giving his lecture on “This is the Beat Generation”. I did not have any expectations for the lecture which is why I think by the end I was pleasantly surprised by how much I had enjoyed it.

The Jack Kerouac exhibition which the NYPL was hosting was of course the big draw but it was refreshing that Professor Bauman’s lecture did not focus on the major characters during the beat generation but rather the minor, less publicized characters. Professor Bauman’s focus on Diane Di Prima and Bob Kaufman revealed a completely new way of looking at historical moments in time. So often the public gets swept away by the major characters in play and forgets to examine those who were much less famous but not any less important to the movement du jour. I do not want to take anything away from Jack Kerouac or Allen Ginsberg but I found it particularly interesting to learn about Diane Di Prima, a woman who had just as much to say as Kerouac or Ginsberg, but also had the challenge of raising five children on her own while trying to maintain a space in which she was able to express herself through her writing. It was learning and exploring the lives of these “minor” characters which ultimately gave me the idea for my final project in my “Life on the Square” class.

After the lecture given by Professor Bauman I took myself upstairs and proceeded to walk through the “On the Road: Jack Kerouac” exhibition. What immediately struck me was Jack Kerouac’s manuscript of “On the Road” on a scroll, unrolled, under glass protection, and in the middle of the room. Instantly I had a flash back to the manuscript of Henri James written on a scroll which I had seen a couple of weeks prior at The Morgan. I couldn’t help but wonder what it was about writing in the form of the scroll which extremely talented writers gravitated to? I do not know that I am necessarily looking for an answer, I am not really sure if there really is an answer to this question, but I do find it to be continually intriguing to explore the idea of scroll writing. After having just attended Professor Bauman’s lecture on the minor characters of the beat generation I found myself to be acutely aware, while walking through the exhibit and enjoying the many examples of Kerouac’s work, of the unflattering light which Kerouac portrayed his female characters in his novel “On the Road”. Although the novel is apparently semi-autobiographical I wonder how much of the depictions of women were embellished and how much of the depictions were accurate, or for lack of a better word unbiased? Again, I know that this is a question which I will never find an answer to but I am more than okay with just tossing it around within my own head.

Although I did have to make an extra trip into the city that weekend, what I gained from both the lecture and the exhibit was worth much more than the four dollars which I had to spend on the subway getting to and from my destination.