by Jack Kerouac
[ . . . ]
Went to Paterson and brought old letters and documents etc. including some other writings by Huncke buried in attic five years now. Have to look it over yet.
Last Friday lunch with Rosalind Constable and gave her outline of all your books chronologically, she asked for.
House looks great now, special private rooms for writing, huge Brueghel picture of children’s games hung by rope from wall, used rope to frame a cardboard picture.
Guess I’ll settle in to type last couple years scribbled poetry, ignus etc.
Gregory writes he’s feeling fine back in Paris wants to come home, going to be on radio-TV in Berlin to read “Bomb”, they invited him. Nothing from Bill. [John] Montgomery’s started to bombard me with letters.
Don Allen says [Barney] Rosset turned down separate volumes for Gary and Phil but would do a book of Gary, Phil and myself and you. However Rosset still reading Blues and Allen thinks he’ll put that out complete.
Don Allen also said he wants to print Dr. Sax. Also wants to read Visions of Neal again and study it and see if it can be legally printed complete here. Said Gerard, “more sentimental” would be good later on for an Xmas book.
Sterling Lord doesn’t seem to realize how good Sax is literarily nor how good it might be commercially, nor how good it would be for your reputation.
He (Lord) is thinking a good deal in reputation terms. He thinks Dharma Bums was good for your intellectual and commercial reputation. He thinks a book on Paris would be, like, new material for the Spokesman to deal with. All this is on Viking-Madison Avenue mental level.
I tried explain to him that nite with Deutsch that I agree it’s a good thing to consider reputation, I’m in favor of it, Sax would be the book to do it with. He asked me did I really think so literarily? I said yes and he seemed surprised. So I gather that the reason he’s shopping around with Sax, promoting the Viking- Paris book as the next Good Thing, is that he doesn’t dig how good Sax is.
We talked about that. He says, Jack’s next book should1. deal with different material
2. have more of regular structure-form
I explained that Sax does deal with small-town myth-gothic new material, and that it does have, more than any other book, what could be called a regular recognizable classical structure. He didn’t seem to understand that either of these points were relevant to his reputation plans, and that Sax had them.
So I say, perhaps both Viking and Lord are neglecting your good books and trying to get you to write “potboilers” according to their ideas of what your writing career should develop like.
So I say that since Grove wants to print Sax, as your next book, this spring, you ought to let them do it. If Viking objects and wants to print a book first (tho they had the last one)—see if they’ll do Sax or Gerard or Neal or a book you want printed.
Also, says Don Allen, the Subs did well financially, they spent lots money advertising ($6000 he says), made money for you anyway on resale—he also said they’d probably match anybody else’s financial offer. Ask Lord to try. Also says Don Allen, they’ve asked for and wanted the book a long time, and have already signed a contract for it (signed and handed it to Lord, he hasn’t signed yet) so they wonder what he’s doing. I told Don Allen to have lunch with Sterling, and talk business. So I don’t know.
All I’d say, it doesn’t matter who prints Sax really, except it should be done next, by someone. I dunno. Anyway I get the impression from Lord the basic reason for all this hang-up with Viking, Sax, Paris, etc. is that they don’t realize how good Sax is, otherwise they’d just publish that next and then go on chronologically.
I told Allen you were sick of publishing hassles and wanted quiet and so were leaving all arrangements etc. to Lord, and Tao.
What’s new?
As ever,
Allen
Jack Kerouac [Northport, New York] to
Allen Ginsberg [New York, New York]
November 19, 1958
Dear Allen:
I told Sterling that Don Allen said he would match anybody’s offer for Sax and I’m seeing Sterling Friday night—I’ll be at Dody’s [Muller] loft Thursday evening at 81 Second Avenue above the bakery, will go see you unless you call first. I told Sterling I want Sax published this spring (for $7500 advance, why not?) and then Gerard by Viking in the Fall and then for 1960 my Paris book which will be alright, in fact it will be called European Blues and be all about Spain and Italy and Hamburg too—(me and Dody digging fishermen’s wives)—or God Over Europe, or something—in fact I’ll get the title high. I just wrote my first column for Escapade magazine all about Bill and Gregory and you and me and current state of American Lit being shitty because not yet published on accounts editors and writers themselves who discard their best manuscripts. Your Village Voice review best I ever got, of course, but Road was not written on benny, on coffee, and in 1951, (May), and wasn’t onionskin teletype roll but Bill Cannastra’s drawing paper etc. we should have consulted somehow. I thought page 34 to page 25 a real silly maneuver—(by wiseguy editors who don’t believe you anyway).142 But you told them off. Next time you start an article say, “Now to put an end to all this cowflop.” Okay with me about Cummings in Oxford—Now that Ferling may do the rejected Chicago Review I guess our anthology is off for a while, anyway I had figured it out, your notes amount to thirty pages of material and then I was going to throw in the “Three Stooges” (already printed in Mike Grieg’s New Editions, without any errors except dashes) and “Old Bull Balloon” for fairly complete picture. We can do that on a deadline, anyhow, I’m good on deadlines. Tell me this weekend. No, don’t go to Chicago, what’s the use, t’would be better to go nowhere and just go have long talks with LeRoi Jones or somebody or even arrange yourself a week of poetry reading at Village Vanguard or something, could be done, would be great, make a little loot ($400 a week). Or read at Half Note, or don’t read, just type up your poems. Take this advice from a man who has created a masterpiece, what’s the sense of traveling around to the midlands of America unless you have a car or something, I don’t know. Just type up your poems. Put together a brand new book of your own stuff for Don or Ferling. If you do go to Chicago then you should go all the way to the west coast before Gary leaves. I am home alone now with my mother and still can’t sleep too good and very nervous and twitchy, I going to get advance from Viking and fetch passport and go to Europe then. I hope Gregory comes back ere that. I will bring Dody so I can have companion of love and also get to know ladies as well as gentlemen of Europe, move around more and be spectacular scott fitzgerald type investigators instead of just me like a thief. Nobody trusted me when I was in Paris because they knew I was an English thief—with Dody I can go to big cocktail parties in Paris and meet fashionables and pass out and be cute, not bummy—either that or I don’t go at all. I mean, maybe I won’t even go. What I care about Europe? How’s Peter? Has he written new notes? Tell him Lafcadio came over with his paints and a bare canvas and painted my portrait in the kitchen making me look small childlike Jake Spencer and took it home to show to his Ma, wants me to buy it but I’m going to save my money now, spent $150 last week on food and liquor for everyone, too much—I’m not William Faulkner movie writer yet. But painting is fine and he said he would not show it to you or Peter at all, so don’t mention it. Dody says he is a nice boy, just shy, not crazy at all. Don’t press him too much, he told me he was bugged by you and Peter pressing him to “come out.” He don’t want come out. Everybody wants him come out—even strangers like Henri Cru—let him dream. My mother and I going to stay in Northport now so all’s well and I see you often. Hearst-political hassles in Chicago not worthy of your time. Whow Who’s Hearst in Eternity? When you see Lucien tell him I see him this weekend. Actually I don’t know what’s going on and don’t really care, maybe I will leave everything in Lord’s hands and just go on, I feel like taking sketches of Europe now, as well as Manhattan when I’m there alone in cafeteria. See you soon. (Friday o
r Thursday or Saturday.)
Jean
Jack
Jack Kerouac [Northport, New York] to
Allen Ginsberg [New York, New York]
December 16, 1958
Dear Allen (Dec. 16):
Just got “Midnight” from [Irving] Rosenthal, he doesn’t like Jean-Louis so I decided once for all on “Old Angel Midnight.” I’d stayed up all night trying to find names in Bible and Dictionary, gave myself a headache, listed down such names as Lauschen M., Listen M., Lumen M., Luscious M., Labium M. TiJean M., Jean-Louis M., Jeshua M., Hezion M., Vision M., Grecian M., Goshen M., Nimshi M., Ziphion M., Nineveh M., Neriah M., Misham M., Mishma Midnight, Misham Midnight, Leshem, Shelah, Shelumiel, Shelomi, Sheshan, Elishua, Enosh, Ephean, Eliatha, Shimeon, Marcion, Halcyon, Elysean, Lover Midnight, Illusion Midnight, Notion M and finally couldn’t sleep and watched Charley Van Doren on morning TV show where he suddenly begins telling Ling Giggling Ling tale by Mark Twain about an “old angel” in heaven and it was like the magic of his father and I took it. So I’m sending it tonight with these changes, using Lucifer Woidner at one point since he’s an old angel of light they say. Rosie says he has the $600 for the publication so it’s all set.
I’m sending you enclosed in this letter your story we writ at Lucien’s farm, which has bit poems here and there for you, of yours, and I’m going to quote you a letter I just got from Henry Miller:
“Big Sur 12/9-58 Dear Jack Kerouac—I don’t know where Ginsberg gets his mail, so you write him a postcard, will you, and thank him for his letter. Tell him that the review he wrote of your D.B. [Dharma Bums] in the Village Voice (N.Y.) struck me as quite, quite wonderful. . . . I felt, when I read D.B. that you must have written millions of words before—and I see, via A.G., that you have. Salute! P.S. Do you read French? I know, or hear, that you are French Canadian, but—? Anyway, if you do, I’d like to send you “Salut Pour Melville” by Jean Giono.” etc.
I’m putting down most everything, I’ve decided, except you and Dody and Peter in NY with a few exceptions, I really don’t care if I ever see six million of those madcaps ever again. I’m really all up to here now. Have mad new great novel in mind I think I’ll write after Christmas, beginning right after Desolation Angels in Arizona desert, to down to Mexico with Bill, you and Greg and Laff and Pete in Mex., pyramids, etc. floating gardens, etc. up to NY in that mad packed car, the Helens, WCWilliams, Yugo freighter, Tangier, Paris, Greg, (Bill), London, ship back, Florida, mad bus trip with my Ma to Berkeley, Whalen, back again to (after little North Beach anecdotes) Fla., back alone on bus to Mexico in time for earthquake, back to Fla., illness, then up to big “what you call October wave of beauty crashing over my head” publication of Road on up to nightclubs, readings, albums, interview, the whole mad scene in its entire nutty entirety (including Lucien weekends, Pat McManus,143 etc etc.) showing how it starts I’m a rucksack bum in the desert trudging along not knowing fortune is a crock in America. Think of a nice title for me. Fame in America? Trial on Earth. Through the Wringer. Love on Earth. (The weight of the world is love indeed). (O yes including the mad nun scene I made, etc.) A big epic book telling all the critics and reviewers how full of shit they are, right in their faces. Well, I’ll write a book soon anyway, maybe get mad and just do Memory Babe childhood Town City reminiscences in real life non-fiction setting.
Meanwhile it looks like Viking okay for Gerard, and Allen (Don) wants Sax, and Jerry Wald interested in Road again he says. I’m being quiet and healthy and happy taking long walks in sub zero I mean freezing yard in cold moonlight and have color and clear eyes, don’t drink at home, do my exercises and feel great. Eat big meals in kitchen and sneer at TV and say to people on TV “Oh ain’t we smart!” which is my old original self okay. I mean, all this consanguine diamond sutra vow to be kind to every tom dick and harry and waste my energy and health. Kind to sportswriters and priests, kind to memo book salesmen and reel engineers. O yes, have a tape, just recording jazz now, later languij.
See you this weekend 19th and 20th and 21st.
Jean-Louis
1959
Editors’ Note: In January 1959, Kerouac and Ginsberg performed in Robert Frank and Al Leslie’s movie, Pull My Daisy. When Jack was in the city he tended to drink to excess and retreated more frequently to his mother’s house for solitude. Ginsberg became more occupied with readings, interviews, and public appearances around the country. On March 26, Allen was scheduled to read at Harvard and had hoped that Jack would go with him, but Kerouac sent his regrets. In order to keep his sanity, Jack was trying to keep out of the limelight.
Jack Kerouac [Northport, New York] to Allen Ginsberg,
Gregory Corso, and Peter Orlovsky [New York, New York]
March 24, 1959
Dear Allen, Gregory, Peter:
It looks like I can’t go to Harvard anyway because Holiday magazine wants those two articles by March 30th and it will take me several days to type them and also make bigger sentences out of our material. In other words I’m staying home to make your money for India and Crete. Besides, I’m tired. Hearing your Chicago records (tapes) made me feel depressed all over again about poetry readings. Too much repetition of same material for new audiences, etc. Too much the eagerness to be accepted. O well, you know how I feel and felt about that in Frisco.
Here’s your check for 15 bucks I owe you. If I suddenly go mad and decide to go to Harvard with you anyway I will be at your pad at 3 or 4 on Thursday.
But then that would only be if I finisht and mailed off those two articles to Holiday by then. Almost impossible.
How you like my new typewriter type?
American College Dictionary sent me their big square definition of “beat generation” and wanted to know if I would revise, emend or make a new one. Theirs was awful, “certain members of the generation that came of age after World War II who affect detachment from moral and social forms and responsibilities, supposedly due to disillusionment. Coined by John Kerouac.”
So I sent in this: “beat generation, members of the generation that came of age after World War II-Korean War who join in a relaxation of social and sexual tensions and espouse anti-regimentation, mystic-disaffiliation and material-simplicity values, supposedly as a result of Cold War disillusionment. Coined by JK”
If I don’t come to Harvard, read them this definition and tell them that I “plead work as my excuse for not attending the reading at Harvard, for every Massachusetts boy dreams of Harvard.”
My mother (not wanting me to go get plastered so often in NY, and me too I get sick and dirty and don’t work) invites all three of you come out here any time you want, so after Harvard let’s do our tapes etc. Also you can see my paintings etc. Also, Allen, I have copy of Jabberwock sent to you care of me, by big Scotland types, who want our work published there in fall, and other items.
Anyway, I’m not a liar. As to my recent belligerent drunkenness I just noticed today it all began last April right after that bum pounded my brain head with his big fingered fist ring . . . maybe I got brain damage, maybe once I was kind drunk, but now am brain-clogged drunk with the kindess valve clogged by injury.
More anon. Addio.
Jack
Editors’ Note: In April, Ginsberg took his first jet flight, traveling to San Francisco, where in addition to various public events, he visited Neal Cassady who was in San Quentin prison serving time on drug charges. The relationship between Kerouac and Ginsberg was becoming strained, in part due to Jack’s drunken and abusive phone calls to Allen, and in part due to Allen’s continuing promotion of the Beat Generation.
Allen Ginsberg [San Francisco, California] to
Jack Kerouac [n.p., Northport, New York?]
City Lights
261 Columbus
S.F. Cal
May 12, 1952 [sic: 1959]
Dear Jack:
Fine, your check came a day after I delivered typewriter to Neal—cost exactly $50—a secondhand rebuilt portable—noiseless for ta
ct’s cell sake. No not paranoiac about kitchen yakkings tho if I shut up (as before) and didn’t yell back I would wind up paranoiac. Just thought it was time to scream back and you were receptive. I wrote big two page letter to NY Times about Dr. Sax yesterday, said it was a “grand luminous poem” and maybe they’ll publish it. I saw so far NY Post, SRL and Times. Any others? I mentioned Melville in letter. Sneaky queer article on me in Partisan by Diana Trilling. She thinks “Lion” is a faggy poem to Lionel. Ugh, Icky. Don Allen was here preparing a new SF issue [of Evergreen Review], and he mentioned he hoped to get more Brakeman on RR [“October in the Railroad Earth”] from you for it so it’s a happy holy coincidence you sent it in when you did.
