On the Road or: How Jack Kerouac Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Buttsecks

[silentsighs]

Ok, so not exactly, but On the Road has some of the most glaringly obvious subtext I have ever come across.

Although the book is ostensibly about America and about the search for IT-  God, truth, the Self- but it is only through Dean Moriarty, the object of Sal Paradise's obsessions- that these things can be seen. The novel even begins and ends with

Comments

[drworm]

Yeah, Kerouac had such a massive crush on Neal Cassady. And Allen Ginsberg had a crush on Kerouac. And William Burroughs had a crush on Ginsberg...

[vanitashaze]

I can't provide the actual link, but somewhere out there is actually a Newsweek article on the "first draft" of the book - which is going to be published by somebody somewhere, who knows - in which there is not only a lot more interesting crush-bits, but actually gay sex. Vaguely voyeuristic, Dean with another guy & Sal looking on gay sex. (Which, in the standard book, was replaced by something along the lines of: "Dean ordered a drink. I left to use the bathroom."

Lolz.)

[silentsighs]

Yeah, you're right. The "scroll" edition of the novel was published last year, I think, for the 50th anniversary. Not only does he use everyone's real names but he also refers explicitly to the gay affair Neal Cassady (Dean Moriarty) had with Allen Ginsberg (Carlo Marx). I need to get myself a copy!

[iugularemortuos]

Kind of late to the party, but I saw the actual scroll at the library exhibition in NYC earlier this year. I did notice the names were different, but I didn't have the time to look for gay sex read much. I had no idea they were publishing it! That's awesome!