Saturday
Nov292008
Did He Write Over the Tape?
Saturday 29 November, 2008
The Independent:
I dispute this story. I believe that Kerouac wrote seven, maybe eight words a day over the course of several decades. The 127ft manuscript was pinched from a time travelling albino leper caught on his way to Disneyland. I cannot explain it any other way.
One of the oddest typescripts in literary history goes on display next Wednesday at Birmingham University's Barber Institute of Fine Arts. It's the first version of On the Road, the bible of the Beat generation, Jack Kerouac's 1957 novel of restless voyaging that sent a generation of Levi's-clad youths on a million road trips.
...
He started the book in early April, averaged 4,000 to 5,000 words a day and finished it on 27 April. The taped-together typescript was a single scroll – indeed, a single paragraph – 127ft long.
I dispute this story. I believe that Kerouac wrote seven, maybe eight words a day over the course of several decades. The 127ft manuscript was pinched from a time travelling albino leper caught on his way to Disneyland. I cannot explain it any other way.
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