Jack Kerouac's seminal novel of the Beat Generation turned 50 0n September 5. The library celebrates with a display featuring a book taken from the original scroll, a couple of contemporary posters, some classic cars, and quotes from Kerouac. You can be "Present at the Creation", an NPR presentation which includes many multi-media links to Kerouac reading from his book or watch curators unroll the scroll.
Although I read the book and encountered the Beat Generation in high school, my loveliest encounter with On the Road came when I myself was on the road in England. A friend and I had traveled to a village in Norfolk to visit a neighbor whose husband had been transferred there. Leaving her, we started a Jane Austen pilgrimage, boarding a train at King Lynn’s station to make our way to Winchester. The tracks went along a canal populated by swans and behind community garden plots complete with dilapidated and tipsy sheds made with scavenged materials. When a young woman sat next to me, I was feeling the effects of being truly in a different place. She was on her way to take a job lettering signs for a traveling circus. She was excited to chat with an American and pulled her favorite book from a rucksack. Had I ever read On the Road, simply the best book ever written? So there I was, on an English road discussing a journey by an author who had lived not 30 minutes from my home. When I tried to tell her about my Austen road trip, she was uncertain who Austen was (but was very polite about my enthusiasm.) Message to me: there’s a literary road for each of us.
Although I read the book and encountered the Beat Generation in high school, my loveliest encounter with On the Road came when I myself was on the road in England. A friend and I had traveled to a village in Norfolk to visit a neighbor whose husband had been transferred there. Leaving her, we started a Jane Austen pilgrimage, boarding a train at King Lynn’s station to make our way to Winchester. The tracks went along a canal populated by swans and behind community garden plots complete with dilapidated and tipsy sheds made with scavenged materials. When a young woman sat next to me, I was feeling the effects of being truly in a different place. She was on her way to take a job lettering signs for a traveling circus. She was excited to chat with an American and pulled her favorite book from a rucksack. Had I ever read On the Road, simply the best book ever written? So there I was, on an English road discussing a journey by an author who had lived not 30 minutes from my home. When I tried to tell her about my Austen road trip, she was uncertain who Austen was (but was very polite about my enthusiasm.) Message to me: there’s a literary road for each of us.
No comments:
Post a Comment