Fifty years of solitude

Fifty years ago today, "On the Road" was published. By now it is, one supposes, that most wooden and moribund of all things, a classic, in honor of which Slate publishes a pair of articles, one by Walter Kirn and Meghan O'Rourke, two modern critics, discussing whether "On the Road" holds up, and the other a series of reflections on Kerouac himself by people who knew him. The most telling bit for me: Kerouac was repulsed by hippies and the claims they made on him. The most interesting comments belong to Carolyn Cassidy, who appeared in the book as Camille, and whose ex-husband Neal was one of the book's inspirations and thinly disguised main characters. She tells us that Kerouac was disgusted by hippies: "They thought Jack gave them freedom to turn the world into chaos. They thought he was giving them carte blanche to be selfish. That's why he vowed to drink himself to death." Later she says, "Most people don't realize how much fiction there is in 'On the Road'."

This is why the book has always left a bad taste in my mouth: its most passionate defenders treat it as a sacred text, and seem to think that feelingâ€”depth of feeling, loudness of feeling, existence of feelingâ€”somehow justifies a piece of writing or an opinion, as though art were all about self-expression rather than artifice. "On the Road" is not a howl, it is a novel (even "Howl" is not a howl; it is a poem), and writing is not about expressing oneself but about arranging that expression artfully. Not only did Kerouac do that, but he made it look artless and natural, which is the most difficult thing of all.