Kerouac's Diaries on the Road Again

The New Yorker has made selections of Jack Kerouac's diaries available to the public, proving that there is no better way to start your Wednesday than on the road again! (From The New Yorker)

January 1, 1948. Queens, New York. Today, read my novel [“The Town and the City”] in its entirety. I see that it’s almost finished. What is my opinion? It is the sum of myself, as far as the written word can go, and my opinion of it is like my opinion of myself!—gleeful and affectionate one day, black with disgust the next.

Wrote 2500 words, until interrupted by a visit from Allen Ginsberg, who came at four o’clock in the morning to tell me that he is going mad, but once and if cured he will communicate with other human beings as no one ever has—completely, sweetly, naturally. He described his terror and seemed on the verge of throwing a fit in my house. When he calmed down I read him parts of my novel and he leeringly announced that it was “greater than Melville, in a sense—the great American novel.” I did not believe a word he said.

Someday I will take off my own mask and tell all about Allen Ginsberg and what he is in the “real” flesh. It seems to me that he is just like any other human being and that this drives him to wit’s ends. How can I help a man who wants to be a monster one minute and a god the next?