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“On The Road” is basically Jack Kerouac’s novel-length justification of his crush on Neal Cassidy
Obviously to preface this, I’m not even close to the first person read queer themes into On The Road. The novel, at least uncensored, is filled with gay scenes featuring Cassady’s Moriarty character and Allen Ginsberg’s alter-ego. Noticeably, the main character (basically Kerouac) is much less often the character engaging in queer activity. Instead — again, at least in the uncensored/original versions — it’s his buddies and associates.
Rereading On The Road as an adult and 70 years after the events it depicts, it is so so clear to me that Kerouac is frantically narrating and justifying the intensity of his feelings for Cassady.
Obstensibly a fictionalised memoir of his time on the road, Moriarty/Cassady is the central figure in almost every vignette. Plot points such as they were arise only because Kerouac follows Morairty from place to place, lovesick like a puppy.
For a novel so obsessed with uninhibited sex with many women, Kerouac spends pages of prose describing the depth of his feelings for Morairty/Cassady, his spiritual and emotional connection for the man, and straight up admiring everything about him. His affection and attraction for the man vibrates off the page.
Before I get accused of basically writing fan fiction, I suggest you watch the 2012 film based on the book. In order to compress the novel into something cinematic and with a somewhat clear plot progression, the writers make immediete all of this subtext. Dean Moriarty is the central figure progressing the plot and Sal spends 90% of the movie mooning for him.
This happens in the book too, but it’s explicit in the movie - at the very end when he sours on Moriarty for ditching him in Mexico and realised he’s untrustworthy, it’s like a breakup or a crush destroyed. Sal has just spent years crushing on someone who crushes him.
The Beat subculture was so filled with queer men and gay sex - the Lucien Carr murder, a defining event in the subcultures formation, was evidently born from a queer relationship that went violent - that I kind of think the tenants of the Beat lifestyle weee an unconscious justification to have gay sex in an unfriendly era.
I don’t know if Kerouac consciously wrote his book with this in mind but I don’t know how else to take it
#entertainment
Obviously to preface this, I’m not even close to the first person read queer themes into On The Road. The novel, at least uncensored, is filled with gay scenes featuring Cassady’s Moriarty character and Allen Ginsberg’s alter-ego. Noticeably, the main character (basically Kerouac) is much less often the character engaging in queer activity. Instead — again, at least in the uncensored/original versions — it’s his buddies and associates.
Rereading On The Road as an adult and 70 years after the events it depicts, it is so so clear to me that Kerouac is frantically narrating and justifying the intensity of his feelings for Cassady.
Obstensibly a fictionalised memoir of his time on the road, Moriarty/Cassady is the central figure in almost every vignette. Plot points such as they were arise only because Kerouac follows Morairty from place to place, lovesick like a puppy.
For a novel so obsessed with uninhibited sex with many women, Kerouac spends pages of prose describing the depth of his feelings for Morairty/Cassady, his spiritual and emotional connection for the man, and straight up admiring everything about him. His affection and attraction for the man vibrates off the page.
Before I get accused of basically writing fan fiction, I suggest you watch the 2012 film based on the book. In order to compress the novel into something cinematic and with a somewhat clear plot progression, the writers make immediete all of this subtext. Dean Moriarty is the central figure progressing the plot and Sal spends 90% of the movie mooning for him.
This happens in the book too, but it’s explicit in the movie - at the very end when he sours on Moriarty for ditching him in Mexico and realised he’s untrustworthy, it’s like a breakup or a crush destroyed. Sal has just spent years crushing on someone who crushes him.
The Beat subculture was so filled with queer men and gay sex - the Lucien Carr murder, a defining event in the subcultures formation, was evidently born from a queer relationship that went violent - that I kind of think the tenants of the Beat lifestyle weee an unconscious justification to have gay sex in an unfriendly era.
I don’t know if Kerouac consciously wrote his book with this in mind but I don’t know how else to take it
#entertainment
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