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had been disturbed by the notorious respectability and
post-war writing. This was more like it-restless, rebellious,
youth living it up, instead of thin, balding, buttoned-down
of English composing ironic verses with one hand while changing
baby's diapers with the other. Bohemianism is not particularly
nowadays, but the image of Bohemia still exerts a powerful
!<1''-UI,~'"
nowhere more so than in the suburbs, which are filled to
with men and women who uneasily think of themselves as
and of Bohemianism as the heroic road. The whole point of
Morningstar
was to assure the young marrieds of Mamaroneck
they were better off than the apparently glamorous
luftmenschea
Greenwich Village, and the fact that Wouk had to work so hard
making this idea seem convincing is a good indication of the
of prevailing doubt on the matter.
On the surface, at least, the Bohemianism of
On the Road
is
attractive. Here is a group of high-spirited young men running
and forth across the country (mostly hitch-hiking, sometimes in
own second-hand cars), going to "wild" parties in New York
Denver and San Francisco, living on a shoe-string (GI
benefits, an occasional fifty bucks from a kindly aunt, an odd job
typist, a fruit-picker, a parking-lot attendant), talking intensely
love and God and salvation, getting high on marijuana (but
heroin or cocaine), listening feverishly to jazz in crowded little
and sleeping freely with beautiful girls. Now and again there
reference to gloom and melancholy, but the characteristic note
by Kerouac is exuberance:
We stopped along the road for a bite to eat. The cowboy went
to have a spare tire patched, and Eddie and I sat down in a
of homemade diner. I heard a great laugh, the greatest laugh .
world, and here came this rawhide oldtimes Nebraska farmer
bunch of other boys into the diner; you could hear his raspy
across the plains, across the whole gray world of them that day.
body else laughed with him. He didn't have a care in the world
had the hugest regard for everybody. I said to myself, Wham,
that man laugh. That's the West, here I am in the West. He carne
ing into the diner, calling Maw's name, and she made the
cherry pie in Nebraska, and I had some with a mountainous
scoop
ice cream on top. "Maw, rustle me up some grub afore I have to
eatin myself or some damn silly idee like that." And he threw
on a stool and went hyaw hyaw hyaw hyaw. "And throw some
it." It was the spirit of the West sitting right next to me. I
knew his whole raw life and what the hell he'd been doing all
years besides laughing and yelling like that. Whooee, I told my
and the cowboy came back and off we went to Grand Island.
