But it’s from a book that had a profound effect on American literature and culture. And, it’s one of the most famous quotes from that book.
So, let’s just say this one is a contribution to the cause of “quotation literacy.”
“They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‛Awww!’”
This quote is from Jack Kerouac’s seminal book On the Road
, which was first published on September 5, 1957, fifty-two years ago on this date. The long, lyrical run-on sentence is an oft-cited example of the “Beat” style of writing Kerouac helped create.
Kerouac is one of the gods of the Beat Generation. In fact, he coined that name, according to his friend and fellow Beat writer John Clellon Holmes and Kerouac himself.
Holmes helped popularize the term “Beat Generation” in his own magazine articles and books. And, he credited it to Kerouac in an article he wrote in the early 1950s.
“Holmes and I were sitting around trying to think up the meaning of the Lost Generation’s subsequent existentialism. And I said, ‘You know, this is really a beat generation,’ and he leapt up and said, ‘That’s it, that’s right!’”
On September 5, 1957, the day On the Road was published, there was a review of the novel by critic Gilbert Millstein in the New York Times. He said:
“Just as, more than any other novel of the Twenties, The Sun Also Rises
came to be regarded as the testament of the Lost Generation, so it seems certain that On The Road will come to be known as that of the Beat Generation.” The review turned out to be prophetic.
