"I want to work in revelations, not just spin silly tales for money.” - photo 1
"I want to work in revelations, not just spin silly tales for money.” - photo 2

"I want to work in revelations, not just spin silly tales for money.”

Lot 213
07.12.2022 10:00UTC -05:00
Classic
Starting price
$ 5 500
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUSA, New York
Archive
The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 859732
Lot 213 | "I want to work in revelations, not just spin silly tales for money.”
Estimate value
$ 7 000 – 10 000
KEROUAC, Jack (1922-1969). Typed letter signed (“Jack”) with autograph postscript, to Ed White, 5 July [1950].

Quarto. Single leaf; both sides; holes punched; autograph emendation and postscript. With envelope addressed in autograph, postmarked from Mexico.

On marijuana and its effects on writing. By July 5th, still in Mexico, Kerouac was going full speed again with a typewriter. “Sir, what gives and why have you not communicated with us at our new address?” He reports that Frank was “writing full tilt” but not as happy as he was in France because “the girls are so hard to meet...” As for himself, Jack was doing what he “came down here to do – investigate all the levels of Elitch’s Gardens, Mexican mile-and-a-half high versions, particularly with reference to the many problems and considerations of that second novel I have to write.” Denver’s Elitch Gardens, an amusement park that was deserted at night, served as a haven for Jack, Jeffries, and others to smoke marijuana, and “Elitch” was thereafter adopted as a code word for the activity. Jack’s letter is preoccupied with its possibilities and effects:

I want to fish deep as possible into my own subconscious in the belief that once that far down, everyone will understand because they are the same that far down. The things of the night that never reach the light of noon…and of print. Why else should I write? Money is not my aim, only a means to that aim. With my inexhaustible supplies of Elitch I daily dive again into these dim regions, and crawl to the surface with the stub of a pencil, sweating, to record what I have observed. I feel like a scientist.

Nonetheless he admits, “Sufficient example, this, of what I am thinking; yet how Elitch prevents one from writing clearly. [...] 2,000 American novels are published every year repeating the same old formulas that have failed and failed and failed.” Elsewhere he asks, “Does any of this make sense or is it pure Elitch? That too is another problem I’m dealing with.”

On a more lighthearted note, he recapitulates the general atmosphere of Mexico and the standing invitation to visit, closing with a fond memory of the past: “Meanwhile, much fun; whores; steaks; sun. Please try to come down. I’ll be leaving MC [Cerrada de Medellin] in the middle of August, via Havana. Write soon. Tell yr. Mother it has taken me all this time to realize how delicious those Sunday afternoon desserts were…remember? Mint ice cream and hot fudge?”
Auction house category:Letters, documents and manuscripts
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
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23.11.2022 – 07.12.2022
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