ID 1108799
Lot 60 | Kerouac, Jack | Typed letter to Allen Ginsberg; "God, I'm going to die this year"
Estimate value
$ 7 000 – 10 000
Typed letter to Allen Ginsberg, mournfully describing his most recent drinking binge, wishing to reform, before his summer at Big Sur
2 pages (278 x 214 mm), single-spaced on one leaf, n.p. [New York?], 6 May 1960; a little toned and creased.
Kerouac struggles with alcoholism, restlessness and being "Fool King of the Beatniks with a crown of shit".
Kerouac writes to Ginsberg following a "6 day horror binge" where he partied and drank alongside Nicholson, Carr, Gregory, Stella Brooks and others, finishing his breathless account with "God, I'm going to die this year." This obsession with death haunts his correspondence from the early summer of 1960—he desperately wants to reduce the drinking but continually falls back in with the New York Beat crowd and relapses into old habits. His life post On The Road has led to "wellmeaning admirers" wishing to spend time with Kerouac, distracting him from his writing; "it's this hysteria which is making success mudersome."
He yearns for life when the Beats were still unknown—"it was better when for our writing-souls and abilities when we were obscure." As always, Kerouac desires to get back on the road, he wishes to go alone to Mexico, mentioning Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky's upcoming trip to India.
He discusses Neal Cassady and buying his typewriter. Cassady would be released from jail the following month. "I'll write to him I'm glad I can write to him. He won't give a shit one way or the other, I probably won't write to him." From this he suddenly flares up and berates Ginsberg for apparently telling people that Kerouac accuses him of copying and stealing his ideas, he goes on "I've said it a million times I copy and steal from you too." He states "I originated beat generation," and goes on "I started this literary renaissance, with great help from you surely but I discovered sketching, I discovered spontenaity, I discerned a new beat generation long time ago, I hitch hiked and starved, for art, and that makes me the Fool King of the Beatniks with a crown of shit, Thanks, america, so its not you I'm mad at, it's almost everything else..."
In a further small final flourish, he continues "you are rapidly destroying the innocent babe in poetry And that goes for neal too with his cracks about how I was impressed with him..." This choleric lamentation and beration ends with a gentler "(poor allen) (see you later)."
Kerouac's writings continued in this vein of frustration until July 1960 when, at Ferlinghetti's suggestion, he boards a train to Chicago to catch the California Zephyr west, to Big Sur. His stay in the cabin is immortalized in Big Sur (1962), and further described in lots 61, 62 and 63.
| Artist: | Jack Kerouac (1922 - 1969) |
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| Auction house category: | Prints, graphics, books |
| Artist: | Jack Kerouac (1922 - 1969) |
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| Auction house category: | Prints, graphics, books |
| Address of auction |
Sotheby´s 1334 York Avenue 10021 New York USA | ||||||||||||||
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| Phone | +1 212 606 7000 | ||||||||||||||
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| Lot number | 60 |
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| Auction house | Sotheby´s |
| Auction date | 08.12.2023 |
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| Lot number | 60 |
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| Auction house | Sotheby´s |
| Auction date | 08.12.2023 |
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| Lot number | 60 |
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| Auction house | Sotheby´s |
| Auction date | 08.12.2023 |
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| Lot number | 60 |
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| Auction house | Sotheby´s |
| Auction date | 08.12.2023 |
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| Lot number | 60 |
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| Auction house | Sotheby´s |
| Auction date | 08.12.2023 |
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| Auction house | Sotheby´s |
| Auction date | 08.12.2023 |
