On Trollope and his own writing - photo 1

On Trollope and his own writing

Lot 201
07.12.2022 10:00UTC -05:00
Classic
Starting price
$ 4 800
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUSA, New York
Archive
The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 859720
Lot 201 | On Trollope and his own writing
Estimate value
$ 6 000 – 9 000
KEROUAC, Jack (1922-1969). Typed letter signed (“Jack”) to Ed White, 30 November 1948; typed postscript, signed “J,” 7 December 1948, postmarked Jamaica, New York.

Quarto. Two leaves; rectos only, with postscript to verso of second leaf; creased; a few small autograph emendations. With envelope addressed in type.

"Read your fascinating, great, and kind letter. In it you show more than wisdom-in-moderation, but an ‘excessive’ knowledge of what everybody’s doing.”

In this letter Jack recounts meeting Jack Fitzgerald, calling the encounter “one of the greatest times of my life.” He reports, “We are now exchanging letters in which we have created a myth out of our dead fathers […] wherein they sit up in the oversoul, the clouds, heaven, and look down, much as Melville’s father might have looked down on Herman when he wandered around Liverpool trying to decipher his father’s outdated map & guidebook.”

Jack notes some other new acquaintances, particularly potential girlfriends; laments the loss of contact with Hal Chase, devoting a paragraph to Ginger and writing that he was “beginning to hate [her] overly, with the passion of a Balzac villain, and that too is murky, meaningless” (Hal later abandoned poor “Gin” in Denver, ending a short marriage); and offers further thoughts on Paris. The letter ends with possible plans to visit: “I might be in Denver when you’re ready to entrain to New York in February. I might very well be. But more on that later.” A week later he added multiple postscripts, the first of which was about Trollope and his own writing:

p.s. Do you remember the time you told me about Trollope and how he wrote apparently “without emotion.” I was so struck by that – mostly also by the way you yourself described it. Well, lately, working on 2 new novels, it seems I am practically doing the same thing. The other night I found myself writing a very funny scene with a frown on my face, nay a scowl, as though I knew perfectly what I was doing and why it was funny yet felt no inclination myself to laugh. I never even cracked a smile – much as a radio comedian is blank-faced in the midst of his funniest jokes. The same thing applies to “tragic” writings…a kind of irritable scowl that just wants to get it over with. The one advantage of this is that I’ll never again spend three years on one work, and also one doesn’t become “wasted.”

pp.ss. I have already acquired a demoiselle’s address in Paris: Claudie Renault, 2 Rue de Florence, Paris 8 – Phone Number-EUR 44-58. How’s that sound? I got it from a Pan American girl who will also be in Paris in ze Spwing.

Dec 7, 1948
I delayed sending this off because it didn’t seem worthy of your last letter.
Auction house category:Letters, documents and manuscripts
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