Excerpted from Jack Kerouac’s short and rather late (he actually uses the word “beatnik” in it) novel, documenting the hopelessly unrequited love of the Kerouacian protagonist for the Mexican title junky (or junkette) Tristessa, the following quote captures the essence of “beat” sensibility across the spectrum of its nuances:
Because Tristessa needs my help but wont take it and I wont give—yet, supposing everybody in the world devoted himself to helping others all day long, because of a dream or a vision of the freedom of eternity, then wouldnt the world be a garden? A Garden of Arden, full of lovers and louts in clouds, young drinkers dreaming and boasting on clouds, gods—Still the god’s’d’a fought? Devote themselves to gods-don’t-fight and bang! Miss Goofball would ope her rosy lips and kiss in the World all day, and men would sleep—And there wouldnt be men or women, but just one sex, the original sex of the mind—But that day’s so close I could snap my finger and it would show, what does it care? … About this recent little event called the world.
Yeah. Let IT take up the Cross…
Because Tristessa needs my help but wont take it and I wont give—yet, supposing everybody in the world devoted himself to helping others all day long, because of a dream or a vision of the freedom of eternity, then wouldnt the world be a garden? A Garden of Arden, full of lovers and louts in clouds, young drinkers dreaming and boasting on clouds, gods—Still the god’s’d’a fought? Devote themselves to gods-don’t-fight and bang! Miss Goofball would ope her rosy lips and kiss in the World all day, and men would sleep—And there wouldnt be men or women, but just one sex, the original sex of the mind—But that day’s so close I could snap my finger and it would show, what does it care? … About this recent little event called the world.
Yeah. Let IT take up the Cross…
