RARA-AVIS: reality vs. romance

Marvin Mansky (marvin55@fnet.net)
Tue, 20 Oct 1998 07:59:13 -0400 rskinner@mail.xula.edu wrote:

> I think you're on to something. I was listening to a Jack Kerouac tape
>last night and marvelling at how he took descriptions of the seedier
>parts of San Francisco (at least 30 years ago or more) and invested them
>with a kind of romantic aura. It's a talent certain writers have, I
>think--seeing the romantic image beneath the prosaic, making a dirty,
>neon-lit street a place where anything can happen, turning a loser, at
>least momentarily, into something noble. There's a certain reality to
>it because occasionally these things happen in real life, but at the
>same time, it's a typically American fantasy that takes the place of a
>Beowulf or a Hercules.

There was something romantic about the seedier part of San Francisco Kerouac wrote about. I'm not sure there was much that could be called romantic about NYC's Bowery at that time.
___________________________________________________________________
Marvin Mansky
NYC
www.personaldentistry.com
relax@personaldentistry

#
# To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca.
# The web pages for the list are at http://www.vex.net/~buff/rara-avis/.