TLS, one page, 8.5 x 8.5, no date, but postmarked January 29, 1958. Letter to Irving Rosenthal at the Chicago Review. In part: “I do have something for your summer issue of Zen, five pages of prose about Buddhistic meditation in the woods, an excerpted chapter from my novel-in-progress entitled The Dharma Bums. Let me know if you want me to send you that, and please sorta promise you’ll print it (it’s highly publishable) before I type it up in the midst of 1,000 harassments and details…(5,000 word letters being exchanged with Hollywood producer, completion of novel-in-progress, etc. etc.) (albums with Norman Granz, etc. etc.) As for suggestions I have firm good ones for ya. I can send you Gary Snyder’s translation of the thousand year old poems of Han Shan the Zen Lunatic poet of Cold Mountain in the T’ien T’ai district of old China, including his translation of the Preface, a classic, untranslated by anyone else at present. Also, I would suggest you contact that young man because he is now on a round the world freighter on his way home from Shokokuji Monastery in Kyoto Japan and can provide your issue with direct inside Zen material, the latest, poems or prose…If you tell Allan Watts that you plan to use Snyder and Whalen in the issue, it will interest him greatly. Mention to Watts that I said it was his duty to furnish something for your issue in order to turn the wheel of the Dharma in 1958. No, I haven’t made a semi-serious study of Buddhism but a very serious one indeed, in fact I’ve had visions and reassurances and all kinds of wild gnostic certainties handed to me. My prose will explain that.” Letter is removably encapsulated in acid free Mylar. In fine condition, with intersecting folds and a couple of staple holes along left edge. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope as well as a carbon of Rosenthal’s earlier letter to Kerouac.
When On the Road was finally published in 1957, six years after its completion, it brought the iconoclastic writer instant fame and created a newfound interest in the Beats’ projects. In the midst of dealing with Hollywood producers (presumably regarding 1959’s Pull My Daisy, a film based on his play Beat Generation), and trying his hand at the highly popular jazz poetry of the time (with notables Norman Granz, Al Cohn, and Zoot Sims), his guiding interest was Buddhism. Involving himself as much as possible in the American Buddhist ‘scene’—often to the dismay of the field’s leading scholars—Kerouac pushed publishers towards his fellow Buddhist writers, including friend and Dharma Bums partner-in-crime Gary Snyder. The friendly note to Alan Watts, “that I said it was his duty to furnish something for your issue in order to turn the wheel of the Dharma in 1958,” is especially interesting, as Watts (who makes an appearance in Dharma Bums as well) later discounted Kerouac’s philosophy in the book as ‘Beat Zen,’ lacking true understanding and the spirit of Buddhism. An outstanding letter from the Beat pioneer at the height of his fame, referencing several notable projects and key figures in the growing field of American Buddhism. Pre-certified PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
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