Geoff Dyer

Beat echoes

His ambition, his hunger, what was lost when they were sated – it’s all there in a single frame

issue 23 July 2016

Laid out flat, running the length of the exhibition, the original scroll of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road forms the spine of the large Beat Generation show at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. Even for those familiar with the published version of the manuscript seeing this holy relic — the founding document for all sects of Beat worshippers — is a powerful experience.

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