Q: You must have felt a kinship with Larry and Hazel, who went through this with you.
A: Yes. Or we went through it with them.
We bonded. It threw us together. It was us against them. Them against us. We identified with each other. We had a common interest.
We had shared adversity.
It was a defining experience.
Q: In “Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders,” Camille Paglia writes about how the hard-nosed realists got rid of the idealists in academia. Whole departments were decimated.
A: Look at college now. It’s vocational school. They are teaching people how to game the system.
They are very pragmatic. It’s like corruption is a given. It’s how the system works. It’s how the system is designed to work. Your job is not to change things but to take advantage of the way things are. To exploit the status quo on your own narrow behalf.
Q: So there’s a whole generation of drop-outs like you out there reading books.
A: Reading underground books.
By the time
It’s not that they can’t get things straight. It’s that they don’t tell the truth.
Q: By the time On the Road was published, Kerouac wasn’t on the road anymore.
A: And the book they published wasn’t the book he wrote.
He had to go along with them to get it published.
You have to go along with them to get published.
Q: Many do.
A: Some don’t.
Q: In fact, getting an MFA is like getting an MBA. You learn how to go along.
A: Or you are selected out. That’s what the professionalization of writing as a career means. You learn how to do it their way. And then do it their way.
Q: Some don’t.
A: I didn’t.