57
and deeply unhappy, he wrote increasingly desperate pleas for Cassady’s affection: “I don’t know what I can do Neal now. You know you are the only one who gave me love that I wanted and never had . . . What must I do for you to get you back? I will do anything . . . I end, speaking to you, sitting here, waiting in silence, speaking to you no more o god neal please Come back don’t be harsh on me I can’t help this I can only apologise and beg and beg and beg” (Autumn 1947). With time, the intensity of their relationship softened into a long friendship filled with road trips when together and correspondence when apart. As this inscription testifies, Ginsberg was a friend of the Cassady family, spending time at their Californian ranch. Despite having found Neal and Ginsberg in bed together, Carolyn Cassady recounted his and Jack Kerouac’s visits with fondness: “We had this traditional, conventional home, and I think that’s why Jack and Allen loved coming there” (quoted in Cochrane). She remembered Ginsberg as a “poor dear”, often overwhelmed by insecurity, and though his attitude towards her cooled in later life (Carolyn attributed it to another Beat’s influence: “Burroughs decided I was a wasp bitch”), the only other figure of equivalent centrality in her and Neal’s marriage is Jack Kerouac. The book is an apposite gift: the Japanese-American Buddhist monk D. T. Suzuki helped to spread interest in Eastern philosophies in the West and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1963. “Ten Oxherding Pictures” is a series of short poems and drawings illustrating a Zen practitioner’s progress toward enlightenment and subsequent return to society. Suzuki first published the classic text in his Manual of Zen Buddhism (1935).
Cassady, Ginsberg, and Kerouac were all interested in and exchanged thoughts on Buddhist teachings. Kerouac’s first exposure was through Cassady, who recommended he read A Buddhist Bible by Dwight Goddard while Kerouac was visiting him in California. The two briefly fell out, and Kerouac left, but not before stealing a copy of the book from the San Jose library to read on the bus. Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums , a semi-fictional novel that explores Buddhist approaches to the world, began life in 1953, the same year as this inscription, as notes on the stolen book. Kerouac communicated some of his earliest thoughts on Buddhism in letters to Ginsberg, who initially dismissed both Cassady and Kerouac’s beliefs as fad, describing Kerouac admiringly as “a French Canadian Hinayana Buddhist Catholic savant” (quoted in Beatdom), but the trio’s study of Buddhist teachings proved a lifelong shared interest. This book, an early spiritual gift from a core Beat poet to the muse of the generation, is “testimony to the tenacity of deep and enduring love” (Carolyn Cassady on Neal and Allen’s love letters, quoted in Cochrane). Small octavo, 32 pp. Original wire-stitched buff wrappers, front cover lettered in black. Black and white illustrations throughout. Vertical crease where sometime folded, wrappers toned, with couple of spots and small rust marks from staples, tiny chip to two outer corners, spine ends a little worn, edges nicked, first two leaves lightly foxed. A well-preserved copy of this fragile publication. ¶ “Buddhism and the Beats”, Beatdom , 28 May 2007; Lauren Cochrane, “Neal Cassady: Drug-taker. Bigamist. Family man”, The Guardian , 18 January 2011; Barry Gifford, ed., As Ever: The Collected Correspondence of Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady , 1977. £12,500 [158149]
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
47
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter maker