All right, I admit it, I bear a grudge against Dylan. I've never forgiven him for my having to endure Sonny Bono doing his version of the visionary prophetic routine on the t.v. in my house.

I don't want to argue against Dylan, whose stuff I usually like, but not quite always. I'd rather hear about better parts or things in his book than the stuff I read, which I found a bit disappointing.

About those people you mention, Little Hawk, recent studies show that psychopaths do well in business, other studies find that empathy is a handicap at work, and for some reason this reminds me that it was "dramatically necesary" to make Jason Compson (Yul Brenner) the protagonist in the film version of Faulkner's The Sound And The Fury. No. Nobody HAS to write in a certain way. "But, it's Dramatically Necesary." No. They have to find a way to write that they can really be responsible for. That's the job. Dylan once got on a little high horse about something like this with a reporter from Time magazine.

Further heresy. There's a point in On The Road after which you just have to feel sorry for the main characters. It's after they pick up a Catholic schoolboy and need to look down on him. Nothing but some half-digested Aquinas to stuff his pepper with--I'm quoting from 20 some years ago. After that, they seem like a couple of old losers driving around, going nowhere, consoling themselves with some dumbass foreign philosophy. Even to some dumb young kid, i.e., me, they seem diminished by needing to be smug and wise.