Jack Kerouac is a good writer.
Printable View
Jack Kerouac is a good writer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NikolaiI
good? hmmm. could homer be merely good? or shakespeare? blake? :crash:
I agree with NikolaiI. Kerouac was a good writer. He wasn't great, and he had trouble turning events around him into stories that most people could identify with. Much of what he wrote was unimaginative retelling of events that had happened in his life, that focussed on a few events and people.
Well I think Jack Kerouac was a great writer....He took Thomas Wolfe's undisciplined but optimistic all encompassing view of life and worked it down into a much more disciplined form that is easier on the reader..
On The Road is of course my favorite but The Dharma Bums is also excellent especially for its discussions of Buddhism. Big Sur I would also recommend highly.
kerouac reproduced wolfe's style in his first novel, the town and the city, but abandoned it not long after in favor of the bop-prosody style he lays down in On The Road. i like your recommendations. Big Sur, one of my favorites as well. :thumbs_upQuote:
Originally Posted by rgdmalaysia
I fell in love with Kerouac through "the Town and the City"... I then read "On the Road". I really like his writing style...
I only read On the Road, and I really liked it. It was a very good book until the end, now the end was great. From the moment they get to Mexico it felt like I was being dropped down a cliff, physically.
Read it; didn't like it. Let's just say I find it vastly appropriate that Kerouac died living with his mother.
Aye!Quote:
Originally Posted by Etienne
Aye, aye!Quote:
Originally Posted by HotKarl
they reckon Kerouac wrote like the way Charlie Parker played jazz
Acck! Blasphemy! You have besmirched and dirtied the good name of Charlie Parker. Pistols at 50 paces at dawn!:sick: :lol:
Yes Big Sur was awesome....Would slightly disagree with your assesment....It's true Kerouac was totally under Wolfe's influence on Town and the City but I think what he did by the time he wrote On The Road was not discard the Wolfe thing entirely but alter it to fit his own literary voice which he had subsequently found in the years between the two books. I think Wolfe is a huge influence on much of his writing.Quote:
Originally Posted by jon1jt
I would also like to say The Subtearaneans has one of the best closing sentences of any book I've ever read.
Hi y'all,
I realize that many of you find Jack Kerouac overrated. I don't. I've just finished Dharma Bums, and I loved it. I don't think I've ever read a book that has made me feel so good and so happy to be alive. On The Road was wonderful too. I was just wondering if anyone could suggest which of his works I should read next?
Thanks,
Doug
Kerouac is my favorite author and my three favortie books by him are the Dharma Bums (basically for the same reason you stated), On the Road, and the Subteraneans.
The last is probably the most honest and sadly touching love story I've ever read, but some people can't get over the writing style because it's spontaneous prose to the extreme, with very long and rambling run-on sentences. Personnally I love the writing style and I've never found another author who writes that way.
The book is only about 110 pages so even if you don't like it it shouldn't take up too much of your time.
Thanks SirRaustusBear,
I just ordered Subteraneans from Amazon. I can't wait.
I love Kerouac a lot. My favorite is also the Dharma Bums.
The stories subsumed under the title Lonesome Traveller are also really great and I also like Big Sur - it's a little bit depressing. If I'm not mistaken it's one of his last books.
Desolation Angels / Big Sur / Vanity of Duluoz / Doctor Sax.... all recommended :)
I liked On The Road an awful lot.