I'd go with On the Road as well. I really liked that book, but couldn't get into dharma Bums that much and as I posted above Naked Lunch stunk.
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I'd go with On the Road as well. I really liked that book, but couldn't get into dharma Bums that much and as I posted above Naked Lunch stunk.
Thanks for the tip, Papayahed and Evi. ;~) As soon as I have the chance, I'll take my chances reading it.
Personally, I absolutely love On The Road... It's one of those dog-eared, scribbled on books I've kept for years. I might suggest reading something about the beat generation, perhaps a biography of Kerouac or William S. Burroughs. It might make reading On The Road a bit more engaging.
Something I love about Kerouac's writing is his sheer honesty. I mean he put On The Road together over a few weeks using his notes and didn't touch it again after that. It's not the best written/structured novel because of that but it has its own qualities.
yep id say "On the Road" too mate... not that ive read too many beat novel, but its cool.
get a new version of it and you'll probably get Author info at the start. (penguin tend to do this.)
later
I first got into Kerouac because -i may as well say it- I loved his name. :cool:
I got a hold of a copy of On The Road and fell in love with it's ethics and style. It's the only book i've ever read where I have grabbed a pencil and circled phrases on the page so i'll remember them.
One aspect of the Kerouac canon that i think is overlooked alot is his spoken word poetry. Nothing comforts me more on a lonely night than to have Kerouac wrap his words around me, talking about all the wonderful things in life.
yeah i got his stuff he did with Steve Allen , Al Cohn and Zoot Simms on cd.
(over Jazz music)
very cool stuff
(i actually like it better than his books)
I just got done reading Big Sur. really wanted to go through with the "Legend of Duoluz" started with On The Road then The Subteraneans then Tristeza then Dr. Sax then Dharma Bums but the last book which really got to me was Desolation Angels where he's not to heavy on the Buddhism and more or less content with traveling (hoppin cities and countries) and at the end meeting Salvador Dali which was a big surprise to me though (like him) he didnt make a huge deal about it.
Big Sur is sad (at the end wanting to meet Henry Miller even but too drunk to go through with the arrangement); the ravishes of heavy drinking (why'd he do it?) they say that the publication of On The Road ruined his life (spun him into this depression) but in Desolation Angels (took place before the publication in 1957) you can pick up the bare beginnings of the depression.
On The Road i read with a big map of the US beneath my seat: i enjoyed it because of all the travel writing and his sparse musings that later became the basis for his spontaneaus prose. yet i think alot of people identify with him because of his big social party-animal nature (well, in his youth).
http://mailcenter3.comcast.net/wmc/v...&no=318&sid=c0 Link to latest comment/review of the original scroll for Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" from NYT book review section quasimodo1
Quote:
Originally Posted by eventide
if Kerouac is the "father of the Beat Generation," then John Clellon Holmes is the "first writer of the Beat Generation." a great Beat Generation primer is Holmes' Go, a novel its back cover aptly provides is a "peek into what it meant to be a Beat before the term had ever been used."
Holmes wrote another excellent work called The Horn.
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