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Customer Reviews (4)

Jack Kerouac "Scattered Poems"
I was happy to finally find a collection of Kerouac's poetry!I know his poems are out there, but they are hard to come by, at times.I have always had some admiration for artists of the beatnik movement.I decided to teach a mini-unit on the beat poets for a high school course; having a nice collection of poems as examples was key to the unit.This particular collection of Kerouac poems included some of his "Western haikus," which illustrated Kerouac's non-conformity in writing.Excellent little book to have!

Good reason these were uncollected.
Jack Kerouac, Scattered Poems (City Lights, 1971)

Over the few years Kerouac wrote, he dashed off a number of poems that managed never to get collected, many of them in letters to Allen Ginsberg andNeal Cassady. City Lights, with help from Ginsberg, compiled a small volume of these poems and released them some thirty years ago.

While a few of the works here (and, in some cases, a line or two within one of the works) shows the power and natural affinity for language that makesKerouac one of the enduring figures of American literature, Most of what's here is solid evidence that, where uncollected poems are concerned, there's usually a reason why they weren't published in the first place. Perhaps it is the prominence of the author in question, but while reading most of this work, I got a sense of hopelessness, a pathetic (in the classic definition of the term) feeling of emptiness. Unlike both the surrealism and the jazz fromwhich Kerouac and his fellow Beats drew their inspiration, and also unlike the authors
from that time who have been incorrectly labelled as Beats (Bukowski, Alfred Chester, to an extent Paul Bowles, etc.), Kerouac's material seems to lackeither the underlying meaning or the sense of immediate purpose that separates the best of the aforementioned authors from their scads of less talented imitators.

One place in which Kerouac does shine here, though, is in a small selection of haiku at the end of the book. Kerouac was one of the first Americanauthors to really grasp the spirit of English-language haiku, as mentioned in a brief intro to the book's last section. Kerouac quotes a few Basho haiku and bemoans the inability of English to imitate the free-flowing Japanese language,coming to the conclusion that the "seventeen syllable" rule should be dropped for American haiku (as most serious haiku writers and scholars in English have also done in the forty or so years since Kerouac originally composed theworks here). In the haiku, where Kerouac is forced to work with tight lines and spare images, his gift comes through. Unfortunately, it does so in far too few other pieces in this book. **

Scattered Poems
A disappointing collection, probably put together to capitalize on the author's name.

Kerouac at the brink of the world
There are few times in the history of mankind that we can sit back and allow ourselves to be manipulated by a pure mad man (brilliant writer). Kerouac's poems allow the mind to travel to the brink of truth and realityand come back unharmed and ... enlightened ...Thank God for kerouac ...he makes the world a better place and his poems are subconcious unfilteredvisions of real life. "Pull My Daisy" with Ginsberg is amasterpiece as is "Old Angel Midnight". here is one poem : TO EDWARD DAHLBERG

Don't use the telephone.Peopleare never ready to answer it. Use Poetry.

And Jack Kerouac doesuse poetry ... he uses it to give insight into a world he knew so well. ... Read more

Product Description
Swinging to the rhythms of 1950s underground America, jazz, sex, generosity, chill dawns and drugs, with Sal Paradise and his hero Dean Moriarty, traveller and mystic, the living epitome of beat. ... Read more

Product Description
Written in 1953, published in 1959 (after the 1957 publication of Kerouac's On the Road made him famous overnight) and long out of print, this touching novel of adolescent love in a New England mill town is one of Kerouac's most accessible works. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (22)

On The Road To "On The Road"
As I have explained in another entry in this space in reviewing the DVD of "The Life And Times Of Allen Ginsberg", recently I have been in a "beat" generation literary frame of mind. I mentioned there, as well, and I think it helps to set the mood for commenting on Jack Kerouac's lesser work under review here, "Maggie Cassidy", where the action takes place in his hometown, that it all started last summer when I happened to be in Lowell, Massachusetts on some personal business. Although I have more than a few old time connections with that now worn out mill town I had not been there for some time. While walking in the downtown area I found myself crossing a small park adjacent to the site of a well-known mill museum and restored textile factory space. Needless to say, at least for any reader with a sense of literary history, at that park I found some very interesting memorial stones inscribed with excerpts from a number of his better known works dedicated to Lowell's `bad boy', the "king of the 1950s beat writers".

And, just as naturally, when one thinks of Kerouac then, "On The Road",his classic modern physicaland literary `search' for the meaning of America forhis generation which came of age in post-World War II , readily comes to mind. No so well known is the fact that that famous youthful novel was merely part of a much grander project, an essentially autobiographical exposition by Kerouac in many volumes, starting from his birth in 1922, to chart and vividly describe his relationship to the events, great and small, of his times. The series, of which the book under review, "Maggie Cassidy", about the trials and tribulations, the inevitable schoolboy quests for love and the "meaning of the universe" of his high school days in Lowell and a little about his prep school days is part, bears the general title "The Legend Of Duluoz".So that is why we today, in the year of the forty anniversary of Kerouac's death, are under the sign of "Maggie Cassidy".

I have mentioned in a note to areview of"On The Road" after a recent re-reading of that master work that Kerouac `s, not unexpectedlyfor a novelist of the immediate post- World War II generation, worldview was dominated by what today would be regarded as deeply, if not consciously, sexist impulses. Moreover, the whole "beat" experience of which he was "king" was, with a few exceptions, a man's trip. All of the books that I have read of his have that flavor. They may be, some of them, great literature but they are certainly men's books.

Also, not unexpectedly, for a shy, sly, French-Canadian (with a little Native American thrown in) working class athletic youth from Lowell, Kerouac's escapades center in this book on his high school male bonding experiences with his "corner" boys. And being, from all reports and a quick glance at his youthful photographs a handsome man, his exploits with young women. And here enters the sultry Maggie Cassidy, the Irish colleen dream of every heterosexual youth. Although the dramatic tension of this book is not exactly gripping, after all despite some very grand, descriptive narration about Lowell, about the neighborhood, about the beauties of the Merrimack River, and above all, about women, the episodes here clearly fall under the category of high school hi-jinks which have had a long literary exposition.Still, this is a nice little trip down memory lane and I can visualize some of the same streets and samebuilding that he refers in this book from those long ago connections that I mentioned above

Note to Jack Kerouac wherever you are: Damn, you should have `talked' to me about Maggie before you got involved. I grew up in a part of a town that while not "Little Dublin" was close enough to bear that title here in America.I knew a million Maggies (and Moe Coles) and I could have warned you that chandelier, lace curtain or shanty, these nice Irish Catholic girls will break your heart, or something else, every time. Now that I think about it though I never listened either. Farewell, grand working class fellaheen.

Worth reading if you like Kerouac...
Ah, poor Jack. It seems he never got over his sentimental dread of the fleeting nature of life. Being touched by tragedy at such an early age when his beloved brother died must have damaged him greatly. This one was written before the booze had completely eaten him alive, but the melancholy (sometimes bordering on self-indulgence) that permeates his work and presumably his life is still there. I don't think this book would have ever made a ripple if his better crafted tales hadn't made him visible, but it's still a worthwhile read for anyone who appreciates him.

As for Maggie, I don't know if Jack ever had a truly mature relationship with a woman (he seems to have been too trapped in his own troubled head for this); maybe his restless soul was such that he just wasn't cut out for that sort of thing. I generally find the star-crossed romances chronicled in his books to be their weakest links; they usually just seem half-baked and adolescent. His mother seems to have been the only woman with any lasting claim on his heart and he dragged her around with him in between extended benders with his fellow gypsies (or half gypsy in his case) while he drank himself to death in NY, CA and Florida. Ah, the Catholic (s)mother/guilt thing (no offense to anyone intended)...

As someone who has read a lot of Jack's work, I found this book to be interesting in that he recalls a lot about his past as an acclaimed athlete; strange that such an abstract head-tripper would be a star athlete to the point of receiving scholarships to ritzy prep schools and Ivy League universities to be a "ringer" for their respective football teams. I certainly don't picture this sort of thing when I read his books.

As for that more famous gift, his best writing is truly a great resource for late adolescents who dream of broadening their horizons. Sadly though, he never really made it to the promised land of which he caught glorious glimpses and is therefore probably not much of a role model upon which to pattern one's life. Still, he and his "beat" brethren were essential blazers of the trails that the counterculture movements of the 60s traveled and their contributions are therefore sacred. Ultimately, Jack's damage seemed to fatally stunt his evolution and he foundered on the rocks within sight of the shore.

As for Maggie Cassidy, give it a try if you like Kerouac's work as it does have flashes of the magical poignancy you'll find in greater supply in his better books, just don't start off with it. All cliches and revolving trends aside, On the Road and Dharma Bums are still the ones to tackle if you're uninitiated and curious about his work. Jack's was not a very happy life though, so manic depressives beware...

un-Kerouac
Not one of Kerouac's best. In fact, it has a strange, not quite Kerouac feel to it. Not that it is bad, by any means. I just suspect that if it had been written by anyone other than the auteur of On The Road, it would be Out Of Print.

Jack Pre-Booze-ouac
A must-read for Kerouac afficionados. The depiction of his teenage years in Lowell, though sentimental at times, are some of his most beautiful prose; full of sunsets, football and first kisses.
Kerouac-Virgins should check out his 'On the Road' or 'The Subterraneans' first.

An Over Looked Jem
When thinking of Jack Kerouac the first think you think about is On The Road, or the Dharma Bums. Yet this is a story that has a very personal feel to it. In some ways more so than his other stories. The basic story line is love, love lost and love that got away, yet never forgotten. I'm over simplifying, but that is what it comes down to.Clocking in at just fewer than 200 pages. Kerouac fits a lot into a short novel. On almost every page you can get a feel of Kerouac have regret for losing Maggie Cassidy.The true beauty comes from the language that Kerouac uses to describe things and people.It is really something to read the final time Kerouac and Cassidy meet. It is sad and powerful in the descriptions and the visual images that he gives that give insight to Kerouac more as a person rather than a writer.This story can best be understood from someone who is "older" in years. I say that in terms of thinking rather than actual age.Because although I am 25, at the time of this review,I can relate to the story, yet I am sure that I will relate to the story more as I get older.

This is a wonderful story that we can all relate to in some way or fashion. It is wonderful piece lit that is better than some of the garbage I reading my junior year English class, when I was in high school. ... Read more

Product Description
The life and craft of Jack Kerouac are traced through some of his most personal and mesmerizing letters. Written between 1940, when he was a freshman in college, and 1956, immediately before his leap into celebrity with the publication of On the Road, these letters offer valuable insights into Kerouac's family life, friendships with Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs, and others.Amazon.com Review
Jack Kerouac is one of America's most influential literary figures.On the Road begot the BeatGeneration, which ushered in the hippie movement, then free love, then drugsand so on and so on. Yet the real Kerouac bore little resemblance to thisenduring image as an open-road rebel and spokesman of the Beats. He was alover of women and wine, all right, but also a sad, confused romantic wholonged for acceptance and often viewed life with a child's perspective. Bycapturing his emotions in his personal writings, Selected Lettershelps shed light on a figure who was as troubled as he was rebellious. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Kerouac Rocks
A fantastic gorp into Kerouac and his 'real' life and the many spontaneous voices that make his dreams.As you read these letters listen to the different tones he gives to those most important in his life ... Sabastian Sampas (boyhood best friend), Gabriella Kerouac (anchor Mom), Allen Ginsberg (understanding friend), William S. Burroughs (adventure friend), Neil Cassady (challenging boyfriend), Stella Sampas (wife subsequently), Carolyn Cassady (complicated :).It is all here!Jack's words bring up the truth about questions that still are not answered today as we go to the 'world of tomorrow'.Buy this to hear it direct from Jack.

An essential read to understanding the genesis of his work.
Much has been made about Kerouac's philosophy of spontaneous prose. The immediacy of it's impact. It's flawed honesty. The sheer weight of his all-too-real emotion as it flowed out of him and stained the page. Like VanGogh, Kerouac was an artist who did not concern himself with"sentimental melancholy" but looked to express the true sorrowand joy of his life in his works. These letters are a vital piece of theKerouac puzzle, fore they show us the genesis of the man's method andstyle. From his early emulation of novelist Thomas Wolfe, through hismeeting of first Allan Ginsburg, who was really more of an intellectualinfluence than a literary one, and subequently, William Burroughs, and NealCassady. It was Cassady's influence that was paramount to Kerouac'screation of his style, and in his letters to Neal, we are shown first handhow Jack sought to withold nothing, to seek out the details of living.These letters are startling in their honesty and emotion. They reveal a manwho sought not only a vision of and for himself, but for the rest of usliving, dead, and unborn. Maybe he was uncomfortable in his own skin, maybehe couldn't cut the apron strings that bound and stunted him emotionally tohis mother, but these letters prove the essentialness of the artist in thisworld. Those souls like Kerouac who sought to express the unknown, that thereasons for why we all go on living in this world where "all life issuffering," outweigh the reasons why we should just give up and notlive at all. Jack may have suffered too much, smoked too much, and drankhimself to an early, lonesome grave, but he left behind works of beauty andsadness that changed the landscape of modern literature, whosedirectionless direction sought the innocent, lost heart in many of us. LikeJack said, one must "live, travel, adventure, bless and don't besorry."

The screen-plays of Kerouac's life
Having read most all of Kerouac's published work, reading this book is like finding the keys to the locks.Jack's and other letters provide deep insights into his life, his feelings and all that followed into Jack's novels, poems and stories. Much more than a diary, this book serves almost asreference material for reading his other works. The letters pre-On The Road and post-Big Sur, opens up your eyes to the life he was leading, itis here that you see the fluid motion of his lifefalling into his work. A must have for any JKbookshelve.

I dig this book
If one wants to dig deep into kerouac then this is how.Everything begins to form from reading this.You find Jack inside yourself screaming to come out.You hear his voice and feel his every tear, smile, and high that he has felt.I recommend this to anyone who wants to take a risk in believing in someone with different views then we have today. ... Read more

Product Description
A beautifully illustrated portrait of Beat icons Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, and Philip Whalen and the years in the Cascades high country that shaped their lives and work.

This is John Suiter's first book, and it evolved from a magazine assignment that took him to Jack Kerouac's remote fire lookout on Desolation Peak on the fortieth anniversary of the publication of The Dharma Bums. For two weeks in the summer of 1995, Suiter-an East Coast city-dweller all his life-lived in Kerouac's still-standing fire lookout, making photographs for his magazine project. Meanwhile, the awesome beauty and profound solitude of the surrounding North Cascades worked their magic-as it had for Kerouac and countless others since.

In 1996, Suiter met the poets Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen, who had also worked as fire lookouts on peaks in the North Cascades in the 1950s. It had been Snyder-the real-life model for Kerouac's fictive "Japhy Ryder"-who had first come into the Upper Skagit country as a fire lookout in 1952 and blazed the way for Whalen and Kerouac to follow. Suiter returned to the North Cascades during the next few summers for further shooting-hikes on Crater, Sourdough, and Sauk mountains. Illustrated with thirty-five beautiful photographs, Poets on the Peaks tells how the solitary mountain adventures of three young men helped to form the literary, spiritual, and environmental values of a generation.

Based on scores of previously unpublished letters and journals, plus recent interviews with Snyder and Whalen and several others, Poets on the Peaks creates a group portrait of Kerouac, Snyder, and Whalen that transcends the tired urban clichés of the "Beat" life. Poets on the Peaks is about the development of a community of poets, including the famous Six Gallery reading of October 1955, and contains unexpected cameos by fellow poets and mountain-climbers Allen Ginsberg, Kenneth Rexroth, Philip Lamantia, and Michael McClure. Poets on the Peaks is also a book about Dharma and the years of Dharma Bums--from the 1951 roadside revelation in the Nevada desert that led Gary Snyder to drop out of academia and head for Japan, to Kerouac's lonely vigil with The Diamond Sutra on Desolation Peak, to Philip Whalen's ordination as a Zen priest. Finally, Poets on the Peaks is the story of the birth of a wilderness ethic, as well as a photographic homage to the Cascades landscape, a landscape virtually unchanged since these men journeyed there thanks to the environmental protections they helped inspire. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Calling all Beats!

John Suiter's "Poets on the Peaks" is a must have.
Thank you.

The sources of "The Dharma Bums" & more
This is the perfect companion to Jack Kerouac's classic novel, offering a wealth of information, fascinating stories, and gorgeous photographs about the world chronicled in that novel's pages. But it offers so much more -- a richer understanding of Gary Snyder & Philip Whalen, as well as their poetic work, and an in-depth look at the times & experiences that shaped all three writers. There are countless books about the Beats, many of them quite good indeed ... but this is surely one of the best. The author truly knows & loves his subjects, without being blinded by any need for glossy hagiography. It's as honest a book as you'll find about these three remarkable men & their times. A very enthusiastic recommendation!

Beat Beginnings:The right place at the right time...
John Suiter's work on the founding fathers of Beat poetry and prose is a marvelous read. Suiter takes us along the trail through post war America and ties together the Beat poets, Jack Kerouac, McCarthyism, San Francisco and the North Cascades Forest Service Fire Lookout system of the 1950's. Imagine the poet/Zen Buddhist Gary Snyder being blacklisted from working for the Forest Service! Do you want to know how Jack Kerouac got the idea for his Dharma Bums work? What was it like spending a month and a half completely alone on top of a mountain in the Pacific Northwest, looking for the telltale smoke of a developing forest fire? Do you know what a "lightning stool" is, what you do with it and would you like to see a photograph of one? What was it like being at the famous Six Gallery poetry reading in 1955 when Allen Ginsberg first read "Howl"? If these questions interest you, or if you want to know about the origins of Beat writings-this is the book to get. Author Suiter launches the reader awaythrough Old Mexico to visit with young Robert Mitchum as Christ in a glass coffin and William "Junky" Burroughs, up through Yosemite to camp with Kerouac and Snyder, a stop in San Francisco at City Lights Bookstore and Lawrence Ferlinghetti and finally Japan and Hozomeen, and the Void from Desolation. A delightful Masterpiece of fact and photographs!

Covers beautiful Cascade Mountain scenes and peaks
Writer-photographer Suiter provides a literary portrait of Beat era poets Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, and Jack Kerouac in Poets On The Peaks, which centers around their early experiences as fire lookouts in the 1950s. As such, Poets On The Peaks provides a hard book to easily categorize: it covers beautiful Cascade Mountain scenes and peaks, fire lookouts, and literature and biography alike. The writings of these three juxtapose nicely with the photos and images, making this a recommended gift choice for the holiday season.

Significant contribution to literature on early Beats
In his first book, John Suiter has produced a work that contributes significantly to the literature on early development of the Beat literary movement and to understanding the disparate characters of Snyder, Whalen, and Kerouac.Using the common experience of all three men serving as fire lookouts in the Northern Cascades in the early to mid 1950's, the author evokes portraits of how each writer was influenced by wilderness and the isolation of a fire lookout, and how each used the experience in his work.Drawing from recent interviews with Snyder and Whalen and others who knew them during the early 1950's, from previously unpublished letters and journals, and from extensive close readings of all three writers, the author crafts a portrait of the evolution of a literary movement, of a wilderness ethic, and perhaps unintentionally, the devolution of Kerouac contrasted against the focus and dedication of Snyder and Whalen.The book is illustrated with photographs of the fire lookouts and their locales. ... Read more

Product Description
Although he is best known as a writer of prose, Jack Kerouac was an important poet, his work described by Michael McClure as "startling in its majesty and comedy and gentleness and vision." These eight extended poems, composed between 1954 and 1961, offer exuberant forays into language and consciousness that combine rich imagery, complex internal rhythms, and a reverent attentiveness to the moments. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Be-Bop Boy
Some of the general points made below have been used in other reviews of books and materials by and about Jack Kerouac.

"As I have explained in another entry in this space in a DVD review of the film documentary "The Life And Times Of Allen Ginsberg", recently I have been in a "beat" generation literary frame of mind. I think it helps to set the mood for commenting on Jack Kerouac's lesser non-prose work, the poems under review here, "Book Of Blues" that it all started last summer when I happened to be in Lowell, Massachusetts on some personal business. Although I have more than a few old time connections with that now worn out mill town I had not been there for some time. While walking in the downtown area I found myself crossing a small park adjacent to the site of a well-known mill museum and restored textile factory space. Needless to say, at least for any reader with a sense of literary history, at that park I found some very interesting memorial stones inscribed with excerpts from a number of his better known works dedicated to Lowell's `bad boy', the "king of the 1950s beat writers".

And, just as naturally, when one thinks of Kerouac then, "On The Road", his classic modern physical and literary `search' for the meaning of America for his generation which came of age in post-World War II , readily comes to mind. No so well known, however, is the fact that that famous youthful novel was merely part of a much grander project, an essentially autobiographical exposition by Kerouac in many volumes starting from his birth in 1922, to chart and vividly describe his relationship to the events, great and small, of his times. Those volumes bear the general title "The Legend Of Duluoz". Perhaps even less well known are his poetic works, although given his spontaneous writing style method and association with many of the key poets of the 1940s and 1950s, beat or not, it is less understandable. That is why we today, in the year of the forty anniversary of Kerouac's death, are under the sign of a compilation of his poetry, aptly titled, "Book Of Blues".

Kerouac, in a couple of famous essays and in various places in some of his novels, makes a very big point that he was deeply influenced by the rhythm of jazz and by the be-bop language associated with it. Certain passages from "On The Road" and other works clearly emphasize that point. Although Kerouac was not known as a major beat poet, and will not be remembered as such, he certainly rated as a talented minor one, as these poems, especially "San Francisco Blues" indicate. It is hard to get a sense, unlike with Allen Ginsberg, of Kerouac's ideas how these poems should "sound" from merely reading them on the page. But there is a method to the couple of hundred choruses that are included here in various forms broken into several interrelated poems. Let's put it this way, read a couple of Kerouac's books and then come back to this.

what an excellent use of imagery!
this book has so many unique qualities to it, and they all focus so much on Kerouac's unusual lifestyle... the book, with it's so many chouruses is an inspiration!

Book of Blues
Contains the outstanding 'Desolation Blues'. Otherwise unremarkable

Jack Kerouac's Book of Blues
Kerouac's Book of Blues is an important book for anyone interested in Kerouac's spontaneous style of writing. For those more familiar with his novels and prose Book of Blues will open a more pure and raw form of verse than even "On the Road". Kerouac was truly a poet at heart. To get the full effect of this book which reaaly needs to be read aloud to full experience I also highly recommend Kerouac's Blues & Haikus CD which contains him reading several of the poems in Book of Blues.

Book of Blues works together with Desolation Angels
Book of Blues is an important piece of writing that chronicles an important time in Kerouac's life and works well with Desolation Angels. As I read Desolation Angels, I noticed that Jack Duluoz makes references to various works of poetry as he moves through the book and Book of Blues contains many of those poems. Desolation Blues was written about his time on Desolation Peak and accompanies that section of the book well. You begin to understand Jack's thoughts and anxities better. Later Jack is in Mexico City writing Mexico City Blues but he also wrote Orizabo(I believe) at the same time, at least according to Desolation Angels. Orizabo Blues can be seen as the outakes or the preparaton from Mexico City Blues. Later on in the book, Jack Duluoz is back in Mexico City after his trip to Europe and during these times he wrote Cerrera Medellin blues. Other Blues not included in Book of Blues though mentioned in Desolatioin Angels are Washington, D.C. Blues and Tangier Blues which have yet to be published. Book of Blues is an important book to the Kerouac canon. ... Read more

Product Description
Written during 1951-52, this novel was an underground legend by the time it was finally published in 1972. Written in an experimental form, Kerouac created the ultimate account of his voyages with Neal Cassady, which he captured in a different form for On the Road. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (23)

On The Road- Redux
The first three paragraphs are taken from a previous review about Jack Kerouac and his leading role in establishing the literary ethos of the "beat" generation. Those comments aptly apply in reviewing "Visions Of Cody" as well:

"As I have explained in another entry in this space in reviewing the DVD of "The Life And Times Of Allen Ginsberg", recently I have been in a "beat" generation literary frame of mind. I mentioned there, as well, and I think it helps to set the mood for commenting on Jack Kerouac's seminal `travelogue', "On The Road", that it all started last summer when I happened to be in Lowell, Massachusetts on some personal business. Although I have more than a few old time connections with that now worn out mill town I had not been there for some time. While walking in the downtown area I found myself crossing a small park adjacent to the site of a well-known mill museum and restored textile factory space.

Needless to say, at least for any reader with a sense of literary history, at that park I found some very interesting memorial stones inscribed with excerpts from a number of his better known works dedicated to Lowell's "bad boy", the "king of the 1950s beat writers, Jack Kerouac. And, just as naturally, when one thinks of Kerouac then Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Neal Cassady and a whole ragtag assortment of poets, hangers-on, groupies and genuine madmen and madwomen come to mind.They all show up, one way or another (under fictional names of course), in this book.So that is why we today are under the sign of "On The Road".

To appreciate Kerouac and understand his mad drive for adventure and to write about it, speedily but precisely, you have to start with "On The Road". There have been a fair number of `searches' for the meaning of the American experience starting, I believe, with Whitman. However, each generation that takes on that task needs a spokesperson and Jack Kerouac, in the literary realm at least, filled that bill not only for his own generation that came of age in the immediate post World War II era, but mine as well that came of age in the 1960s (and, perhaps, later generations but I can only speculate on that idea here)."

That said, "Visions Of Cody" is an extension of that "On The Road" story line that made Kerouac famous, although "Visions" is more diffuse and much more concerned with literary imaginary than with the storyline developed in the earlier Kerouac/Paradise narrative. Here Jack as Dulouz and Neal Cassady as Cody Pomeray do more running around on the road, partying, reflecting on the nature of the universe, partying, speculating on the nature ofthe American experience, partying and... well, you get the drift. In some places the descriptive language is stronger than "On The Road", reflecting Kerouac's greater ease with his spontaneous writing style in the early 1950s when this was written (although not widely published until after his death.).

Additionally, included here is a long series of taped interviews between Jack and Neal over several days and, presumably, while both were on a running drug "high". These tapes reflect very nicely the very existential nature of 1950s "beat", or at least one interpretation of that term. They produce all the madness, genius, gaffs, gaps, whimsy and pure foolishness that come from an extended drug experience. Despite all reports to the contrary not everything observed until the "influence" comes out pure literary gold, and that is true here as well. But there is a lot of good stuff nevertheless, although here it could have been cut in half and we still would have go that "beat" beat.

This is a review of the audio version of Visions of Cody
read by Graham Parker.

Alan Ginsberg thought that Visions of Cody was Jack's best book but whether we agree with him or not, Visions is a long and often tedious free association jazz riff manuscript about Jack and Neal Cassady and friends that can be difficult for some to "get into."I agree with the previous reviewers who advise the reader to have a few drinks, put on some jazz and, if you get bored, read it out loud.The rhythms of post World War II American English will come alive.

Graham Parker does it for us with his reading.First of all, the reading is abridged into two cassettes and it helps to pare down this enormous, meandering manuscript to its high points.Second, Parker provides the music and the poetry with his magnificently expressive reading and added music.You might be put off, at first, by his English accent but I think you will be won over with his extraordinary vocal rendition of the essentials of Visions of Cody.

How To Read The Tape Transcripts...
Yes, at first I thought the tape transcripts were just a lot of useless padding to fill out Jack's book. Boy, was I wrong! Here's how to read them:

1. Get a couple of Charley Parker albums (Bird and Diz will do nicely.)

2. Procure a jug of red wine and a joint.

3. Put on Bird, pour a glass of wine, and just relax with the music for a while.

4. Take a few tokes. Drink more wine. Get a nice mellow buzz.

5. NOW, begin reading the tape transcripts, and voila! You are invited to the party!

You will be sitting there with Cassidy and Kerouac, digging the flow of music and conversation and experiencing a new comprehension of their friends, wives and lovers. The gossip, the stories, the subtle oneupmanship between them is a delicious fly-on-the wall experience. By recreating the set and setting of these long ago conversations, you will experience an intimacy that is uncanny. I've done this a few times and was amazed at the greater understanding I had of these two complicated men. I read and re-read the transcripts with delight and was sorry there wasn't more of them.

This is surely what Kerouac intended. It's like the modern day extras and behind the scenes specials you get on movie DVDs. I mourn their passing more than ever and the fact that there doesn't appear to be anyone out there to take their place.

Ever wonder why Hollywood depictions of the Beats are laughable failures? HERE'S why.

Go now...

From the old Remington Rand direct to you...
I don't even know what to say about this book other than anyone who pretends to like this nonsense deserves to read it. Truman Capote's quote about Kerouac's writing, "That it's not writing, it's typing," probably sums up the matter better than anything I can say.What disappoints me I suppose is that I really want to like Kerouac - I love the idea of him, though I can't say I care much for his typing.

Spontaneous Autonomy Or Muddled Proustian?
Allan Ginsberg wrote in August 1972: "Some of Kerouac's writings of '52, particularly his Visions of Cody, are some of the most brilliant texts written about the psychedelic experience, especially the description of him and Neal Cassidy on Peyote." AND From October 26, 1974, Ginsberg writes of himself, which he learned from Kerouac: What I mean by "polish the mind," in that you actually do get an increasing awareness either through meditative or poetry which is another yoga, of the actual stuff, cita. And then it becomes a matter of being a very faithful secretary. You can't get everything, so you get as much as you can so you have something solid to work with. In other words, you're not doing something arbitrary, romantic, babble, bullsh*t, you're actually dealing with your mind stuff just like a painter's working with an actual landscape. Solid in the sense that it's real, it's objective, it isn't even your subjectivity any more, you're just objectively watching something move. So there's no long any question of egotism or self-expression or personal expression. All those theoretical things are like nonpracticing questions. But if you're actually practicing there's a real thing to work with, which is your thought-forms."

"Chogyam Trungpa's principle of "First thought, best thought." That was kerouac's basic principle for his spontaneous writing, for the same Buddhist reasons of practical inquiry into the operation of the mind. Both Kerouac and Trungpa realized, and teach, a very simple thing, which is that the first way that you flash on a thing is the unselfconscious, naked, real first-mind way, which is totally private and odd, eccentric to you, but is so direct that anybody can understand it."

At first, this book was way too muddled to be of much use for myself, not receiving much out of the book and feeling that I have invested way too much time for the read, but I think that's because I've been reading it as a novel like "On The Road," and this is more poetry or jazz style spontaneous prose. Actually, this book is from flashing mental thoughts that are suddenly inspired within the self. This book is not some preplanned novel and storyline and not at all the robotic, mechanical mindset of the propogandized America and therefore represents a breakthrough in American thinking, thinking for the autonomous self.

I think if this book were given the publisher to publish before "On The Road" they would have agreed here on such being garbled and overly Proustian in attempt of remembrance. However, to the person looking for poetry or verbal prose over a story, and in this we have a jazz type expression of bebop in words and that makes this book a major change from the herd mentality of the masses. Hey, this is the beat rhythmic language, not Melville or Dostoevsky, but Proust and Celine.

Now to be fair, there are some good descriptions and well written feelings through out the book, but not in volume. Now don't get me wrong, I'm a Beat Hipster I would like to think, a Nietzschian, a mystical, philosophical seeker into spiritual, psychedelic and karmic realms, but maybe not the existential, Benzedine type. This book is largely garbled ramblings?? Or is just too poetic for me? I can appreciate the long "bird" Parker-like jazz of the spontaneous sentence styles, the overly descriptive emphasis on observable flashes of insight, but this story has no story line, ok-it's poetry or electic prose. So it's verbal dynamics in avant garde, not a novel then, and I guess I'm failing to fully appreciate it.

When Kerouac gets Celine-ian he works very well, but when he enters his Proustian attempt at daily observations, he becomes cloudy in tangent ramblings of private memories, non-relating to his current observations that are over detailed and nonsensical in the first place. His dope-riddled conversations and past remembrances enter back doorways in winding pathways of the red neon lights.

Now Ginsberg's introduction to the book, that I found both enjoyable and very understandable. Allen Ginsberg in a November 26th 1968 interview, from the book, Spontaneous Mind, page 132, writes on Robert Creeley and Kerouac's style of writing:

"Creeley was talking about how his writing was determined by the typewriter, neurasthenias of his habit; mine is determined by the physical circumstances of writing, i.e., literally that. And I got that actually from Kerouac, who was that simple and straight about it. If he had a short notebook he wrote little ditties and if he had a long . . . a big typewriter page, he wrote big long sentences like Proust."

I think this agrees with Visions of Cody, in consisting of either short "ditties" or "long sentences like Proust," all depending on the writing pad Kerouac was using at the time of writing. To me this makes a whole lot of sense in the arbitrary, elusive and haphazard style of this book.

What appears to me as the Kerouac trademark: a jazz styled prose of spontaneous expression from the "real," non-conditioned, non-image-to-portray self, an existential life of despair in fast paced living with the rush of jazz, drink, sex, travel, under the literary and scholarly ideals of avant garde sophistication, adventure, desires, seeking new discoveries, walking places one never has been before, risk taking and traveling, all so under this empty void of utter lonely existence, devoid of substantial meanings of foundational holds and securities, walking in the desert not knowing when water will appear and if it does, if this water will sustain life or poison it. So there's this emptiness, this sadness of it all in the modern man and woman, both subterranean and beatnik.

Remember-able observances in my mind: Kerouac's staring up at a man in an apartment building watching and writing and suddenly the light goes off! He saw him!; a description of a church that failed all gothic tests into the modern brown brick suburban model of tackiness with the stupidest shrubbery to boot; Cody's (Cassidy's) hobo father walking the train tracks looking for a fix; Cody's pool hustling and challenged football playing from a jump out of the car, left on the side of the road.
... Read more

Product Description
Book of Dreams is Kerouac's record of his dreamlife, a parallel autobiography of the soul, the sleeper's On the Road: "I got my weary bones out of bed & through eyes swollen with sleep swiftly scribbled in pencil in my little dream notebook till I had exhausted every rememberable item...." In 1961 City Lights published excerpts from the manuscript. This new, expanded edition marks the first publication of the complete manuscript as Kerouac intended it. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

One of Kerouac's greatest books
You really have to read all of his other books, then get this one, to fully appreciate his subconcious dreamworld.I re-read this one every couple years...LOVE IT.

Some of Kerouac's best writing
Don't be fooled. This is not Kerouac's plans, visions or hopes. These are no less than his actual unexpurgated nightly dreams written in classic Kerouac prose. His style flourishes in what you might label short fictions of the night. Long rambling structures uninhibited by standard literary conventions, Book of dreams could in fact be one of his purest works. Perfect for his long `stream of consciousness' writing that Kerouac adopted early to mid in his career, his dreams change from scene to disconnected scene filled with all the characters of his semi autobiographical works stretching from Carlo Marx & Cody right back to GJ & Scotty of his days in Doctor Sax. He also meets along the way W.C fields & someone who might be Marlene Dietrich! The uninhibited retelling of his dreams is often hilarious, sometimes raw, exposing Jacks vulnerabilities & always highly interesting. If there is any criticism I have, it is only that due to the nature of dreams, it is difficult at times to keep your focus on them, (I lost my bookmark half way through & couldn't remember what I had read!) so fluid & morphing are these dream experiences he writes about. Above all though, it is a chance to get `into his head' & find out a little more about Kerouac, however you find that his dreams & his life as lived vicariously through his books were not all that different. Book of dreams wouldn't have been half as fun had I not been acquainted with the collection of books that make up the Dolouz legend; therefore as a first Kerouac book I'd recommend reading something else, but a must for anybody who loves his work.

Book of Dreams
I read aloud in one sitting the BOLD beginnings of every dream in the book and felt it was almost impossible to turn the reading experience into an educational experience.It was entertaining and got my mind flowing, but I did not remember any of the dreams.It was just hoards of scrambledy written dreams about bizarre personal experiences in Kerouac's life, written with incongruous images and carry ons (as Kerouac often does and this review does) and it is a hard to follow book.It did make me try the same experiment in taking down my dreams, but I was jealous I could not take my dreams down as vividly with as much creativity as Jack did.It is poetic and I like that the subjects of each beginning of the dreams are different and it seems he must have embellished some of his dream chronicles.Uhmm, the writing again shows Kerouac had a great sense of humor about the reality that readers would probably not make it through many of the details of the book.

"Must" reading for all Jack Kerouac fans and enthusiasts
Book Of Dreams is Jack Kerouac's written record of his dream life, a kind of parallel autobiography of his soul. A writer whose novels, beginning with On The Road, spoke for and to a whole generation of young men and women, Jack Kerouac was a man who, awake or asleep, struggled with the problems that beset all human relationships, and that makes his writings (and his dreams) as meaningful and compelling today as they were half a century ago. This new and expanded City Lights addition is the first full publication of the complete manuscript as Jack Kerouac intended it to be. The unabridged edition of Kerouac's Book Of Dreams is an essential addition for academic collections, and "must" reading for all Jack Kerouac fans and enthusiasts.

simple, uncompromising dream accounts
Kerouac's style is well adapted to the subject of dreams and his random testimonials that he wrote immmediately after waking up without giving himself time to think about what he was writing(more importantly no time tomoralize or judge his dreams)are simple, scattered glimpses into thesleeping mind.This book inspired me to start keeping a dream journal inorder to "fish out" my dreams before they disappeared frommemory.A must read for any Kerouac fan. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (6)

The Great Jack Kerouac
Not every line in this Sutra is great, but the parts that ARE great are super enlightening.For instance, take this choice quote: "...this little place of flesh you carry around and call your soul...is the same emptiness, the same, one and holy emptiness everywhere."Ecstatic lines like that occur throughout this fine little book.It's nice to carry around because it doesn't weigh much...physically.Spiritually, it's heavy as the universe.

Splendid Truth
This is a tiny book considering the format but unlimited in its content. I absolutely love it! I have been on a spiritual quest for some time and this book sums up beautifuly what I found to be the Truth. I had glimpses which leave me beyond any doubt that nothing ever happened and I have no trouble with Kerouac's own sutra. He grasped the kernel of the teaching in a creative and inspiring way.

This little book is shining bright and it is a reliable guidance into the splendor of your own being. It basicaly restates what The Heart Sutra says: form is emptiness and emptiness is form. You can't reason about/with it but in the depth of your heart you'll know that it is so.

Those who are meant to read this gem of a book will find it even if it doesn't show up as a first item on the search list. If it calls you, get it! Someone recommended it to me and it arrived with perfect timing. I am grateful. Kerouac's work confirmed that my search is over, now I can only aspire to live this wisdom until the yearning itself dies or is fullfiled. God bless.

Golden Eternity, the Tao, Spirit, or Self
_When I first read this little book I thought that it was primarily Buddhist in essence. When I read it again a while later, I said, no, the spirit of this book is definately Taoist. When I read it next I said, this is a true Gnostic creation- who but a gnostic would have the audacity to compose an original scripture? Of course I was right all along, for this book cuts to the mystic heart of all true paths. This is the teaching that we are all one, for we are all emanations of the one Source, call it the Golden Eternity, the Tao, Spirit, or Self. It could be the "dazzling darkness" of Dionysis. It is the core truth of the one appearing as many that it may come to know itself. This was the unnamed IT that the Beats were waiting for, it is the perennial lesson for all true mystics.

_Oh yes, the book is a small one. perfect books are often like that- take a look at the Tao te Ching....

_A man that can write a book like this doesn't have to hang around this old world too long- he's already paid his dues and learned his lessons. Like Lao Tze it is time to depart, for your work is done, and the decline of the country is painful and tiring to witness....

A 20th-century spiritual testament
"The Scripture of the Golden Eternity," by Jack Kerouac, is one of those books that you should read, then put aside and out of sight, and pick up and read again several months later (that's what I did). The "Scripture" consists of a series of numbered, meditation-like prose poems that explore the concept of the Golden Eternity. The City Lights edition contains both a 1970 introduction by Eric Mottram and a 1994 introduction by Anne Waldeman. According to the publication data page, the Scripture itself was first published in 1960 (although the introductions note that it was composed earlier, in 1956).

The Golden Eternity is an enigmatic concept that seems to transcend rational thought; it reminded me somewhat of the Tao. Kerouac uses many paradoxical statements to explore the Golden Eternity; his writing is sometimes funny. He also plays with words, using such terms as "the universal Thisness" and "the everlasting So." He even incorporates geometric symbols into one section of the Scripture.

Throughout are a multicultural constellation of references that give the Scripture a universalistic flavor. Buddha, Jesus, Shakespeare, Krishna, Kali, Einstein, and the Native American deity Coyote are just a few of the many references. He also finds insights in a butterfly, cats, and "your little finger."

Kerouac writes, "When you've understood this scripture, throw it / away. If you cant understand this scripture, / throw it away. I insist on your freedom." But whether you throw the book away, treasure it, or pass it on, chack out Kerouac's wonderfully written "Scripture."

Golden Eternity, the Tao, Spirit, or Self
_When I first read this little book I thought that it was primarily Buddhist in essence. When I read it again a while later, I said,no, the spirit of this book is definately Taoist. When I read it next I said, this is a true Gnostic creation- who but a gnostic would have the audacity to compose an original scripture? Of course I was right all along, for this book cuts to the mystic heart of all true paths. This is the teaching that we are all one, for we are all emanations of the one Source, call it the Golden Eternity, the Tao, Spirit, or Self. It could be the "dazzling darkness" of Dionysis. It is the core truth of the one appearing as many that it may come to know itself. This was the unnamed IT that the beats were waiting for, it is the perennial lesson for all true mystics.

_Oh yes, the book is a small one. perfect books are often like that- take a look at the Tao te Ching....

_A man that can write a book like this doesn't have to hang around this old world too long- he's already paid his dues and learned his lessons. Like Lao Tze it is time to depart, for your work is done, and the decline of the country is painful and tiring to witness.... ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (9)

GEMS!
Many quirky, beautiful moments here. Check out his mastery of the short lines, goofiness and mysticism.

If
If you read Kerouac's Pomes All Sizes you can find out what lapis lazuli is....

Greatest book of pomery of all time
You won't understand Kerouac's writing style by reading On the Road or Dharma Bums.To really dig what he was getting at you have to read his "Belief & Technique in Modern Prose" then read some stuff like Pomes All Sizes, Old Angel Midnight, Visions of Cody, Mexico City Blues, etc.

Pomes All Sizes is full of astonishing pomes by one of the most important literary innovators of the 20th century, & along with Some of the Dharma it's Kerouac's most personal book. Yes, there's lots of silly fragments and intoxicated sketches (where else do you find a Kerouac pome written while on morphine or goofballs), but you gotta see Kerouac's style values spontaneity over crafted work, so it is these unpretentious, unselfconscious pomes that are among his greatest accomplishments.

This slim volume is jam-packed with mindblowing pomes:"Mexican Loneliness," "How to Meditate," "The Moon," "Skid Row Wine," "Long Island Chinese Poem Rain," "Silly Goofball Pomes," "God," "Bowery Blues," and dozens of haikus...

Yes, the book is inconsistent at times, after all it is selections from his private notebooks, but the great poems more than make up for the mediocre.

If you do not dig this book then you do not dig Kerouac. Nuff said.

Difficult reading. Proceed with caution.
A must read for the serious Kerouac fan, Pomes is a "Why bother?" for everyone else. Ann Charters wrote "The quality most pure in Kerouac was his grasp that life is really a dream." Nowhere is this more evident than in the random jottings that has been published as Pomes All Sizes.There are some gems among his silly little haikus, and I truly enjoyed the first sequence of "Poems of the Buddhas of Old."Most of the collection left me scratching my head.Was Jack just having a bit of fun with us, or was he so advanced that I still can not grasp the meaning? "Life is like a dream. / You only believe it's real / Cause you're born a sucker / For that kind of deal;" In Pomes All Sizes the roses are beautiful, but the path to them is unpassable to all but the most devout.

If you love modern poetry you'll love this
I first heard most of this poetry on the CD "Kicks Joy Darkness". I was entranced, and went looking for the book. This is some of my favorite modern poetry. It has interesting rhythm, perspective, organization (or lack thereof) and a variety of emotions, ranging from goof ball stuff to poems about death. As usual with Kerouac you are constantly encountering Buddhism and Catholic thought, along with sexual themes. I do wish he would use grammar a bit more, but hey, I'm not a famous poet who represents a generation. Read it out loud for best effect. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (15)

Legendary, but probably not terribly significant
It hasn't been available officially for more than sixty years. Burroughs and Kerouac. And the story revolves around sordid details of a murder committed by a friend of theirs. The first book by Burroughs. So it should be important, right? Well, historically it certainly is important and well-nigh legendary. But this book will not enhance the literary reputations of either author. If you are here due to a deep love of beat literature, then you should go ahead and get the book. You'll be happy you did. If you are here looking for a worthy work of literature by Kerouac, look elsewhere, this is thin gruel. If you are here to explore the early works of Mr. WSB, then you'll find more substance in Junky, this work doesn't lead into much else in the Burroughs oeuvre.

Very early novel by Kerouac and Burroughs
"And The Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks," by Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs, with forward by James Grauerholz (220 pgs., 1945, 2008).This is the first novel written by members of what became known as the Beat Generation.It was written by Kerouac & Burroughs near the end of World War Two & was never published.They each wrote alternating chapters.
The novel is closely based on the murder of one of their circle of friends by another of their circle of friends.In real life, Lucien Carr IV, then 19, stabbed to death David Eames Kammerer.
David & Lucien met in St. Louis, MO when David was 25 & Lucien was 11.A strange mentorship grew between them.David & Burroughs were friends since they were just 9 & had met in elementary school in St. Louis.Kerouac met them when he was a freshman at Columbia University in NYC.This book is about the normal day-to-day meanderings of a group of young men & young women seemingly just hanging out.
Kerouac keeps waiting to ship out on the merchant marine vessel, but never does.Burroughs is the only one with a job.Women are always around.They are all jumping in & out of bed.Yet, in a seemingly chaste sort of way.Kerouac's first wife, Edie Parker is here.All the names have been changed.
There is always tension whenever Lucien & David meet.Lucien wants David out of his life.They still always get together.David loves Lucien in a purely chaste way.Bisexuality is always present in this book.In this novel, Lucien kills David with a hatchet in a drunken stupor.In real life, Lucien stabbed David to death with a knife.Lucien was sent away for a couple of years.Later, he became Louis Carr, the top writer& editor for UPI.This novel was never published.First, because it was rejected by everyone who looked at it & later when the writers became famous, Carr persuaded them not to publish the book for fear of opening old wounds.Both authors promised not to publish the novel until after Carr's death.It's a good first read & a good foreshadowing of where both writers would be headed in their careers.

Hippos
Have read some Jack Kerouac, found this to be quite entertaining, and an easy read.

A Must Read
A very interesting and rarely used approach to the novel. Reading the work of two enormously famous writers from the days before they had even published a poem is a unique experience. All the stripped down glory of on the road with real sense of mystery. You know how it ends, but why does it get there? I wouldn't say this book is perfect, but I would still say it is very worth the read.

great colaboration
im glad this book was given its chance to be printed after all these years.an amazing story written before the author's days of fame. ... Read more

Product Description
A previously unpublished volume by Jack Kerouac offers a collage of poems, haiku, journal entries, letters, meditations, ideas on writing, notes on Buddhism, prayers, blues, sketches, and more. 30,000 first printing." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (22)

Kerouac's Honesty
I read Kerouac for 2 reasons. His genius and his honesty. He worked to remove the layers separating the writer from the reader. A shock to someone as pretentious as the Kirkus reviewer. But a breath of fresh air to those of us who are tired of pretense and hype.
This book is interesting for readers of Kerouac's novels. Not of much interest to those who never read Kerouac in the first place, as we have seen.

GOOD BUT NOT WELCOMING CONDITION
I thank you for the book. It's filled with beautiful words.
Better condition would have made me more comfortable.

A formidable text even for those truly, madly devoted
If it wasn't him, we'd not be reading this. "In me there's a Buddha/ Impressing himself through this mold of darkness/ Morning will come & these writings/ will be revealed to the world for pity." (288) Kerouac, from 1953-6, filled ten notebooks with his reflections. Readers of "The Dharma Bums" & "Wake Up! A Life of the Buddha" (see my reviews) may welcome these extended ruminations, but they're likely to weary those less enamored with the Beats or the Buddha.

Over four hundred pages try to offer a facsimile in their spacing and type of the spiral-bound notebooks from which Kerouac took elements for "Wake Up!" and "Dharma Bums." (See chapters 8-9-10, where the tone lightens up somewhat and the poetry "pops" break up the didactic prose.) At the start of 1955: "I dont really want to write systematic books of literature any more, just these private memorial notes..." (221) At 33, he sought enlightenment. He tried to live alone: "a man doesnt need a woman, or a cigarette, or a house"-- as he resolves to survive on one full meal a day, no intoxication, and detachment from his friends, to pattern his ascetic life as a "bhikku," what he renders a "dharma bum."

He witnesses fellow beings wrenched into shapes. "All sentient life is tortured-- the bird, the March wind, the twisted branches, the wiggling gory-grackened-claw-pushing-into-Void leaves, the inconceivable anxiety of clouds changing the light on hills, the twit wrung out of the night bat's throat (night airmouse)...the wild outreach of hte boy's kite like a Sage's false hopes----life sending out its agony into space and doesnt know what to doAgony of all living thingsThe cold clay earth, its huge camp of solidity----the disturbable water with haggard bugs rushing out of the mud....The motion of wind...The revolvement of the spheres---But Compassionate Tathatagata mourns." (20)

He can be pithier. "Desire for learning is a ravening hound, wisdom is the kitten./ A Kitten eats, sleeps & purrs. This is Tao." (222) He can be relevant. Kerouac certainly predicts the counterculture he helped create as he responds to a story about "Pay increases for prosecutors" as "tax-slash battles in Congress" consume taxpayer savings. He muses: "Soon the populace will be divided in three:-- 1. The Criminals in Prison/ 2. The Disabled Set Aside....both SPOON-FED/ and 3. The Adjusted at Work, .....SIPHON-FED/ Networks of roads, birth and death unending." (271)

This chain of karmic attachment leads him to bristle against women throughout this work. "Warm golden thighs produce cold black mornings." (292) "PRETTY GIRLS MAKE GRAVES F[---] you all." His women perpetuate ignorance by incarnation; Jack wants to love them simply, free of their "crocodile" instincts. In his early thirties, he's struggling to stay celibate, to separate from lust; this conflict may change your stereotype of him. He's an idealist, but he's still an egoist. His art's as complete as Mozart and Rembrandt's, he assures himself. He realizes what those in suburbs and cities don't. "Everybody is getting mad at me for knowing the truth now." (61)

Irritation, restlessness, sorrow, boasts mingle with hope on every page. He knows how vainly he fights against himself, but he must do so: he equates karma with fatalism, so he settles down even as he rears up. He rants to escape from his waking dream of ignorance, to calm the monkey that's his mind, to enter a blissful Nirvanic nothingness that his body and brain do not let him attain. Ultimately, he strives for a purer sense of being that incites him, as many Beats and hippies and urban refugees after him, to reject conformist greed for romanticized self-sufficiency.

"ALL THINGS ARE DEAD IN A DREAM," he insists; "Buddhism is the gradual becoming-intelligent of the participants/ of the dream so that it may be eventually awakened from." (54-5) You may not leave this book convinced of this teaching unless you enter it converted, but for that subset of readers interested in Buddhism and Beats, here's his version of a lot of the dharma.

There's a poignancy within these often wearying, solipsistic excursions into Buddhist thought. You're trapped as he is within his own mind, battling for liberation. You enter his meditative, scribbling, manic mind, sharing his unease. And, his inspiration. I'm not an acolyte or avid admirer of Kerouac, so I waded through these reflections with more detachment, but I admit-- despite their chaotic state of maddening repetition-- that they allow us a valuable retreat into a writer's formation. You watch his soul's struggle.

Obviously, these verbose chronicles weren't meant for publication. A collator might have chopped this down to a quarter of its length, for better or worse. I can't fault Kerouac for these notes, but they could have been presented by their publisher with commentary, for those less learned. There's a brief introduction, but no editorial notes or glossary. It's crammed with vocabulary and references, naturally, to Buddhist philosophy that may turn anyone not an adept back to an easier work such as "Wake Up!" (with its lively introduction by Robert Thurman).

I felt almost voyeuristic, for you intrude on the intimacy of Kerouac's notes to himself. Again, if you lack an interest in Buddhism, their hectoring and fervent content may not be compelling enough for you to continue. It's a task best taken in small doses. If you are intrigued, you may study these accounts of him trying to reject the bottle with dread. knowing that after a decade and a half he'd drink himself to death after having drifted away from Buddhism back to his childhood Catholicism, that these earnest, relentless, and mystifying torrents of prose and poetry, quotes and sketches would dry up and leave him drained after a few years of instant, then unwanted, intrusive celebrity. "It doesnt matter whether I die/ drinking or imitate Buddha, it'll/ be the same ethereality---" (376).

When you want to be refreshed...
This text deserves five stars for what it is. It's a brilliant republication of Kerouac's Buddhism notebooks. When you open up the book, you can tell that the publishers went through a great deal of effort to preserve the style of the notebooks by using the same stylish spacing. It's fun just to flip through to look at the various spacings of the text. They did as good of a job as they possibly could by rendering it into typeset.

As far as what's inside, there are passages of brilliance. This is not a novel, but rather a book of spiritual musings. The depth of Kerouac's understanding of Buddhism is impressive. And as someone who also lives in the West, I admire his interpretations and frankly get more out of them than I do those who lived in the East. It's not the technicalities of the Buddhist teachings, though there are plenty of those, but rather the way that they became manifest in Kerouac's life that make this book so insightful. His understanding of Buddhism as a Western writer obviously goes very far...

This book is playful, it's fun, it's unusual, and I keep it on a special place on my shelf. It's one of the few books that I return to time and time again that I do not keep a bookmark for. I simply open up to any given page and start reading. I usually read a few pages at a time and I find myself spiritually stronger and more aware after doing so. I read this book as a reminder for what's important in life. As such, this book does what the best books should.

A Search for Enlightenment
Some of the Dharma by Jack Kerouac was a most excellent purchase. If you are in any way interested in the human experience, inner peace, or questions about buddhism, I recommend this book. It is not the typical informational pamphlet type thing about religion. Kerouac offers something completely refreshing. If you have read Kerouac before and enjoyed it, you will certainly enjoy this as well. Read it if you've been searching for something to help guide you in your life. And good luck on your journey. ... Read more

Product Description
"On the Road" swings to the rhythms of 1950s underground America, jazz, sex, generosity, chill dawns and drugs, with Sal Paradise and his hero Dean Moriarty, traveller and mystic, the living epitome of Beat. Now recognized as a modern classic, its American Dream is nearer that of Walt Whitman than Scott Fitzgerald, and it goes racing towards the sunset with unforgettable exuberance, poignancy and autobiographical passion. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

enjoyed being 'on the road' with Sal and Dean
In On the Road, Jack tells of his beatnik adventures over the course seven years, traveling back and forth across America and even Mexico.The main characters Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarity, are based on Kerouac and Neal Cassady, another Beat writer who traveled the country together.

Although Kerouac was on the road for seven years, it took him only three weeks to write the novel. He wrote a continues draft on a type writer taping paper together to make one continuous roll.Truman Capote mocked the writer, "That isn't writing; it's typing."Kerouac was looking to create a new style of writing and indeed it is something very different. As he sought out to accomplish, he writes in a continual train of thought that never stops.It is almost as Kerouac is in the room with you just telling a long story on a Sunday afternoon; it lasts some 300 pages, but it never really feels like there is a place to stop. It took years for Kerouac to be taken as a serious writer and accepted as creating this unique pose style of writing, but now On the Road is considered to be a great American Classic.

The story is very entertaining as Dean and Sal travel back and forth across the US meeting up, separating and starting over again.Dean is a flat out crazy character who is always on the ultimate search for his father, also Dean Moriarty.I loved being able to relate to some of the places they visited. For some reason this is what connected me to the characters the most. Just as interesting were the places I had never been; however, Kerouac's writing made you feel like you were there, as if you were "On the Road" with them.

The women throughout the novel, you became more and more sympathetic for. As you fall in love with the antics of the traveling men, you realized the hardships of the woman left behind in cities, who counted on Dean.There is this growing love-hate reaction to Dean who drops everything, or really nothing, going on the road again. I have the urge to scream at Camille and Inez. Dean is a good for nothing looser who makes babies and doesn't take care of them. Why do they keep trying to keep him?I think its a combination of the time period and that Dean is so charismatic and exuberant the woman just want him.

The road trip to Mexico City to achieve Dean's divorce from Camille is wildly entertaining and such a reward for reaching the end of the book.Kerouac paints a picture of Mexico that could easily be translated to any old western film. The heat, the bugs, the booze, and the girls all make for the most entertaining of tales.

Paragraph 4
Chip had left on a whim, found himself coasting down big new highways in stolen cars with large, fully erect ideas about freedom and the open road and the infinite wisdom that is gained through the headlong assault of life. Mildly poetic standards that so worn and distant can only sustain a short trajectory in the modern era before ending their inheritors in a lost wagon talking nonsense to nobodies.

infinitykid[dot]com

don't listen to that..."guy" or whatever it is down there
This is a lovingly read book.David does a fine job, and this person wouldn't know it if it happened to them.

Book Exhilarating - Cassette Boring
Jack Kerouac's On the Road is a work of delightful honesty; he's everyman heading out on the road.David Carradine's reading of it on the Audiobook version is boring in the extreme and will only make you wonder what all the fuss is about.Carradine should have stuck to Kung Foo.The BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime reading by Toby Stephens was much more exciting and in keeping with how Kerouac would have read it himself, is there any chance of a tape of that being released? ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (4)

Kerouac's Detroit Connection
Anyone who, like me, grew-up enthralled by the fact that Jack Kerouac once lived, abeit very briefly, in Detroit, will be thrilled by this book.

That said, while I remain a fan of the art of Jack Kerouac, this book adds more fire to the fuel of his caddishness. While Edie Kerouac-Parker, Jack's first wife, doesn't beat you over the head with this aspect of his character - indeed, one can't help but see that she carried a torch for him throughout her life - the manner in which he treated her, especially right after they were married, can't help but leave one feeling cold.

Edie was one of the few people who were right there as the Beat Generation was founded. Indeed, she helped in it's creation, as she introduced Kerouac to Lucien Carr, who in turn introduced Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs to Kerouac. Anyone who has ever delved into the history of this literary movement will find the information contained in this book to be invaluable.

Beyond that, while a light read, it benefits from this by not being over-pretentious. As with Kerouac's personality shortcomings, Edie Kerouac-Parker does not try and overstate her importance. This is a welcome addition to the biographical cannon of Jack Kerouac's former wives and lovers, and a bit more, as well.

Into the rabbit hole
As the first reviewer mentioned, Edie does cover a lot of the notorious antics of a younger kerouac and if you've studied his life at all you will not be caught off guard by any startling revelations in this book.However what this book offers that others do not, is a personal and real perspective about the Man, not the myth.For instance, his habit of ringing his hands before he launched into something serious, the fact that he kept a toothbrush in his breast pocket, or even his favorite sleeping position.I enjoyed these memoirs thoroughly and came away feeling as though I personally had spent time in the 'libertines circle'.

Definitely worth a read.

You'll be OK... Okay...
Although Edie Parker was Jack's "first wife" this is not the first time I have heard these stories.You'll Be Okay, is somewhat akin to any other biography of Jack Kerouac, the difference being is that its from a "lovers" perspective.It is an OKAY bit of literature and is edited well.. however, it lacks a creative insight into the world of Jack.I do wish Edie would of written it herself...without the help of previous written accounts.Worth a look see.

A reminiscence of excitement, hope, passion, and dreams
You'll Be Okay: My Life with Jack Kerouac is the true-life memoir of Edie Kerouac-Parker (1923-1992), the first wife of famous novelist Jack Kerouac. Penned long after Jack Kerouac had passed on, You'll Be Okay is a tale of girlhood love - when both Edie and Jack were only 18, and met at Columbia University. The young lovers moved in together, sharing an apartment with the future wife of William Burroughs, and began lifetime friendships with Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and others. A reminiscence of excitement, hope, passion, and dreams, illustrated with a handful of black-and-white photographs and skillfully edited by Timothy Moran and Bill Morgan. ... Read more

Product Description
Before Jack Kerouac expressed the spirit of a generation inhis 1957 classic, On the Road, he spent years figuring out howhe wanted to live and, above all, learning how to write. Atop anUnderwood brings together more than sixty previously unpublishedworks that Kerouac wrote before he was twenty-two, ranging fromstories and poems to plays and parts of novels, including an excerptfrom his 1943 merchant marine novel, The Sea Is MyBrother. These writings reveal what Kerouac was thinking, doing,and dreaming during his formative years, and reflect his primaryliterary influences. Readers will also find in these works the sourceof Kerouac's spontaneous prose style.

Uncovering a fascinatingmissing link in Kerouac's development as a writer, Atop anUnderwood is essential reading for Kerouac fans, scholars, andcritics.Amazon.com Review
Jack Kerouac's buddy William Burroughs once told an interviewer that Jack had written about a million words by the time he turned 22, and poet and editorPaul Marion publishes 80,000 of them for thefirst time in Atop an Underwood: jazz reviews written in high school, several rushing headlongpoems, short stories (Kerouac dashed off some 200 during his 1941 stint working in a Hartfordgas station), essays, radio plays, self-exhortations, an excerpt from the novelThe Sea Is My Brother. Marion takes what he calls a "documentaryapproach," grouping together pieces by period, subject, circumstance of composition. And what emerges from the whole is a terrifically fresh,vivid, and engaging portrait of the Beat artist as a young man.

Kerouac, even in his teens, was riffing on his big themes--the restlessquest for meaning along "the marathon alleys of life"; the lonely majesty of "the real, true, America, America in the night"; the fleeting pleasures of love, sex, comradeship, food, and drink; thecompulsion to set down his experiences in swift, fluid prose. There are no buried masterpieces or stunning revelations here, but every piece hums with the spontaneity and immediacy of Kerouac's voice. Reading these youthful jottings is like hanging out at one of those all-night bull sessions when Kerouac and his pals "talked about eternity and infinity and the governmentand Reds and women and things..."

"I will write a play about life as life is and I will wait till it hits mein the face before I write it," he proclaimed when he was 18. "Then I will rush to my typewriter and write it. So hold on to your seats. It will soon come and I feel terrifically exuberated right just now."Atop an Underwood is a record of the many forms that exuberationtook during the years when life first started to hit Kerouac in the face.--David Laskin ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

It's Kerouac Aficionado Time
For starters, for the benefit of the younger set, I should explain the word Underwood used in the title of this compilation refers to a typewriter, an ancient tool used by writers and others in pre-historical times (before the digital age) in order to more quickly tell what they had to say to the world. How primitive, right? Except, typewriter or word processor, a writer is still obliged to have a plan (or plans) to tell his woes to the world. Now I have spent considerable time in this space reviewing many of the major works of the "beat writer Jack Kerouac, including masterpieces of his generation (and my later one) like "On The Road", "Dharma Bums", and "Desolation Angels". And rightly so. Now we come to a compilation of his early writings, thoughts, half -thoughts, sketches for thoughts and a few poems thrown in. In short, we are now in the stage of interest to the aficionado.

The editor of the compilation, Paul Marion, a younger fellow Lowell compatriot and writer of Kerouac's has what can only be described as a labor of love in organizing this work. Jack Kerouac may not have always written material that was unalloyed gold but he wrote a ton of stories and ideas for stories starting from his youth in junior high school in Lowell. Marion has separated out the best or otherwise most representative of the work from about 1936 to 1943 (just before the decisive meetings with the New York crowd, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Lucien Carr, etc., with whom he would make literary history as the core of the "beat" generation writers). For those who want to trace Kerouac's evolution as a writer, what animated him at any given time, how he created that spontaneous writing form that he became famous for, or those who just want to be entertained by stories form the old days of the 1930s and 1940s this is good stuff to run through. For the rest us you NEED to read those three novels listed in the first paragraph, and you had better get to it.

A Must-Have for any Fan of Jack Kerouac
I came across this book while doing a research paper on Jack Kerouac.Not only did it provide me with some great insight on Kerouac's later works, this marvelous collection of his earliest works is a joy to read in itself.The introductions by the editor also makes this book a must-have for anyone interested in the life of Kerouac and the writings of the Beat Generation.

Fascinating
I'm liking this book way more than I expected I would.
Most of the selections were written by Kerouac between the
ages of 16 and 23.Sure some of them reflect the early author's
innocence, but virtually all have fascinating insights.
Here's a good example: One of the best selections concerns
Jack's one-day employment in a sweat-shop cookie-making factory.
Check out this quote:"Shorter hours will provide the laborer with a new desire to live, not to be a productive animal, but to have time to be a man, to have time to enjoy the rights of man in the use of his divine intellect, a gift of God that is overlooked by our overloads of the present Industrial Era."
AMEN.

Table Scraps
I like Kerouac and I thought it would be interesting to read a book of his early attempts at writing, but this book turned out to be a heap of garbage that would never have gotten published if there wasn't a famous name and picture on the cover.Even Kerouac himself said this stuff wasn't worth reading.I'm surprised they didn't print his grocery lists and the doodles he scribled on napkins.They must be saving that for the next book, "Things we collected from Kerouac's waste basket."This sort of thing happens all the time and its sad... Anyway, I gave this book an extra star because I seem to remember at least one or two of the pieces being at least mildly interesting.I don't recall which ones.

"Must" reading for all Jack Kerouac fans.
Use Paul Marion's Jack Kerouac Atop An Underwood (88822-2, $24.95) as an accompanying volume surveying his early stories and other writings: this gathers over sixty previously unpublished pieces from Kerouac's personalfiles and represents a treasure trove for any avid Kerouac reader. Both arehighly recommended, even essential picks for any Beat collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

"I'd lost Gerard in the shuffle . . ."
Maybe Capote just read Visions of Gerard. I like to think that his comment about Kerouac merely typing instead of actually writing couldn't be directed towards On the Road or Big Sur or Tristessa. There's a style to Kerouac's writing, where he's some sort of middle passage, some sort of vessel that is constantly taking and giving. His state of reverie is always emphasizes the prettiness of things, though they may be nothing more than pretty destroyed. This constant observation and absorption doesn't leave much time to spend in a single place, a trait that serves Kerouac's work well.

Most of his work, anyways. In Visions of Gerard, we really only need the last twenty (or thirty, to get in a scene or two with a living Gerard) pages to see what Kerouac was trying to accomplish in kicking off the Duluoz legend: the loss of maybe not a saint, but the idea of sainthood and how it would effect Jack Duluoz/Kerouac in the years to come. Aside from a few good lines here and there, the pages that precede the end are nearly worthless. Kerouac spends too much time in one place, spinning his faux-poetic prose into nothing much at all. The word-web of beauty that wasn't.

Ol' Jack tends to get boring and annoying in his struggle to type through the thoughts in his head. For the diehards, go ahead and read Visions of Gerard. It goes fast, and the last 20-30 pages are made of the sad wonder that only Kerouac can deliver. When he starts writing through his thoughts instead of typing through them, we finally get an opportunity to see--too late--Gerard as the fallen angel he may have always been.

A hit
Kerouac is often hit or miss. This book is a double bull.Its sad, beautiful... The affect that his older brother's young death had on Jack is moving.If you've been discouraged by Kerouac in the past, or if you think he's overated (I tend to agree) try this book out.

This gentle, weary flesh
Surely the most tender of Kerouac's many books, this reads more like an extended meditation than a novel as such, and draws the reader into its elegaic world of bittersweet memories & lost joys. Written at the height of Kerouac's immersion in Buddhism, it fuses both his Buddhist studies & his own Catholic upbringing to create a personal faith of both suffering & a sort of resigned wonder, contemplating the ephemeral, cloud-like events of Time from the perspective of a pained & puzzled Eternity. While a lovely memorial to his brother, it's just as much a revealing portrait of his own sensitive soul, battered by the needless cruelties of life, yet still astonished by its beauties. An essential book, not just for the Beat canon, but for all who ponder the contradictory nature of life on Earth. Most highly recommended!

Diamond Literature
I haven't read ALL of this book yet, but what I have read has proved to be, so far, one of the most beautiful, melancholy stories my eyes have ever graced. I have been moved to tears, and after diving into Kerouacs huge library, I would be the first to say that On The Road has definite rivals within his legacy......This is an essential, don't believe the hype about it being "for completists only". This book should be made standard fare among literature courses along with all his books, screw it!! mabye that's taking it to far, but still, this book is grade A and the other reviews can tell ya all about it.

an offbeat gem
This is a little off 'Beat' gem (for Kerouac) of the author's canon. It is the most Catholic of his books, and perhaps the closest to his origins as a writer. It is a narrative poem, filled with Kerouac's eidetic imagery, much of it of a Catholic, French Canadian character, and crumpled language. It is intensely personal, yet never falls into pathos over the tale of the death of his brother from illness. There are lovely passages of innocence and anger, love and grief. One wonders if such a tragic event, when the author was age 4, was formative to his later history of wandering, restlessness, neurosis and alcoholism. It's a book that regular Kerouac readers might find a bit eccentric, sentimental. It doesn't have the frenzy of 'On the Road', or the bitter ends of 'Big Sur', but it is among his finest, most truthful and most hopeful works. ... Read more

Product Description
From the author of "On The Road" comes this story of two men enganged in a passionate search for Dharma or truth. Their major adventure is the pursuit of the Zen Way, which takes them climbing into the high sierras to seek the lesson of solitude.Amazon.com Review
One of the best and most popular of Kerouac's autobiographicalnovels, The Dharma Bums is based on experiences the writer hadduring the mid-1950s while living in California, after he'd becomeinterested in Buddhism's spiritual mode of understanding. One of thebook's main characters, Japhy Ryder, is based on the real poet Gary Snyder, whowas a close friend and whose interest in Buddhism influencedKerouac. This book is a must-read for any serious Kerouac fan. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (157)

Serene
Most peaceful book I have ever read. Language you could fall in love with:

"I staggered up the hill, greeted by birds, and looked at all the huddled sleeping figures on the floor. Who were all these strange ghosts rooted to the silly little adventures of earth with me? And who was I?"

"When I went back in the moonlight to my same old tree stump the world was like a dream, like a phantom, like a bubble, like a shadow, like a vanishing dew, like a lightning's flash."

As you read it, you feel that you have learned what the protagonist has learned, that you can see what he sees... you become him, just simply serene.

Kerouac in hindsight.
I first read this tale in the 60s when I was a young teenager. Then it was daring and exciting, and its eastern philosophy was fascinating and new. It's a bit old hat now, but you get that when 50-something years go by. It's still pretty fresh in its writing, and the glimpses into the author's developing alcoholism (which finally killed him) are poignant.

Kerouac's Best
Kerouac may be best known for On The Road, but this is by far my favorite of his books. Looking back, it has probably been the most influential book on my life. The story is just sohonest and original and beautiful, it confirmed my desire to be a writer when I read it as a sophomore in high school. But not just a writer. It made me want to live my life without shackles, free like Kerouac's character Japhy (Gary Snyder), climbing mountains and writing poetry. It captures the Boho 50's era like no other, especially in the Bay Area. Finally, it inspired me to learn more about Buddhism and eventually spend a year in a Buddhist monastery. I've never met someone who has read The Dharma Bums and hasn't loved it.It's one of the best books of the 20th century.

By Jaimal Yogis, author of Saltwater Buddha

Kerouac's Best
Kerouac may be best known for On The Road, but this is by far my favorite of his books. Looking back, it has probably been the most influential book on my life. The story is just sohonest and original and beautiful, it confirmed my desire to be a writer when I read it as a sophomore in high school. But not just a writer. It made me want to live my life without shackles, free like Kerouac's character Japhy (Gary Snyder), climbing mountains and writing poetry. It captures the Boho 50's era like no other, especially in the Bay Area. Finally, it inspired me to learn more about Buddhism and eventually spend a year in a Buddhist monastery. I've never met someone who has read The Dharma Bums and hasn't loved it.It's one of the best books of the 20th century.

By Jaimal Yogis, author of Saltwater Buddha

a favorite
IMO this is superior to both On The Road and Desolation Angels (which I found slow-moving and very hard to finish).Dharma Bums is a classic that I usually reread once a yr. ... Read more

Product Description
Highlighting a lesser-known aspect of one of America's most influential authors, this new collection displays Jack Kerouac's interest in and mastery of haiku. Experimenting with this compact poetic genre throughout his career, Kerouac often included haiku in novels, correspondence, notebooks, journals, sketchbooks, and recordings. In this collection, Kerouac scholar Regina Weinreich supplements an incomplete draft of a haiku manuscript found in Kerouac's archives with a generous selection of Kerouac's other haiku, from both published and unpublished sources. With more than 500 poems, this is a must-have volume for Kerouac enthusiasts everywhere. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Are Haikus and Haiku the same thing(s)?
If the title of this book would have been "Book of Iambic Pentameters," and not followed the literary format of iambic pentameter poetry, no one would take it seriously.Point:Many of the poems in this collection can be considered haiku, but it is misleading to those seeking true haiku to look to this book for good examples of this ancient genre.As a haiku poet, I don't like much of this book.As a non-genre poet, I think Jack's work is quite enjoyable.I'd pick it up more often if it were titled, "Book of Poetries."And, for those who judge books by their covers, I like the cover... more than the psuedo-haiku contents.

Book of Haikus
I bought this book as a gift for a friend--he absolutely loved it.My friend likes books by Jack Kerouac.After reading this one--he put it at the top of his list.I myself have not read it yet--but I plan on doing so when I can pry it away from my friend.I am reporting about his experiences with it.

American haikus
The haiku poem is a Japanese genre where each poem consists of 17 syllables in a 5-7-5 pattern. Kerouac uses this short form in his own personal way - he also calls these short poems "American Pops". These haikus are simple and often funny and they deal with existential matters, nature and Buddhism (often in a blend). Kerouac at his best. A jazz & poetry reading of some of these poems is included on the CD box-set entitled "The Jack Kerouac Collection".

It's Just Not Haiku (Is It?)

Who am I to judge another human being's writings objectively? Who am I to declare definitively that what one calls a haiku is in actuality not a haiku at all?

Am I the expert? I don't think I am an expert because I am still learning about the artform -- but perhaps I 'do' have a degree of objectivity about it?

The reason I think I may have some degree of objectivity about it is simply because I have been reading haiku; studying and investigating haiku (especially the original early great Japanese masters); and creating with great flexibility of experimentation my own haiku pretty obsessively for a few years now. I don't think it can be argued that there must be some kind of a genuine "aha" moment (a hidden insight) within the tiny poem; or that there must be at least one "not necessarily quite so obvious on the surface" intuited connection demonstrated existing between the animate and inanimate things in nature. It is in the absence of these things that one runs the risk of ending up with a tiny bit of reporting of what one perceived with his or her five senses and nothing more than that.

Again, I don't know just how much objective discernment I have developed for making determinations of other people's good and bad haiku -- however, I can't imagine that it can be argued that at the very least a so called haiku that possesses an intuited set of connections or relationships between things found in nature will indeed seemingly qualify it as being a "true" and valid haiku.

I believe that we here in the west (even after all this time) are yet to grasp what the true essence of the haiku artform actually is. So many of us here in the western world have not yet gotten beyond composing what are nothing more than these little filler material moments that are mostly just empty reporting of what one sees or hears. Much of the so-called haiku that so many of us create are so "gimmicky" (so "clever" or "contrived") and full of "affectation".

I think that most of Kerouac's so called haiku quite simply are not haiku at all, but are seemingly just reporting what he saw and heard at any given moment; they're images without substance. I am overwhelmed by the sense that he never practiced looking below the surface of these images he reported to see if there was any extra depth therein.

Now, having pretty much condemned most of Mr. Kerouac's tiny creations as being invalid (and I feel bad in my gut having done so) let me just try to prove my point by listing examples.

These are seemingly objectively good to brilliant:

In my medicine cabinet
the winter fly
has died of old age

(It is brilliant; it has substance and the image is rendered perfectly.)

Chief Crazy Horse
looks tearfully north
The first snow flurries

(This is very good; the image is direct and has a substance to it. You notice that there are some almost "inexpressible" connections existing between the elements of the Chief's tears (regret over something, perhaps -- or a ruefulness?) and the snow flurries (Indicating perhaps a feeling that "it's getting late now" or even that "it is already too late"). There could also be a connection to notice contrasting his presumed "warrior's strength" with his tears. This one is very rich in the things that make for a objectively good or great haiku or senryu.)

Missing a kick
at the icebox door
it closed anyway

(This is a good one and seemingly is closer to being a "senryu" than a haiku. Do you see that it has that little "aha" moment in the last line? The setup is in the first line and the payoff is in the last.)

For me those three I just listed represent the best of what he composed in the collections represented in this book. The rest seem anywhere from mediocre to just plain awful. (I get no joy in saying such a thing.)

***
It is unfortunate that the vast majority of his creations are along the lines of the following examples (which for me lack any real substances in their images):

Tuesday -- one more
drop of rain
From my roof

(This one is just some kind of empty reporting of an image isn't it? What does it being Tuesday have anything to do with one more drop of rain falling from my roof? It is confusing if nothing else.)

Seven birds in a tree,
looking
In every direction

(This is just an empty image with no substance. "Seven" draws attention to itself -- but it does so seemingly for no discernable purpose whatsoever. It seems to me that "Birds in a tree" is preferable to "Seven birds in a tree" because in this instance "seven" is serving only to uselessly distract the reader. Seven birds in a tree looking in every direction simply isn't anything but an unremarkable image.)

When the moon sinks
down to the power line,
I'll go in

(What does the moon sinking down to the power line have to do with deciding to go in at that point? If there was a reason for it he didn't say so. Again no substance to it. Is there supposed to be a connection between the moon and power line? If so, I just don't see it. Just random elements put together seemingly for no reason. Confusing to me.)

***
I do not mean to come off as sounding like some kind of high-handed authority on the matter but I think that most of Mr. Kerouac's so-called haiku quite simply aren't -- but I will give him all the credit in the world for trying as best as he knew how to do it.

Maybe I am unduly punishing Mr. Kerouac for composing really bad haiku when I really ought to be making the point that the vast majority of the material in this book is not worthy of publication because of the objectively inferior quality of the content overall.

It occurs to me that any number of others may disagree with my judgments and may "take me to task" over it -- I respect that.

I hope I have been more helpful than irritating with this review.

A little book of gems
I wanted to say that I disagree with the comment about the poor production values of this book. Even though the paper could certainly have been of higher quality, the book itself is beautifully designed and printed. I fell in love with it, and already gave a copy to a friend who loves Beat poetry but doesn't know much about Kerouac's verse. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (13)

Kerouac's Best
This is Jack Kerouac's first novel, written when he was in his early twenties. "On the Road" brought him fame, but I think this is one is his best. The characters are all real and complex, particualrly one of the brothers of the large Martinfamily named Francis, who feels society is the enemy. The book is set in a fictional town which is based upon Kerouac's hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts. The novel delves into the life of each member of the Martin family. It spans several years, from pre-WWII to post WWII. The last part of the book has the most "beat" feeling because it describes characters who are based upon real friends of Kerouac's, such as Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassidy. This is a memorable family saga that has great philosophy and meaning in it. Don't miss it!

Jack's first
At the risk of making Kerouac roll over a couple of times in his grave, I would describe his first novel as endearing.There is a certain simplicity, a certain hesitancy in this work that is lacking from his other novels and makes The Town and the City a bit unique from the rest of his output.It is by no accident that the novel begins in the present tense as the author takes the reader on a guided tour of sorts in and around the town of Galloway: "The town is Galloway.The Merrimac River, broad and placid, flows down to it from the New Hampshire hills ..."Each of the members of the Martin family is introduced in this same immediate way: "Francis Martin is always moping and sulking.Francis is tall and skinny ...", etc.The result of this approach is that Kerouac, not unlike in a play, has essentially given stage directions for the novel, putting flesh to characters and setting the location of the drama which is to come.And what follows is quite extraordinary for a first novel.

Perhaps because Kerouac found it easier to write autobiography from a more objective point of view, he divided himself into what is essentially three different characters: Peter (the character who most resembles the novelist), Joe (the older brother who strikes up a friendship with a Neal Cassady-like character), and Francis (the surviving twin of the saintly Julian who is a scholar, aloof and a loner).As is indicated by the title, the novel is divided into two major parts: the portion that takes place in Galloway (a very thinly veiled version of Lowell, Massachusetts) and later in New York City.The "town" portion of the novel is written with deliberativeness, paying particular attention to detail, and is (as every other reader has remarked) very similar to the style of Thomas Wolfe in Look Homeward Angel.The "city" portion, although still indebted to Wolfe, begins to show hints of the Kerouac style which is to come, with a few touches of the stream of conscousness style that would ultimately best describe his writings.

Towards the end of the book it appears that Kerouac was wrestling with himself as the need to finish The Town and the City began to conflict with the artistic changes that were occuring within the author.While he was completing the final editing of The Town and the City, he was already making notes for the work that would come next, On the Road.The final chapter of Kerouac's first novel describes Peter hitchhiking, "traveling the continent westward".It was clear that, to Kerouac, lifestyle and art had become a little bit of the same thing.

Baby Kerouac...
When, as a young man, Jack Kerouac penned this saga of the Martin family (thinly veiled reprentations of Kerouac's own family and friends), he could have scarcely imagined the cult that would arise surrounding his name, image and spirit.But fifty years later, here we are reading his initial entry to his legend.Obviously patterned after the hero of his early years, Thomas Wolfe, the book is very much character driven.In fact, that element of The Town and the City is probably the most obvious thread connecting this work to his later, revolutionary works i.e. "Tristessa", "Dr. Sax" and, of course, "On The Road".It is clear from the beginning that Kerouac was more interested in attitudes, behaviors, loves and losses (pardon the cliche) than telling a particular type of "story".That willingness to focus on every day people in their every day lives is what makes Kerouac so unique (aside from his later radical approaches to "style") and so American. Read the previous sentence and, if one is unfamilar with Kerouac, a person might think, "Gee, doesn't that sound dull."But the ability to take the seemingly mundane and infuse it with extraordinary attention to detail, enthusiam and a willingness to see the wonder in just being alive is, in my opinion, Kerouac's most pronounced claim to genius (read excerpts from his journals in the recently released "Windblown World" describing his cross-continent bus rides, for example). As far as The Town and the City goes, it stands on it's own (and proves beyond doubt that Kerouac's later path down the Spontaneous Prose road was hugely courageous as he could have easily settled into a respected literary career writing in a more conventional manner), but if one has a specific interest in Kerouac, as opposed to just wanting to read a good book, this work is fascinating as a precursor to the wonder that was to come.It's interesting to note that many of Kerouac's "On The Road" exploits were occurring while this book was being written.It's all there in The Town and the City, just below the surface, and about to change the world.

The Great American Novel
This book gets my vote for The Great American Novel edging out F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise.

With passionate prose and a realistic events (traits common to first novels in my opinion) Kerouac lays out three main sections that are immediately familiar to an American reader and provides a window into the social development of the United States in a critical period in our history.

The first section is a portrait of growing up and the American family. In the second section the nation goes off to World War II and the protagonist comes of age shedding his innocence. The third section deals with the pyschological aftermath a war has on a society in a more uniquely Kerouac prose of jazz, drugs and the struggle of a "lost generation" to find happiness.

I just can't remember reading any other novel where on every page I couldn't help but thinking this IS the American experience. Moby Dick, The Grapes of Wrath, Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, Catch-22, Huck Finn...these are all a slice of American life, but Kerouac gives us the whole apple pie with The Town and the City.

You can go home again
This semi-autobiographical work covering the life and times of Jack Kerouac before he went "On the Road" comes full circle.It begins in the small town of Galloway, Massachusettes, wends its way to the city of New York, then finally returns to Galloway.Peter Martin has a large, nurturing, and close knit family.As happens in many families, as the children grow older and become young adults, they begin to drift apart from the family unit.Peter, who achieves fame as a college football star, later tires of college and small town life, and falls captive to the lure of New York City, where he meets several bohemian types, two of whom are readily identifiable as Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs.Francis, one of Peter's brothers, gets accepted into Harvard and falls in with a bookish, intellectual sort of man.One of the Martin sisters, Liz, decides to run off with a musician who specializes in be-bop.Added to this equation are family financial woes, a father with a gambling problem, and the start of the second world war, in which a couple of the brothers enlist in the armed services to fight the war against fascism in Europe.

I have to admit that I was occasionally put off by Kerouac's tendency to over sentimentalize the events in the life of the Martin family, but what Kerouac has by and large created is a warm and loving portrait of the complex nature of family relationships.The book shows, perhaps surprisingly, that people most often have the most heatedly passionate arguments with those family members whom they most love.What especially stood out for me in this book was Peter's Galloway friendship with Alexander Panos, a particularly sensitive and emotional young Greek-American who wrote poetry.There was also a strange and very funny scene in a New York subway where Martin's Jewish-American friend utilizes a unique method to "spy" on another rider, perhaps foreshadowing the Jack Kerouac that came after _The Town and the City_. ... Read more

Product Description
1st printing, Grove Press/Zebra Books, 1971. ... Read more