• Welcome to BookAndReader!

    We LOVE books and hope you'll join us in sharing your favorites and experiences along with your love of reading with our community. Registering for our site is free and easy, just CLICK HERE!

    Already a member and forgot your password? Click here.

Jack Kerouac

i just purchased Dharma Bums, Visions of Gerard, Tristessa, and Visions of Cody by Kerouac

thanks again for the suggestions
 
Jim,
I hope that you get the chance to read all of those. Frankly, reading Dharma Bums very nearly put me off of Kerouac. It's a very subjective thing, of course, but Kerouac's books are very uneven. In some ways, it's like have a conversation with a drunk. At times they can be very moving and perceptive, but one beer too many turns them into jibbering annoyances.
 
froggerz40 said:
" I think that if Kerouac were a painter, he`d have been an impressionist.
Click to expand...

He was. (a painter I mean.)

x9257.jpg
 
im reading a new Kerouac book and im falling in love with his writing again.

its just something about his style that has me addicted.


what other authors are magicians of prose?
 
That is a very subjective kind of question. Of course, off the top of my head, I can't think of anyone who reminds me a lot of Kerouac. However, you might want to try T.R. Pearson's A Short History of a Small Place. It has the same primacy of voice, and is probably the kind of book Kerouac was sometimes aiming at. Maybe Calvino's Invisible Cities. Maybe John Hawkes' The Beetle Leg. Maybe John Fante's Ask the Dust or Bukowski. It's just too subjective. And, all of these writers are very different from Kerouac.
 
JimMorrison said:
what other authors are magicians of prose?
Click to expand...

Assuming that Faulknger, Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Steinbeck aren't in the picture:

Lionel Shriver. I'm about 2/3 of the way through 'We Need to Talk aobut Kevin,' and I'm impressed with her style (though she uses the words 'sisal' and 'comestible' too much.

Terry Souther, esp. 'Magic Chrsitian' is essential reading IMHO.

Other stylists I'd recommend exploring (without necessarily holding to the Kerouac model) are Hempel, Hannah, Mark Richard, DeLillo, Spanbauer, Pynchon, and so on.
 
Chixulub said:
Other stylists I'd recommend exploring (without necessarily holding to the Kerouac model) are Hempel, Hannah, Mark Richard, DeLillo, Spanbauer, Pynchon, and so on.
Click to expand...

def gunna look into those guys; especially Pynchon, been hearing good things about him.
 
Try Henry Miller, he was doing the same thing as Kerouac, but twenty or so years earlier. Personally, I enjoy him more.


Chixulub,
If you want to try Melville again, try Bartelby The Scrivener. It is very short, hell I think you can get it online someplace. Here it is. It appears to predate Kafka's the trial by about fifty years.
 
I have only read "On the Road", and it was a bit too realistic for me, although I'm not sure that is the right way to explain it. Either way, I didn't like the book that much, yet I can see why people would. Hm, but I didn't hate the book either, perhaps I should read more of him? Yeah, I probably will... I checked out Jack Kerouac because Morphine has a song called that, hadn't heard of Kerouac until I heard that song, I guess that Mark Sandman probably likes Kerouac. And not that it has anything to do with anything (not that I care that it hasn't), but Kerouac is a gorgeous surname! I named one of the main characters, in a story I'm writing on, Kero. Hopefully it doesn't mean anything bizarre, I think that Cero is some sort of fish, though. Aaw, there was just the cutest hippie cartoon-character on Disney Channel! Disney Channel? Why in the depths of Hell am I watching that? Probably because I don't like tomatoes. Unless they're hidden among other types of food.
 
funes said:
How nice to hear someone else mention one of my favorite Kerouac books. I always really liked the story he put in there about visiting William Carlos Williams. Also, I think that his disillusionment with, and bitterness about, the world around him had reached just the right pitch during this period. You know, contempt for the silliness and venality of the world around him, but not yet angry or hateful.
Click to expand...

thats gunna be my next purchase.
 
funes said:
Jim,
I hope that you get the chance to read all of those. Frankly, reading Dharma Bums very nearly put me off of Kerouac. It's a very subjective thing, of course, but Kerouac's books are very uneven. In some ways, it's like have a conversation with a drunk. At times they can be very moving and perceptive, but one beer too many turns them into jibbering annoyances.
Click to expand...

you know Funes funny you should say that, that thought definitely has crossed my mind.

sometimes he gets so off track, and enters a rant thats irrelevant and it kinda distracts me and almost irritates me.
 
you know Funes funny you should say that, that thought definitely has crossed my mind.

sometimes he gets so off track, and enters a rant thats irrelevant and it kinda distracts me and almost irritates me.
Click to expand...

I don't think that should be much of a problem with Desolation Angels. But, you are exactly right about the rants. Usually what gets me is when he gets away from the narrative structure and starts playing with words, gets too jazzy in his writing. I guess if you are a writer, you have to love words and language - that doesn't mean that you shouldn't take the cigar out every now and then.
 
i was so mad when i couldn't find any of his books the last two times i've tried in the libraries around here. i've been hearing all these great things about this writer and i want to read one of his books
 
'When I was Cool' by Sam Kashner.

Sub-title 'My Life at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.'

This is a must read for anyone interested in the beat writers.

It's true, funny and sad. Great.
 
novella said:
I think of going cross-country on a mission to find the real throbbing heart of America, the jazz and soul and real people of the country, in the 1950s as a real adventure, especially given that it was the first time that experience was really possible in a car and there was this huge weight of conservative politics stifling the main media. You read Kerouac as a historical document because of that.


Kerouac is definitely worth a read, but I think he's misunderstood as a craftsman and also occupies a realm that is no longer available, no matter how far you travel.
Click to expand...

I agree Novella. Jack's search in the 50's and Steinbeck's in the 60's to find the true heart and soul of America would be near impossible today. To find the REAL America instead of the version served up by Hollywood is but a whisper of a dream.
 
I read an article about him (Jack Kerouac) in the NY Times a few months back. I was amazed to learn that he lived in my neighborhood (Howard Beach, Queens) and hung out at bar on Cross Bay Blvd - that I pass every day.
Never read his books though. On The Road is on a future TBR pile.
 
On The Road is being made into a feature film!!!

I am so thrilled that its being directed by Walter Salles. He directed Motorcycle Diaries so he has great experience with a story that deals with traveling and discovering.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top