Big Sur
by Jack Kerouac
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Big Sur is one of those Kerouac books I'd long avoided, as by the time you get to Big Sur you've likely read about 3-6 of his other books -- On the Road, The Dharma Bums, and The Subterraneans come first, and should, they are all indispensible. Thereafter, there are gems but you have to look for them; also, each person has to do her own looking. For me, the next great Kerouac book is Visions of Gerard, the one about Kerouac's brother who died in childhood (when JK was 4) and haunted Kerouac's...more
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Read in July, 2007
recommends it for:
someone who thinks the end game of being a selfish boozehound doesn't suck.
I've not previously read any Jack Kerouac, so I understand starting at this book (one that finds him toward the end of his life, chased by groupies and in full alcoholic bloom) may have been a poor choice. That said, I ultimately found myself shifting between seeing the man as the talented innovator of language and observation he is heralded as and a boob with too much free time and lots of wasted talent.
I began with the average rea...more
I began with the average rea...more
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Read in May, 2007
Kerouac's last stand, for all intents and purposes. The Beat Legend is in top form here, as he describes as best as we could ask him to the sickness and insanity that plagued his final years, shortly after the publication of On the Road. We watch in horror and sometimes sick fascination as his mind and body deteriorate under the pressures of the bottle, the sudden fame, and the sadness of existence which took his life just a few years after the novel's publication. I couldn't help but feel guilt...more
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Read in June, 2008
. . ."Because a new love affair always gives hope, the irrational mortal loneliness is always crowned, that thing I saw (that horror of a snake emptiness) when I took the deep iodine deathbreath on the Big Sur beach is now justified and hosannah'd and raised up like a sacred urn to Heaven in the mere fact of the taking off of clothes and clashing wits and bodies in the inexpressibly nervously sad delight of love- don't let no old fogies tell you otherwise, and on top of that nobody in the ...more
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I think this is Kerouac's most honest work. On the Road is awesome and I love it's exuberance for life and experience, but it's ultimately a book of youth- all go go go without a thought or consideration of others or consequences. that's fine when you're 25, 26, 27... but as I've gotten older, I've come to regard On the Road as somewhat "blind" exuberance... and Big Sur is the cliff that Kerouac jumps right off full speed with his eyes open. Big Sur is a crack-up book and it shows ...more
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Read in August, 1998
Kerouac is a paradox. He's simultaneously over-rated and under-rated. His worst books (particularly On the Road) are iconic and uncritically adored by teenagers and hippy-dippy morons, while his best works are overlooked.
Big Sur ranks among his best. It's Kerouac at his lowest, having been devoured by fame and digested by the vast chasm that lies between the saint he's imagined to be and the bitter, depressed, exiled, alcoholic that he really is.
Kerouac's is astoundingly frank in describ...more
Big Sur ranks among his best. It's Kerouac at his lowest, having been devoured by fame and digested by the vast chasm that lies between the saint he's imagined to be and the bitter, depressed, exiled, alcoholic that he really is.
Kerouac's is astoundingly frank in describ...more
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Read in July, 2008
Jack is famous for "On the Road", but I actually enjoyed this book more. Scattered writing is not my favorite style, but this book is coherent enough for there to be no issues. This book is nothing more an account of a little excursion by Jack to California, and the simplicity of the scope of the book really appealed to me - here's a little trip I took, nothing more, nothing less, and here is the recount of some characters and some events. In this book, we find an older, more mature Ke...more
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Read in July, 2008
i'm trying to catch up on all the kerouac i haven't read (this and desolation angels were the first ones). my copy had the poem "sea" at the end.
you can tell this novel is near the end of his life - it's a little sloppy, rambling, nonsensical. but in the moments where it soars above the mountain tops and clouds, it is lyrical and poetic and painfully real. you feel how much he hates the fame, how the drink is slowly dissolving and destroying everything inside him. that last freneti...more
you can tell this novel is near the end of his life - it's a little sloppy, rambling, nonsensical. but in the moments where it soars above the mountain tops and clouds, it is lyrical and poetic and painfully real. you feel how much he hates the fame, how the drink is slowly dissolving and destroying everything inside him. that last freneti...more
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A harrowing journey through alcoholism, a mid-century dark night of the soul narrated from a dark canyon below the surface of the American dream of California sunshine and eternal summer. The open road of Whitman and the Beats is now a clogged superhighway dominated by lonely, ride-less hitchhikers and day trippers who have a good feeling about taking the easy way out. What's happened to the America of Wolfe's trains? All the Beat visionary can do is write Wakean sound poems about the sea and wi...more
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Read in January, 2001
As Jack Kerouac goes to desolate Big Sur to sober up he not only temporarily pardons his liver, he pardons mine. I read this during the summer that I turned 21. It was a summer I would quit smoking and keep my drinking to well below the average newly minted 21-year-old. Maybe the old wino wisdom of Jack worked, but what sticks with me is the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks that compose Big Sur, CA. How could I read a book 7 years ago and only remember the sound of something I n...more
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Read in January, 1999
recommends it for:
enthusiastic bathers
This is Jack Kerouac's novel where he was basically catatonic and spending his time drinking in the bathtub. But I still liked this, although I don't remember it very well. It also got me into the habit of reading in the bathtub, (he reads a lot in the bathtub in the novel itself, when he isn't drinking) which is something I still do from time to time. No, I'm not afraid of dropping the book in the water. I'm willing to take that chance.
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Read in January, 2005
recommends it for:
Someone who needs to get out there
The book overall was really pretty good and pretty much encapsulates craziness and good things similar to that. However, at the end of the book there is this poem about the ocean that is the perfect combination of jazz and poetry. It's best if you yell it out loud on a pier. It's truly amazing. I even had to go there to see what it was all about. And if you were breathing in pine and fresh sea air while reading the poem, you would really be in Big Sur.
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Read in June, 2008
I haven't read any Kerouac in a while and this was an interesting place to start back up. Man, was he drunk when he wrote this. Obviously near the end of his life while experiencing all this as well as recounting it all, most likely through some serious double-vision. This is all over the place but with enough instances of his great talent and real true ability to string words together. A interesting mess from a genius during a miserable time.
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This is an excellent book...detailing the madness of Kerouac's life following the success of "On the Road" and his brilliance to see beyond what is infront of him in moments of mad drunken clarity. I read this book while living in Monterey, California, and there was nothing like finishing the book and walking amoungs the giant Redwoods of Big Sur and the beautiful beaches and thinking of his words..
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Read in January, 1993
for a while (ca. early 90's), this was my favorite book; the extended rants in this i thought reached a state of perfection and weren't indicative of just bad writing. very emotional for me, and i thought perfectly captured a moment and way of thinking, with some truly poetic lines that made such an impression on me i still remember them 15 or so years later.
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Read in August, 2007
recommends it for:
the mentally strong
I really liked this book--i think the first one after 'On the Road'. the main character is struggling with fame/recognition and trying to maintain sense of self. unfortunately he goes a little crazy in the process and in reading his experience you feel like maybe you could be going a little crazy too...very good book, excellent writing
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Read in January, 2008
This is a classic - when I'm feeling like life is a little too proscribed, a short dip into the hundred mile and hour freakshow of Kerouac sets me on the right path again. I've read it before, but not as an adult. I do have to say though, that it is less compelling as an adult - the characters impress me less now.
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Read in January, 2003
recommends it for:
only Kerouac fans
This is the third of Kerouac's books I've read and not one that I'd want to read again. Not because it was bad, it was just as good as his other books, but because it was just rough to read. It's about his detoxing up on the northern Californian coast and him seeing the results of his crazy lifestyle.
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recommends it for:
alcoholics.
I love Kerouac. Big Sur depicts a pretty depressing time in his life, and it does so very well. His style fits his state of Delirium Tremens perfectly - conveying the absolute hysteria and paranoia that he was trapped in while surrounded by those that love him most.
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It's like a train wreck really. While I could in no way relate to this alcoholic (and in my opinion) male chauvinist on a literal level, we all like reading about someone completely falling apart because we all feel like we could be there at many points in our lives.
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