Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Visions of Cody by Jack Kerouac ISBN: 0-14-017907-0 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: August, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.11 (18 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Kerouac Essential
Comment: Most readers come to know Kerouac through On the Road. Those who develop a relationship with his work invariably point to Visions of Cody as the one that hooked them for life. While the plotting and structure aren't nearly as sound as On the Road, this isn't exactly a novel. More like a rambling, poetic love letter to a period in Kerouac's life that was quickly slipping away.
Incidentally, Kerouac did not intend for this to be a companion to On the Road. If the author had had it his way, this would have been the definitive version of On the Road.
Most readers agree that the first 150 pages is by far the best writing in this book. Read this section, even if you put the book down for good afterward. These 150 pages are pure, loose, and brilliant. Kerouac sketching unequaled by any other part of his oeuvre.
As with all Kerouac books, this one has its faults. The middle 200 pages are overwrought and self-indulgent. But that can be said of most of Kerouac's work. The tape transcripts are important reading if you want a first-hand account of the dynamic that existed between Jack and Neal. But this section could have been shortened substantially. Also, for every perfect sentence, there are ten that fall flat--examples of how the spontaneous prose technique had its drawbacks. But no writer is great all the time. And Kerouac's sporadic greatness more than makes up for the notes he doesn't quite hit.
For those new to Kerouac's work, you would be better off reading The Subterraneans first just to get acclamated to the spontaneous prose style. Even then, it will be tough going. But you read Kerouac for more than the storytelling. Faithful Kerouac readers cite the author's inventiveness, his fearlessness, and his unwavering devotion to the written word. Most writers go their entire lives without a sentence as good as, "So pull that skull cover back and smile." And that one is buried in a heep of perfectly constructed, evocative sentences.
For a more critical look at this book, try reading Kerouac's Crooked Road by Tim Hunt (with help from Ann Charters). It offers a thorough breakdown of Kerouac's techniques, while providing an insightful comparison between Visions of Cody and On the Road (two versions of the same idea).
Rating: 5
Summary: Kerouac as Scribner for Life
Comment: This is Kerouac at his most rambling, confused, rampant, unedited, and disturbing. No, I am not giving a bad review, this is the way Kerouac was meant to be read. One must read this book if ON THE ROAD interested them at all. It gives a complete look at both Kerouac and Cassady, and the relationship between the two. Also, this book gives insights into the origins of marijuanna in mainstream america. Kerouac immortalizes taped conversations between the two men when they are both high on Tea. The result is an exhilirating, often funny, sometimes unbelievably depressing, look into the lives of two cultural icons. Read it!
Rating: 5
Summary: AN ELEGY FOR A FALLEN AMERICA
Comment: Kerouac's best book, no doubt about. As Ginsberg says in the intro, it's an elegy for a fallen America that no longer exists, especially today, an America where innocence and kindness and joy has been replaced by paranoia and selfishness, with Kerouac using Cody as a symbol of all that is good and lost in America. For this reason it's probably the most pertinent of Kerouac's books for the modern era. Not only that, but it contains the most personal and heartbreaking prose Kerouac ever wrote, sentences filled with love for his fellow man ("I'm writing this book because we're all going to die") and the pain he saw at what was happening to his country ("America is what laid on Cody's soul the onus and the stigma - that in the form of a big plainclothesman beat the s//t out of him till he talked about something that isn't even important anymore - it's where cody learned that people arent good, they want to be bad - and nobody cares but the heart in the middle of the United States that will reappear when the salesmen all die.") There are sentences like that throughout the book, just absoloutely beautiful heartfelt writing, plus little things such as Kerouac wondering whether a girl in a restaurant would like him, or what his dead father would think of him, small things from his day-to-day life that add up to a tapestry of love and compassion and longing. "I'm a fool, I loved the blue dawns over racetracks and made a bet Ioway was sweet like its name, my heart went out to lonely sounds in the misty springtime night of wild sweet America in her powers, I stood on sandpiles with an open soul... Goodbye, Cody. Adios, you who watched the sun go down, at the rail, by my side, smiling - Adios, King." If writing like that doesn't break your heart, looking at the way the world is run nowadays, then this book probably isn't for you. But if you mourn for a lost America, buy the book and find a soulmate - or a couple.
"What they want has already crumbled in a rubbish heap - they want banks." - Cody Pomeray.
 |
Title: Desolation Angels by Jack Kerouac, Joyce Johnson ISBN: 1573225053 Publisher: Riverhead Books Pub. Date: September, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
 |
Title: Subterraneans by Jack Kerouac ISBN: 0802131867 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: September, 1989 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
 |
Title: Big Sur by Jack Kerouac, Aram Saroyan ISBN: 0140168125 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: June, 1992 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
 |
Title: Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac ISBN: 0140042520 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: February, 1991 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
 |
Title: Maggie Cassidy by Jack Kerouac ISBN: 0140179062 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: August, 1993 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
