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Title: Vanity of Duluoz: An Adventurous Education, 1935-46 by John Kerouac ISBN: 0-399-50386-2 Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: 01 March, 1978 Format: Paperback List Price(USD): $4.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.4 (10 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The last of Kerouac
Comment: For all intents and purposes this is Kerouac's last real novel. With great fondness and honesty, he goes over a lot of the same themes and events as in his earlier works, but now he's tired, not feeling the need to prove anything and just barely holding on to hopes that things ever get better. This is a sincere, lovely, heartbreaking and haunting book of reflections at the end of a pained but adventurous life.
Rating: 3
Summary: FOOTBALL AND WAR
Comment: All of Jack Kerouac's writings don't really fit into the category of novels. They are more in the form of the sentimental memories of Proust or a man looking back on his life as if he were already dead. The Vanity of Duluoz is no exception to this style. Of course, Kerouac takes the title for his work from the Bible verse in which it is said "all is vanity". Written just two years before his death, most of the book seems a Cliff's Notes to his entire body of work.
The book is subtitled "An Adventerous Education 1935-1945" and basically covers ground already seen in other works. Except in this one, he is writing a book for his wife, as if to fill in the story of his life to someone. The driving force behind this work is football and war. It follows Kerouac from early high school football games into college and then into the merchant marines and to the formative years of the beat movement.
Even though one of Kerouac's biographers, Barry Miles, said this book was written in his "fat Elvis period", I found the book quite good. Not among the best of his work, but he still had the spark of writing even in the midst of alcoholism.
Especially good are his experiences in entering Columbia University and the politics that got involved with his playing time. I didn't know that Jack pretty much decided to write because the coach of his team refused to let him start. So, basically, Kerouac just said "I have better things to do than take this. I'm gonna become a writer".
Something not really touched on in other novels but included in this one is Jack's service in the armed forces and the merchant marines. He wasn't afraid to serve in the military during World War II, he just couldn't take being ordered around. Back then, merchant ships crossing the Atlantic were in just as much danger from German u-boats as any battleship.
When the book starting to lose its power was when Jack met the other Beats, who really in the end were a bunch of losers. Kerouac was like Cool Hand Luke. His friends fed off him and on him, draining his energy and sapping his ideas. Kerouac makes up names that are so thinly artificial for his friends that you feel like you're reading a Dickens novel. When he concentrates on himself, he is a genius. When he writes about others, he becomes weak. He should have kept the radar squarely on himself.
This book is pretty good. Average for Kerouac. It is a paradox. It is a novel written about his a joyous youth by a man who sees himself in bitter old age.
Rating: 5
Summary: One of the best from THE best!
Comment: No, this isn't just for fanatics! If you want a history of good ol' Jack, then yes, it is just for fanatics. However, if you just want an exciting adventure, it's for anyone. This book has got something for everybody, seriously. It has crime, "romance", adventure on the high seas, everything and more.... and then there's always sport (now there's an obscure M. Python reference! Good thing it fits(:) Anyway, this book is a clasic, no matter what stuffy old lit scholars say. One of my favourite quotes comes from this one: "Insofar as nobody loves my dashes anyway, I'll use regular punctuation for the new illiterate generation." What's my favourite Jack quote? "Holy suffering cows!", that's what (:
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Title: Maggie Cassidy by Jack Kerouac ISBN: 0140179062 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 August, 1993 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Visions of Gerard by Jack Kerouac ISBN: 0140144528 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 1991 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Doctor Sax: Faust Part Three by Jack Kerouac ISBN: 0802130496 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 1988 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Visions of Cody by Jack Kerouac ISBN: 0140179070 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 August, 1993 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Satori in Paris and Pic (B-541) by Jack Kerouac ISBN: 0802130615 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 1988 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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