Jack Kerouac

In 1960 Jack Kerouac was near breaking point. Driven mad by constant press attention in the wake of the publication of On the Road, he needed to 'get away to solitude again or die', so he withdrew to a cabin in Big Sur on the Californian coast. The resulting novel, in which his autobiographical hero Jack Duluoz wrestles with doubt, alcohol dependency and his urge towards self-destruction, is one of Kerouac's most personal and searingly honest works. Ending with the poem 'Sea: Sounds of the Pacific Ocean at Big Sur', it shows a man coming down from his hedonistic youth and trying to come to terms with fame, the world and himself. 'Stunning and vivid.' Sunday Times 'Kerouac's grittiest novel . . . sensual and uninhibited.' The New York Times

Big Sur

Aske Dørge

Coming back to the sleepers and staring at them wild eyed like my brother'd once stared at me in the dark over my crib, staring at them not only enviously but lonely inhuman isolation from their simple sleeping minds

Suddenly I hear a hum, a definite flying saucer is hovering right over those trees where the hum must be, there are orders in there, "They're coming to get me O my Godl-I jump up and glare at the tree, I'm going to defend myself- The bat flaps in front of my face- "The bat is their representative in the canyon, his radar message they got, why dont they leave? doesnt Dave hear that awful hum?- Billie is dead asleep but little Elliott suddenly thumps his foot, once- I realize he's not even asleep and knows everything that's going on - I lie down again and peek at him across the porch floor: I suddenly realizing he's staring at the moon and there he goes again, thumping his foot: he's sending messages - He's a warlock dis- guised asa little boy, he's also destroying Billie! - I get up to look at him feeling guilty too realizing this is all nonsense probably

I keep waving at my ears - I'm afraid to close my eyes for all the turmoiled universes I see tilting and expanding suddenly exploding suddenly clawing in to my center, faces, yelling mouths, long haired yellers, sudden evil confi- dences, sudden rat-tat-tats of cerebral committees arguing about Jack'

I go walking towards Mien Mo mountain in the moon illuminated August night, see gorgeous misty mountains rising the horizon and like saying to me “You dont have to torture your consciousness with endless thinking” so I sit in the sand and look inward and see those old roses of the unborn again

on the hangovers of alcoholics. Continues for 1.5 pages

can hear myself again whining Why does God torture me?' - But anybody who's never had delirium tremens even in their early stages may not understand that it's not so much a physical pain but a men- tal anguish indescribable to those ignorant people who dont drink and accuse drinkers of irresponsibility-The mental anguish is so intense that you feel you have betrayed your very birth, the efforts nay the birth pangs of your mother when she bore you and delivered you to the world, you've betrayed every effort your father ever made to feed you and raise you and make you strong and my God even educate you for life', you feel a guilt so deep you identify yourself

my otter, my dear otter, my dear otter I'd written poems about - Why did he die? I ask myself in despair -Why do they do that? -What's the sense of all this?'- All the fellows are shading their eyes to get a better look at the big peaceful tortured hunk of seacow out there as tho it's something of passing interest while to me it's a blow acros the eyes and down into my heart

For after all the sea must be like God, God isn't asking us to mope and suffer and sit by the sea in the cold at midnight for the sake of writing down useless sounds, he gave us the tools of self reliance after all to make it straight thru bad life mortality towards Paradise maybe I hope – But some miserables like me dont even know it, when it comes to us we're amazed – Ah, life is a gate, a way, a path to Paradise anyway, why not live for fun and joy and love or some sort of girl by a fireside, why not go to your desire and LAUGH... but I ran away from the seashore and never came back again without that secret knowledge: that it didnt want me there, that I was a fool to sit there in the first place, the sea has its waves, the man has his fireside, period. That being the first indication of my later flip.

The face of yourself you see in the mirror with its expression of unbearable anguish so haggard and awful with sorrow you cant even cry for a thing so ugly, so lost, no connection whatever with early perfection and therefore nothing to connect with tears or anything

Lovro Oreskovic

a bunch of bull, with many shining sentences that are going to be with me for the rest of my life

Mark

A drunken drug induced mental breakdown that almost sent me over the edge too. I thought I enjoyed, On The Road, when I read it 15+ years ago, but know I wonder if the years have made me forgot what that book was really like too.

I was lucky to read 3 of Kerouac’s book in chronological order: Dharma Bums (early career), On The Road (which made him really famous), and then this. I recommend others do the same: The characters are the same just with different names. It’s his own experiences, friends, and lived situations.

While Dharma Bums is mostly hippie-go-lucky, On The Road is kind of a mad tale of party people and restlessness. Big Sur feels like the final stop for him, descending into madness, and alcoholism.

His style is… hard to read at first. You have to lean into it. Long streams of consciousness, rhythm, and impressions. This later book is a bit more polished than the others though.

I was lucky to read 3 of Kerouac’s book in chronological order: Dharma Bums (early career), On The Road (which made him really famous), and then this. I recommend others do the same: The characters are the same just with different names. It’s his own experiences, friends, and lived situations.

While Dharma Bums is mostly hippie-go-lucky, On The Road is kind of a mad tale of party people and restlessness. Big Sur feels like the final stop for him, descending into madness, and alcoholism.

His style is… hard to read at first. You have to lean into it. Long streams of consciousness, rhythm, and impressions. This later book is a bit more polished than the others though.

Sara

VIDEO SU JACK KEROUAC E BIG SUR QUI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upI8J...
Vivere e scrivere. Jack Kerouac, mimetizzato nella vastità e nel mistero portati da questi due verbi, ha consumato la propria energia in una corsa della durata di soli quarantasette anni, sotto lʼegida di un simulacro divino impreciso. Convinto dellʼimportanza di riversare i pensieri e le emozioni senza lʼaggiunta di filtri e revisioni, Jack ha battuto a macchina con foga per intervalli di tempo brevi, da un paio di notti a qualche settimana, senza fermarsi, ed è riuscito comunque a sfornare Opere come Sulla strada. Un flusso di pensieri che ancora oggi si fa largo con vigore tra le dita dei lettori, e che ha concesso a Kerouac il titolo definitivo di Innovatore Stilistico... CONTINUA A LEGGERE LA RECENSIONE QUI: https://yatesinthespace.it/big-sur/

Jade Flynn

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Classic fiction. Unmistakably autobiographical, this book is a moving account of a man coming to terms with his own myth, his own talent and his uncontrollable, unrelenting, self-destructive life. Now approaching middle-age, Jack Duluoz retreats to California to escape the pressures of his fame.

Big Sur

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