This book had some of the everything-is-urgent and grand adventure lifestyle, and some of the purposeful existentialism that I liked in On The Road. But it was too poetic for me to follow closely and really enjoy. Most settings, interactions, and characters are compared to things outside my frame of reference.

Historically, it is an interesting time in Kerouac's life. At the end of the book, On The Road is being published but The Town and the City has had some success so he is not finding odd jobs like other times in his life. He is freer to travel broadly. The timeline describes events mostly from 1955-1957 but isn't published until 1965 so later themes and experiences shape the author but doesn't seem to alter the story from Kerouac's life. With his work being mostly autobiographical, there are moments that clearly define other works and he mentions other works often.

I think next for me will be The Subterraneans, The Town and the City, The Dharma Bums, and Big Sur.

This book really showcases Kerouac’s disillusionment with eastern philosophy and spiritualism, away from the Dharma and moving in with his mother. He comes down off the mountain and drifts away from the scene he wrote with so much zest about before in his previous books. The Void, as he called it, up at the Peak haunting him, a lingering depression and rising alcohol abuse.

Kerouac is a tragic figure, though is usually and very easily simplified into some kind of idol (which is already troubling considering his sexism/naive views on race), he’s honestly more complex and this book is a great example of that complexity. for me it really showcased his transparent cataloguing of his journey as it became more self destructive, more guilt ridden. He doesn’t hide the fact that after his mother expresses fear of living in Cali, he then feels that fear himself. A man who lived on the peak for months by himself terrified by the sight of the Golden Gate bridge. His troubles were mounting by books end, the shape of the book a rocky fall down the mountainside.


I enjoy Kerouac the most for his rhythms. The man spews out sentences that have a life of their own, they grammatically make no sense at times but to hear it is the purpose, the pleasure. After reading so many similar sounding books its kind of freeing to read Kerouac’s wild prose, all those commas and repetitive ands. There’s an energy there like a live wire.

Yeah it was good

considering how long it took me to finish this, I can’t in good conscience give this anything higher than 3 stars at this point. there’s some incredible lines in this book though where I really understood why he’s such a revered poet. I did feel sad when I finished.

3,5

Met the Naked Lunch (of zoals Kerouac eraan refereert in dit boek - the Nude Supper) als maatstaf voor al wat the Beat Generation ooit heeft geproduceerd, weliswaar! There’s nothing to life than just the living of it (Woodward, blijkbaar). En the Void.

“And suddenly realising ‘it’s me that’s changed and done all this and come and gone and complained and hurt and joyed and yelled, not the Void’. (…) Does the Void take any part in life and that? Does it have funerals? Or birth cakes?”

“For normal peasants Sunday is a smile, but as black poets - I guess Sunday is God’s lookingglass.”

“But I see the big sad invisible wings on all the shoulders and I feel bad. They are invisible and of no earthly use and never were and all we are doing is fighting to our deaths -“

“We’ll have perfect medicine and drugs to carry us through anything short of death - and will all agree that death is a reward.”

P. 343 (nr. 64) over moeders.

“So what do we all do in this life which comes on so much like an empty voidness yet warn us that we will die in pain, decay, old age, horror? Hemingway called it a dirty trick.”

So I just finished up book 2, don't know if ol jk intended for these to be published together or not and I do not intend to find out. Read book 1: desolation angels in 3 or 4 sittings the majority of which was done in route to NICA approx 6 months back so memory fails me a bit but remember loving how much it reminded me of OTR. And breezed thru book 2 in 3 days so safe to say it was a banger imho. Told MD that reading jk made me feel grounded why idk just love the guy and the way he spits. Recently picked up on how much he ties in and puts a ribbon on a point made 3,5,10 pages back which to me rings clever writing but could also just be proud of myself for seeing the lines between the dots. Something that I don't give much mind is the reference after references that mean nothing to me, l've investigated 1 or 2 but don't love reading and mid sesh picking up my phone every other page,,, also think about this thing i read where if you don’t know a word and you continue reading you miss the purpose/meaning of the whole page which i just don’t agree with at this point. Oh anddd he was shouting out Rembrandt a bunch near the end who’s obviously is the nederlands premier painting so gotta tip the cap to timing being just that. But anyway great stuff will have to get my hands on another soon which musings is the question

I finally found it. The book that changed my life. A bible for any avid and aspiring reader, poet, philosopher, writer, adventurer.

Another rambling read from Kerouac that proves Capote accurate: it’s typing rather than writing. (Kerouac even mentions this infamous Capote line in the novel!) But it’s also good typing. Great, at times. As is so often the case with Kerouac, I prefer when he chronicles his own solitude -- in this case, the opening section of the novel on Desolation Peak, which reminded me of The Dharma Bums. When he moves into the busy hive of the Beats, whether in San Francisco, Mexico, or New York, it all feels too frantic and seat-of-your-pants impulsive. (I realize this is precisely the appeal for many readers.)

Other than the section on Desolation Peak, I enjoyed the chapters on Burroughs in Tangiers, once again because it is more languid and almost philosophical. Beyond that, I appreciated catching all the references that Bob Dylan lifted for “Desolation Row” (“Housing Project Hill,” “They sin by lifelessness,” etc.).

In short, this is middling Kerouac for me; it doesn’t attain the somber philosophical heights of n  Big Surn or the joyous spirituality of The Dharma Bums, but it’s not his worst by a long shot.

Desolation Angels is heaven and hell and the world and America and the Void and his Mom. Kerouac/Duluoz is a despicable, noble, earnest, loving, whiny, brilliant, loyal, weak, irreplaceable, insane jazz poet. As a preamble, listen to Bob Dylan’s Desolation Row and realize how he creates surprisingly linear beauty tangentially, and then crank up the random-o-meter one hundred times for Kerouac. One thousand preliminarily random images turn into a masterful Pointillist painting in prose. Bebop improvisation touching on a particular theme from a million different angles placates those of us requiring a story if we are patient. His prose is so poetic at times that it’s exhausting; infinitely compressed like a neutron star. In Desolation Angels he is Dharma Bum, addict, alcoholic, villain, criminal, poet, preacher, seer, mystic and finally Penitente and Bodhisattva having simultaneously reached the gates of Heaven/Nirvana and found himself unforgivable. From Desolation Peak and Seattle to Frisco; to Mexico City and New York; across the Atlantic to Tangiers, Paris and London; from Florida to Berkeley and back again; Desolation Angels is “ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny;” his whole rucksack (lost and found); every work, every poem, every sketch every howl. Ginsberg, Dali, Burroughs are all there, the pantheon of crazy pathetic beat angels.

kerouac has the immense gift of holding the raw, electrifying joy of life and showing it to us, in hopes that we ourselves might understand. this book was rampantly fun and deeply touching, with a blend of spirituality that added to kerouac’s nostalgic reminisces of previous adventures. i think i will be chasing his visions for a long time after this. ‘he’s going to make it at great cost to his gentle heart.’

I have read this book a couple of times before. I started it seeking location of Olivia's quote. I still have not found that quote, but kept reading the book.

I have read many of Keouac's books. He was, at one time right up with Ernest Hemingway in my major arcana. But, Jack K., became too depressing for me. The sadness and depression became unbearable. I just could not handle all that misery on top of his personal story. His life was just as miserable and hopeless and the loops of despair that at one time were poetic and brimming with passion became sad yelps of day by day unpeaceful.
So I am wary of reading this book, but so far I have managed. The first part is the 40 days as a fire watcher on the mountain in Washington State to clear his head.
Now he is back in San Fran and there are some incredible paragrpahps about the streets of the city, the names of the places, the views. He is gorging on Chinese Food (who wouldn't) and getting re-adjusted to civilization.
I still have not found Olivia's quote about washing dishes, and am racking my mind to find it in other book. Dharma Bums?

I swear I will stop reading it if it makes me blue.


Well old Jack has his appeal, and for a few days I continued reading his wonderful descriptions. As expected, the sadness established itself. Poor, poor, poor Jack he remembers his boyhood with such nostalgia. He is sorrowful because of the memories and the now and he has regrets about his future already. His hardworking mother breaks his heart. Does he provide for her, no he is more of a sponge with occasional contributions...So in the end, I get tired of poor jack.

I am not able to speak the language of mental illness diagnoses, but he is clearly a damaged soul.

Anyway, I even dipped into the Dharma bums to see if I could scare up the quote, but had no luck.

Then, this morning, driving to work, I said to myself: I don't know why, I'm feeling kind of depressed. I had had a good morning, if you get my drift, and was heading for a busy day with no fears or tears in sight. And I said KEROUAC aha. Exact same thing happened when I listened to "On the Road"--the poignant, heart wrenching pages about America and modern life--depressing and meaningless and hard to manage.

So, am done w/ this book for a while. Review concluded.

Cool beginning, cool ending.

The middle was a long ramble of chaos.