Wolałbym, żeby tej książki nie było.

Przed przeczytaniem bałem się jej jak cholera. Bałem się, że Kerouac bezlitośnie rozbierze własny mit i ukręci łeb idei bitnikowskiego życia. A to by bolało, bo gdybym urodził się w dobrym miejscu i czasie, prawdopodobnie byłbym jednym z tych idiotów w kurtkach z napisem włóczędzy dharmy. Dzisiaj nie ma już dokąd jechać ani gdzie się ukryć, autostop umarł, bitnicy nie wrócą. Forma nie przetrwała i jeśli nie znajdziemy nowej, zginiemy (zginiemy).

Nic dziwnego, że wrogowie W drodze lubią tę powieść, bo Kerouac jest w niej człowiekiem zniszczonym. Świnie muszą czuć satysfakcję. Tyle że problem Jacka to alkohol, nie idee. Nikt zresztą tego nie ukrywa. Tematyka Big Sur obraca się wokół alkoholizmu i depresji, nie drogi czy bitników. Ci ostatni wdzierają się do historii siłą i nie można przed nimi uciec. Nie rozumieją, że Big Sur nigdy nie było miejscem dla nich.

Ale to nadal Kerouac. Z tego, co widziałem dotychczas, facet nie potrafił stworzyć książki pozbawionej znaczenia. Pierwsze rozdziały są arcydziełem.

Wolałbym, żeby Sur istniało jako wymysł literacki. Nie wiem, czy mi się podobało. Nie wiem, czy potrzebowałem tej książki. Ale jest ważna. Jest o czymś więcej. A niewiele takich znam.

On soft spring nights I’ll stand in the yard under the stars - something good will come out of all things yet - And it will be golden and eternal just like that - Theres no need to say another word.

Descent Into Madness: No Homo

Read this as my centennial tribute to Jack. The Audible production read by Ethan Hawke is incredible, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to get a taste of Kerouac's train-off-the-rails style. Even late in his too short life he could still turn a phrase that will positively knock out a lover of words.
Unfortunately, he could also turn out some narcissistic garbage poetry, which even Ethan's best efforts could not redeem. I kinda wish I had taken the advice of another reviewer and just quit before The Sea, but alas. Probably would have given it 5 stars elsewise.
So, the good---I have read my share of "descent into madness" literature, and the latter half of this book ranks with the best of it. When Jack feels his grip on reality slipping, he describes it in such precise, harrowing images that it made my skin crawl. Again, Ethan's tense, growling reading really evokes the horror.
What I really love about this book, though, and what I love about Kerouac in general, is when he writes about relationships. Intense literary/philosophical/drunken conversations, dancing on the edge of danger and madness, are what I want to read about and there is plenty of that here. There's also plenty of writing about women, which can be incandescent and beautiful or make me want to throw the book across the room (can't do when listening on earphones)
And then there's what one critic called "Kerouac's homophobic homoeroticism", where he describes Cody's body in terms straight out of a 50s gay pulp novel, or talks about his attraction to Billie being all about how much she reminds him of his beautiful friend Julian. Also a little blatant homophobia, all together making me think Kerouac is the OG No Homo.
He doth protest too much.
Final thoughts: if you love words, read this (or rather, listen to Hawke read it) Feel free to stop before the stupid poem. Trust me he has written beautifully about the sea in the previous chapters and there is no need to ruin it.

I had to give it four stars because
1) the shitty translation I read was shitty (and I blame L&PM Pocket in Brazil for that)
2) Kerouac's maturity is awfully scary

Ever wonder what Henry David Thoreau would be like if he did hard drugs?

So far, too flowery/romancticy language (the sea can't talk to you asshole, it's water; put down the bottle...). What a drunk pussy...Whining about bats getting stuck in his hair? Jesus, be a man for Chrissake... (never mind that moth that made me scream like a little girl last night when I tried to swat it out of my bedroom)...

I hope this is a story of a 40 year old man-child coming to age and becoming a man at 40. That is what I really want...Maybe Kerouac isn't drinking enough? I cant tell if its worse when he is drinking or not drinking...

Not enough focus on the story, but forcing this flowery language shit. What is all this talk about ghosts, what a fuckin' hippie...and these vague references to other literary figures to make us think he is cultured and not a drunk dick...The writing is weak and flimsy right now. Not engaging me at all really (not getting sucked in really). Reminds me of a hipster Thoreau book (Walden specifically). Boring...Where is the self awareness??? Where is the humor??? Make fun of yourself for being a giant pussy, city boy!!!!

Boring so far... The writing is what you would suspect from a drunk hippie: weak stabs at profound thought scattered with spurts of storyline not following any clear, coherent thought nor plot (much like this review)... Will see. Stay tuned. I have faith...These are snap judgements, I will be patient...How did this guy write "On the Road"? This is a great decline in style. He should have stopped after "On the Road"....Where is the dynamics, depth, dimension!?!?! This illustrates that he was just a pop sensation...

The book is dated. I am sure at one time running around looking like Jesus, smelling flowers, and talking about a Zen like life was considered "radical". The start of the hippies... Nowadays, this is as common as apple pie and baseball. You are almost considered a "freak" if you don't have a beard and go to yoga every Tuesday of the month. Everything sucks now...


Chapt 21 was a surprise. The mood has gotten depressing and the writing a bit better..He is old and grumpy here...I give him one extra star because he was old, bitter, and jaded.


Norman Mailer was right about Kerouac:
“Kerouac lacks discipline, intelligence, honesty and a sense of the novel. His rhythms are erratic, his sense of character is nil, and he is as pretentious as a rich whore, as sentimental as a lollipop.”

Thank you Mailer!

Quotes:

"Besides I can see from glancing at him that becoming a writer holds no interest for him because life is so holy for him there's no need to do anything but live it, writing's just an afterthought or a scratch anyway at the surface."

"Wisdom is just another way to make people sick." "I'm SICK!!"

Documenting the time in kerouac’s life as he was famous and dying from alcohol addiction, this book makes for an amazing read. Big Sur is not the beginning of the end of Jack, it is nearly the last act.

Written in Kerouac's "spontaneous prose" style with its lengthy stream-of consciousness sentences and paragraphs. With all his difficulties with alcoholism and breakdowns, the writing is convincing and often beautiful. While Kerouac responds to the wild beauty of the scenery, he also is frightened for himself. He writes the book looking back to the events and often addresses the reader directly about the breakdown that will occur at the book's end.

As bittersweet as this book is, I really enjoyed reading it.

This book is best described using Kerouac's own words- found in the poem "Sea" at the end of the book;

"A troublesome spirit
hanging here cant make it
in the void- the sea'll
only drown me - these words
are affectations
of sick mortality -
We try to make our way
in self reliance, aid
not ever comes too quick
from wherever & whatever
heaven dear may have
suggested to promise us -

But these waves scare me -
I am going to die
in full despair -
Wake up where?
On second breath in life
the atmosphere is dearer
maybe closer to Heaven
- O Paradise -
Is the sea really so bad?

...

God I've got to believe in you
or live in death!
Will you save us - all?
Soon or now?
Send illumination
to our drowning brains
...
Save us, Dear -
(Save yourself, God man,
ha ha!)"

I have a first edition copy of this one and it totally rocks...weren't mass market covers of classic editions pretty badassed???

***

Recently reread it in about a day and a half. I guess it's just my weird mind or prior exposure but Kerouac's writing just pours off the page for me. it goes down pretty easy, especially since I've caught some more elusive prey since.

It's interesting to see his consciousness moving from one thing to the other throughout the book. You really do inhabit his mind, his perceptions and sensations with a kind of searing immediacy. The paranoia, claustrophobia, and manic depression comes wrigglingly to life. Kerouac was, for all that he was, distinctly NOT the image of media and popular portrayal: cool, suave, ironic, "beat". this is a guy with really profund emotional turmoil, religious guilt, self-lacerating obssessions, who is dealing with trauma all throughout his life. One of the things I appreciate about him is that for all his supposed hipness he was really just a bright, sensitive, perceptive, imaginitive working class kid from a steel town who had some talent, some innovation, and some sophisticated friends who helped encourage and nurture him. he was a feeler, not a thinker, per se. Big Sur is sort of the place where all the energy and charisma starts to slip, as I guess it must. His brain is working overtime to take everything in all the time, and solitude is really the best place for him. He knows that, of course, and he's acutely aware of it yet is compelled for reasons good and bad to seek out riotious company for further kicks, exhileration, and experimentation.

Levi Asher once compared him to Kurt Cobain in the sense that he actually legitimately hated the attention and scrutiny and stereotyping which came with fame. This was part of the reason he drank, certainly, but not all of it. The point is that Big Sur, partial tall tale that it is, is a moving and yet frenetic account of what happens when it seems your own mind is working against you- everything seems loaded with more meaning than it necessarily should, the insights you have are working against you, and your intuition is pretty much beating red that SOMETHING is wrong but you can't see the forest for the trees (bad pun, I know, sorry) since everything is indefinably stamped with the heiroglyphics of your own unutterable despair. Kerouac writes his way out of this, or at least tries to, and the ending has a sort of jittery everything-in-its-right-place quality which put a catch in the throat of this reader at least. Big Sur is about the point in a person's life when whatever's wrong- hopefully not as apocalyptically so as here- becomes all that you can see.

It's about burn out. DT's are a symptom, I think, though they contribute to the cause.

It's interesting to see Cody Pomeray (Neil Cassady) ten years after the epochal On The Road, and even if the portrait is somewhat exaggerated the image is startling. It's not what you think, I assure you. Which is what makes it more interesting.

The grit of this book is part of the texture of reality- not the whole texture, of course- but enough of some horrifying everyday realities which much of Kerouac's exuberance tends to hide or overshadow. this is not to unduly criticize him, but to praise him. He reaches for honesty in at least recording (and interestingly, grippingly, if you're willing to grant him half his preconceptions) what crowds everywhere around him as a sheer pack of lies.

If the honesty is not the self-evaluation of his life, the careful productive self-scrutiny, then at least the experience of it is there in the art. Good on him.

And for anyone thus afflicted at least maybe it could stand for a dignified attempt to harness the madness within the confines of his medium (the impressionistic poem at the end of the book "Sea" is brilliant at parts, but contains quite a bit of nonsense and the unsettling form of a slowly unwinding madman talking to no one but himself) and at least come out with a manuscript.

Shanti, shanti, shanti.....

Books are not fixed things. Their meaning, the most important thing they bring to the world, changes as we change. Now I feel I need to re-read Big sur. Still clingin on to what it gave me, when I was younger, I'm not sure what would happen, if I picked it up again.

In my late twenties it was really important to me, and maybe even became part of what I am. Growing up is as much reinforcing some things as it is letting go of others. When I read it again, maybe it will give me new things, and that will be ok, as it will be ok to shed some of the meaning that no longer describes reality to me.

This, in my memory, is a brave and free book. A mature and sometimes bitter book, but a lucid one. Maybe that lucidity is painfull, like a hangover can be, still it's insightful and generous. Kerouac had crowds with expectations of what he could do and be. In one documentary about Janis Joplin, an old friend of her's said that people around Janis loved seeing her be excessive, they gave her all the means for her to be self-destructive and would feed on it. They would live through the spectacle of her, they would transgress inner boundaries, just by being witnesses of her chaos. This is what I felt Jack Kerouac wanted to get away from. And his wilingness to write about it and publish it instead of trying to chase his own myth is something I am very grateful about. It must have been a lonely hurtful process, like someone giving up of what they are. And it places him alongside other figures that have contributed to humanity's legacy. It can be entertaining and exhilarating to watch someone burn fast, but some people's work become beacons. And their light is there for a long time, if we chose to use it.

Oh my goodness, what was that?

біч втф
я прекрасно усвідомлюю величезний вплив керуака на літературу, але мені важко повірити в те, що комусь ДІЙСНО цікаво це читати
мене плюс-мінус захопили останні сторінок 50, але я не виключаю можливість того, що то просто була радість від наближення кінця книги