Big Sur: (Penguin Ink)

I was really looking forward to reading this since I enjoyed "On the Road" and "Dharma Bums" so much. Those books were profoundly interesting and inspiring. I'm "hip" to Kerouac's "stream of consciousness"-type writing, and I like his fluid structures and generally arbitrary sense of direction. I enjoy most of his "beatnick" attitudes and his admiration for people who march (meander, rather) to life at a different pace. Kerouac remains as one of my favorite writers.

But in Big Sur I noted real degeneration in his thought processes. Of course he is describing his decline due to alcohol and aging, and his narration describes all of the pain and despair that goes along with that. But this decline was even more vividly displayed in the weak writing itself. A good percentage of the time I didn't even know what the hell Kerouac was talking about. It was just random babbling. Even worse, one has the sense that Kerouac envisioned that many of his tangential thoughts still retained some creativity or unique insightfulness. It was like he was taking a pot shot with some blabbering nonsense and he had a delusional hope that someone would read something deep and poetic into it. Nope, it was just garbage. The inertia of his previous work is not carried forward here; instead, it almost comes to a complete stand-still. I did ask myself more than once if I had been duped by his earlier works. This is an example of a later work down-grading the potential gravitas of an earlier body of work, something heirs and editors should try to avoid.

His depressed state and pathetic reliance on alcohol may indeed convey an "honesty" or "authenticity," but it also really brought me down. He did successfully convey an image of a pathetic, dying man. But one of the things I previously most admired about Kerouac was that he made life seem fun--he identifies simple sensualities that deserve to be noted, and he made life seem like an adventure. He reminded me to just go with the flow, and accept and enjoy both the ups and downs, and to still appreciate my flawed friends and family. In Big Sur, he makes life seem like a tedious and painful chore, and I found myself hoping that he would just be put out of his misery in some fashion. Or, I would have been okay if his hand emerged through the page and choked me until I was put out of MY misery from reading this depressing book. His dead cat, the dead otter, the dead goldfish, his constant "nipping" from bottles and seeking out more, his inability to find peace for any more than five minutes...it's just really a miserable tale told in murky, nightmarish fashion. I couldn't wait until I finished it, and after the first 80 pages I was just counting the pages until I was done with this downer. (Yes, I'm one of those people who can't quit a book after I've started.)

None of the other characters seemed to redeem the book either. Everyone seemed too old, too fat, too drunk. Even the donkey in Big Sur sounded sad and miserable, and Kerouac even achieves the dubious task of making San Francisco seem sad and lonely. I liked "Billie" until she started vocalizing thoughts of killing herself and her little boy. Even good old Cody doesn't inject any energy into this story. The word "sad" is used repeatedly, and that's what this is...a "sad" story by a troubled man. Not my cup of tea at all.

I bought this book recently while traveling in Big Sur, because it was on the shelves of some of the local shops there. I hoped I would enjoy the book, but I ended up wanting to toss it in the garbage can.
This is NOT a book about BIg Sur. This is a book about "Being Sloshed", being drunk, not only a little drunk, but seriously, sickeningly drunk and mentally ill. It's a tragic book, though it could be a better book and more heart-wrenching if it were more honest, or if there had been more of Jack Kerouac left to narrate the story. The first page contains a summary of the book claiming that in it Kerouac "undertook a mature confrontation with some of his most troubling issues." The most off-putting thing about the book is that this assessment does NOT bear out: I found no evidence in the book that Kerouac maturely confronted any of his troubling issues. To be sure, we do see evidence that he suffered, but his means of coping with his suffering is to get sloshed again, and to strain hard to try to have adventures or dopey interactions with friends that he perhaps vainly hopes can somehow just transform him into a cool Dharma Bum, and cause his emotional pain to vanish. This isn't mature. It's not confrontational. Mature and confrontational would be to squarely and soberly face the pain of his own life, and that Kerouac seemed unable to do.

THe story does take place in part in Big Sur (the Raton Canyon he refers to is the Canyon inland from Bixby Bridge), but that is peripheral: Kerouac was in no state to be able to respond in an authentic way to his Big Sur environment, or the people of Big Sur, and most of the book is just a recalling of dialogues and incidents and bizarre fantasies and fears experienced while Being Sloshed. Thus the principal geography of this story is, unfortunately, the Land of Being Sloshed.

I don't know, there is some obvious genius on this writing, but I wasn't personally drawn to the intoxicated rambling. I can see how this book appeals to others who are looking for "free spirited" beatnik writing, but the lack a plot was challenging for me.

Kerouac's writing is easy to read. The book is best for those readers who are interested in the Beat Generation writers. I grew up in the SF Bay Area as a kid and heard about beatniks in the late 1950's and early 1960's and have been to Big Sur and other locations mentioned in the book and I am just now starting to read Jack Kerouac. Big Sur is my second JK purchase. Definitely not Maynard G. Krebs. A period of time not mentioned alot in the history books.

I read the 2nd McGraw-Hill paperback edition (1989) of "Big Sur" by Jack Kerouac. I remember liking his book "Dharma Bums" when I read it, although it's been a while and I consider his writing to be generally overrated. However, "Big Sur" reads rather like a lot of nonsense. I understand Kerouac had a drinking problem, but I felt as if I was wasting my time with it once I realized I had to give up on expecting it to make any sense. Maybe I have no tolerance anymore for self-involved people, but if, instead of reading this story, I was listening to someone tell it to me, I imagine I would have told them "shut up, you're an idiot" somewhere between 80 and 300 times.

Oh yes, this is a good read. A dark one at times, with Kerouac unapologetically telling it like it is. The truest feeling the reader can grasp in this book is pain. The pain of seeing family die, or a simple cabin mouse, or a sea otter; death itself was permeating Jack's life, adding to the myriad factors that brought him to binge drinking, desperate to escape the pain.

One particular passage hit me really hard, about 100 pages in ( I don't want to reveal which page for new-comers, but readers of the book will likely understand the scene I'm hinting at). Jack Kerouac utilized the art-form of literature for its most accessible and sensible application: dealing with pain. Music can help, poetry can help, painting helps too, but here Jack shows an immeasurable success in detailing the human condition and what the 20th century, what civilization, what life and death were doing to his gentle, considerate soul...

Jack Kerouac was already one of my favorite authors before I started on Big Sur, but now he's even higher up my list. I'd fallen in love with his prose in The Dharma Bums and On The Road, but the writing in Big Sur is on another level. I'm aware that Kerouac is a controversial author and is often criticized for his exuberant naiveté, but I've always found something pure, beautiful, and--more importantly--useful in his ideals, no matter how romantic or ill-advised. But here, those ideals are a little more mature, and Kerouac is somehow able to make them seem reasonable (for example that, perhaps, insanity is as inevitable as death), which is a true testament to his genius. In The Dharma Bums and On The Road, we see a younger Kerouac who, in spite of his inner demons, still seems to have such hope in life. In Big Sur, however, we see a wiser, more cynical, Kerouac, who's now lived long enough to see many of those youthful dreams and ideals die. Who's already been ground through the fame machine and spit out the other end and is hesitant to do anything to bring more fame on, even if it means denying his need to write. Who's simply trying to find a place where he can get some much needed peace. At first, he seeks this peace in nature, but when the demons start closing in again, he runs back to the city hoping to find some much needed distraction from the death and insanity he's beginning to see everywhere he looks. But even in the midst of chaotic celebration, he can no longer distract himself from that dark end. He slowly starts losing his mind, and the indifference of the people surrounding him only makes it worse. Hoping to gain some control, he convinces his friends to return to Big Sur, but there, the nightmare only worsens, as he detaches from the reality he questions whether or not he was ever really a part of, in one paranoiac delusion after the other.

The writing in Big Sur is about as sublime any I've ever read. While I think there's still quite a bit of naiveté in his "wisdom," his insights about fame, alcoholism, friendships, romantic relationships, religion, man's place in nature, etc... are remarkably profound and laden with examples of brilliant and masterful figurative language. While he may be "lost," he seems to have a fairly decent idea of where he truly is, and even though he curses his foolish need to write, that need never quite escapes him. In fact, even after his grand realization at the end, he still goes on to write 188 pages of wonderful words, which I think only further proves that those blessed with creative gifts have no ability to turn them off no matter how they're tortured by them. Kerouac is an artist, and even in the darkest hour when he's denouncing this need to write, I never quite believe him and think that he'd eventually follow that need right over the edge into eternal darkness given the opportunity/necessity.

This is not an easy book to read. There are no "nice," "clean" story arcs with "likable" characters (whatever the hell that means). No, here, readers will find a raw, powerful, gritty, poetic story about a highly flawed man's inability to find solace anywhere he turns and his inevitable break from reality, which is so brilliantly written, it's hard to believe that he could ever come back from it to write such a beautiful book. Anyone who's ever suffered a nervous breakdown, panic attack, period of drug-induced psychosis, etc... will be able to relate with Kerouac's increasing detachment from reality and the horrifying isolation he feels, especially in the company of friends and the isolating power of nature.

Big Sur is easily one of the best books I've ever read and I highly recommend it to anyone seeking a profound and artistic work of literature; however, I'd recommend reading a few of Kerouac's other books before starting on this one so you have a better appreciation for the changes Kerouac has made here as a writer and a person.

I read On The Road while in college and loved it. It seemed to justify everything I wanted to do in life. Party all night, sleepwalk through work and class, go on road trips to different cities, meet new wild people all the time. That worked just fine for a few years.

It can't go on like that forever. The only thing that separates us is how long we try to make it last. Big Sur is an account of Jack Kerouac trying to make it last.

In this book Jack Kerouac drinks himself to death and is mean to people that probably dont deserve it. garbage.

Boring