Lonesome Traveler: Amazon.ca: Jack Kerouac: Books

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8 Reviews

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4.1 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Wanderer's Bible, Feb 16 2002

By

Patrick Julian Cassidy (San Francisco...Author of "A Journey to Bohemia") - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lonesome Traveler (Paperback)

I recently bought this book as a present for my daughter
to read and that prompted me to fish out my old road worn
copy which I carried around religiously during the days her
mother and I bummed around the western US & Mexico.
Kerouac always had the ability to spiritualize the
experience for me. This book exemplifies his respect
and admiration for those individuals who have forsworn the
luxuries of a normal life for the intrisically demanding
rigors of the spiritual quest. Rereading this book had
me aching to be back on the road once again. Want to do
Mexico again, Angela?

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5.0 out of 5 stars Another roller coaster ride from Kerouac, this non-fiction, Jan 2 2001

By

C. Ebeling "ctlpareader" (PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Lonesome Traveler (Paperback)

"Creative non-fiction" is a come lately term but it fits Jack Kerouac's 1960 account of his real life travels and experiences. The spontaneous, experimental style that marks his fiction is in high use in Lonesome Traveler, particularly in the chapter devoted to the railroad. In that piece, language becomes a mimic of the sounds and rhythms of the environment in which he works, the Southern Pacific runs between San Francisco and San Jose in the early 1950's. Forget words and structure as you know it, but don't worry about getting lost in the prose. If you trust Kerouac, he won't let you get lost, he brings you home in the end. As he visits Mexico, the shipping lanes, the streets of New York, a lone fire look-out on Desolation Peak in Washington State, and Europe, he speaks openly of what drives him. The last chapter is an ode to the vanishing hobo whose ethic he has embraced; as this was written, our changing society was transforming hobos into vagrant criminals and the homeless problem, extinguishing their culture with suspicion and policing. Kerouac is both Thoreau and the hobo, the fine or wide line depending upon how you look at it being his education and pursuit of spirituality.

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3.0 out of 5 stars Sometimes a Great Writer, Dec 21 2000

By

MyComa - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lonesome Traveler (Paperback)

As with most Kerouac books, Lonesome Traveler lacks cohesion. This is naturally the essence of spontaneous prose. What this book offers, however, is a good sampling of the types of scenarios Kerouac liked to explore: 1) The Road, 2) Holing up in Isolation, 3) New York, 4) Relationship between the past and present.

While some readers may never fully appreciate Kerouac's descriptions of life as a hobo, riding railcars throughout California, most must at least admire the experience. It serves as a solid juxtaposition to the New York Scenes and the Big Trip to Europe. These sections are held together by the Desolation Peak section which, along with the New York Scenes Kerouac excelled at writing, proves to be the best writing in the book. The final piece--The Vanishing American Hobo--seems to be Kerouac's attempt to explain why he never fully embraced the wanderer's life.

This book is a fairly good introduction to Kerouac's work, especially considering its autobiographical style which later become Kerouac's forte. As always, Kerouac does a masterful job of capturing the mood of the time and placing his reader in the middle of it all. Still, I would probably save this one for later and read one of his fictionalized bios first, such as On the Road or Subterraneans.

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Most recent customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A tale of 2 halves
i have just finished the book for the second time managing to hold together the now loose leafed pages of my 30 year old copy while trying to read most of the book outdoors. Read more

Published on Mar 21 2000 by phil speed

4.0 out of 5 stars A tale of 2 halves
i have just finished the book for the second time managing to hold together the now loose leafed pages of my 30 year old copy while trying to read most of the book outdoors. Read more

Published on Mar 21 2000 by phil speed