- Paperback
- Publisher: Grove Press (August 1989)
- ISBN-10: 0802150403
- ISBN-13: 978-0802150400
- Product Dimensions: 17.3 x 10.7 x 1.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 136 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
ONCE I WAS YOUNG and had so much more orientation and could talk with nervous intelligence about everything and with clarity and without as much literary preambling as this; in other words this is the story of an unself-confident man, at the same time of an egomaniac, naturally, facetious won't do-just to start at the beginning and let the truth seep out, that's what I'll do-. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
ONCE I WAS YOUNG and had so much more orientation and could talk with nervous intelligence about everything and with clarity and without as much literary preambling as this; in other words this is the story of an unself-confident man, at the same time of an egomaniac, naturally, facetious won't do-just to start at the beginning and let the truth seep out, that's what I'll do-. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
music as words EASY TO BE swept up in ONSLAUGHT,
By david (ALaMO usa) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Subterraneans (Paperback)
who cares about the story , i didnt i WAS SWEPT UP IN ITS ENERGY! THE AUDACITY OF IT, ITS LIKE HES COMPOSING SONE GREAT ORATORY SOME WALTZ,stompELECTRONIC MORSE CODE, CARRY ME HIGH conceit ... glorious, BETTER THAN EVER,SWEPT UP IN feat of it all dizzy, type type glory. Musical in the extreme.TAP TAP,KEYS TO THE FITH dimesion words chasing symbols swept up in some TORRENT OF compose the vowels of HUNGER FOR, lifes appetites,TOO hail the power and glory of it all,
4.0 out of 5 stars
A story well told despite the rambling,
By Chris (Washington state, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Subterraneans (Paperback)
I don't know what you'd call the prose style of this book. It seems to be a "stream of consciousness" style where Kerouac tells a story and includes all of his related thoughts as he is telling the story, whether those related thoughts are intelligible to the reader or not. I'm not a fan of styles of novel writing other than the standard format of normal sentences and paragraphs(such as that found in ON THE ROAD). Jack rambles on and on at times for two pages in this book without the benefit of a paragraph or a period breaking his flow. But regardless of its difficult style which makes somewhat less effective than it could be, the story is presented with skill and coherence. Jack is able to evoke coherent human feeling through his writing, in the midst of the rambling . This story written in and set in early 1950's San Francisco. It is based apparently on a true story, the love of Kerouac, who in the story is called Leo Percepied with a half-Cherokee half-black mentally unstable bohemian lady whom is called Mardou Fox. Mardou is portrayed as a tragic figure, a very beautiful lady, a sex object of the junkies and raffish intellectuals that Kerouac knows, abused and neglected in her childhood, full of the spirit and sadness of the Native American and the African American. I suppose the best writing is towards the end of the book. Here we actually see paragraphs to break the rambling and periods! Here the story becomes more coherent and the reader sees Leo reaching the climax of his struggle as his jealousy and unreliability and alcoholism takes its toll on his relationship with Mardou. He never 100 percent certain about whether he wants to be with Mardou. Mardou herself is a sometimes real, sometimes hard to grasp, a distant figure. The best part of the book is Leo (Kerouac). In his flaws and his actions the reader is able to grasp his humanness. I felt some empathy for him. I liked the part where he is at the railyard ,weeping, and reflecting on his mother and upbraiding himself for being unreliable.
3.0 out of 5 stars
a glorious headache,
By Josh R. (Augusta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Subterraneans (Paperback)
Hello...my name is Josh and I'm a Beat literature addict ("HELLO JOSH"). Prior to last week, the only Kerouac novels I owned were On the Road and The Dharma Bums. I bought The Subterraneans because, after leafing through it in a local bookstore, it looked like, at the very least, an interesting and wild piece of work.That it was, both former and latter. Kerouac wrote this book in three days and three nights on a sudden burst of inspiration, much like On the Road. The difference here is complete stream-of-consciousness...and the book reads that way. Boasting almost no indentation or seperation of speakers, what you find is masses and masses of words slapped down on the pages in an inspired fury. This asset is the book's greatest strength and weakest attribute. Commendable, yes; however, you cannot read more than thirty or so pages at a time, or you will faint with a headache. Pick this book up; its an interesting chapter in the life of Kerouac, and an unspoken note to perfectionist writers to loosen up.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
