In "Subterraneans" Leo and Mardou live amongst the Subterraneans who haunt the bars and clubs of San Fransisco and have a bittersweet love affair. In "Pic", on the road but not yet overawed, ten-year-old Pic tells the story in the Negro dialect of the North Carolina farm country.
--This text refers to an alternate
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The Subterraneans (Kerouac, Jack)
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About the Author
Jack Kerouac wrote a number of highly influential and popular novels - most famously the international best-seller ON THE ROAD - and is remembered as one of the key figures of the legendary Beat generation. As much as anything, he came to represent a philosophy, a way of life.
--This text refers to an alternate
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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
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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
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By david
Format: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,
By Chris
Format: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.
By Josh R.
Format: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.
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.
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4.2 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing masterpiece of american lit
This and Big Sur prove to me that Kerouac was worth all the hype. I as most started with On the Road. but soon graduated on to real literature. Read more
Published on Mar 13 2004 by philip hoffman
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Other Side of Kerouac
"The Subterraneans," in my opinion, is a must-read for serious Kerouac fans. It doesn't exhibit the manic, adventurous, and outgoing writer that we all know from "On... Read more
Published on Aug 8 2003 by Patrick King
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Romance Novel of the Beat Generation
Jack Kerouac's 1953 book "Subterraneans" explores love, Hedonism, addiction and mystique (the aura of the Beat generation) all in a little more than 100 pages. Read more
Published on Aug 6 2003 by K. Bentley
3.0 out of 5 stars
Dynamic look at the creative and emotional drives of Kerouac
This short novel--the third novel of Kerouac's to be published--is written with nonstop ferocity. The narrator, Leo Percepied, Kerouac's alter-ego here, tells with rapid-fire... Read more
Published on July 8 2003 by matthewslaughter
5.0 out of 5 stars
Kerouac does it again.
When you think of the 1950's, you envision carhops, Beaver Cleaver and Buddy Holly. What you don't think of is an underground world of sex and drugs dominated by poets and addicts. Read more
Published on May 7 2003 by Caris O'Malley
3.0 out of 5 stars
Experimental? Yes. Effective? No
This is clearly a piece of Sophomoric garbage that is muddied up in order to appear deeper than it really is. Read more
Published on Mar 11 2003 by Timothy L. Atkinson
3.0 out of 5 stars
Beat Surrender
This isn't Jack's best. In "On the Road" Dean Moriarty plays Huck to Sal's Tom Sawyer: a good kid at heart but prone to trouble with his wild friend. Read more
Published on Aug 8 2002 by Arch Llewellyn
3.0 out of 5 stars
be prepared
i've heard this book compared to the Dharma Bums by a number of people, but i don't like that comparisson. The entire mood and circumstances of this novel are quite different. Read more
Published on April 20 2002 by Pen Name?
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Reviewers Out-Kerouac Kerouac
Kerouac generates a lot of emotion because of the beatnik settings he uses, feelings which come from the same causes that created the beatniks, the desire to escape the pressures... Read more
Published on Mar 8 2002 by Simple tool
5.0 out of 5 stars
intoxicating magical story
of a doomed loved, written in beautiful poetic style that captures the sad and tragic essence of the story and atmosphere. Read more
Published on Feb 6 2002 by dame doom
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