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Big Sur
 
 
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Big Sur (Paperback)

by Jack Kerouac (Author) "THE CHURCH IS BLOWING a sad windblown "Kathleen" on the bells in the skid row slums as I wake up all woebegone and goopy, groaning..." (more)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
List Price: CDN$ 16.50
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Product Details

Product Description

From AudioFile

This autobiographical novel continues the adventures of the (older but certainly not mellower) wandering beatnik from ON THE ROAD. For a narrator it contains extraordinary difficulties, for the writing flies off into inebriated, overly long sentences that reflect, describe or just babble forward in a kind of free association. To keep such passages flowing while making sense out of them is no mean feat. Tom Parker pulls it off, erring only infrequently in his interpretation. He even manages to sound as if he were enjoying himself. The production is clean but tinny, possibly dampening the pleasure of home listeners, but hardly bothering drivers listening over traffic noise. Y.R. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.
Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
THE CHURCH IS BLOWING a sad windblown "Kathleen" on the bells in the skid row slums as I wake up all woebegone and goopy, groaning from another drinking bout and groaning most of all because I'd ruined my "secret return" to San Francisco by getting silly drunk while hiding in the alleys with bums and then marching forth into North Beach to see everybody altho Lorenz Monsanto and I'd exchanged huge letters outlining how I would sneak in quietly, call him on the phone using a code name like Adam Yulch or Lalagy Pulvertaft (also writers) and then he would secretly drive me to his cabin in the Big Sur woods where I would be alone and undisturbed for six weeks just chopping wood, drawing water, writing, sleeping, hiking, etc. etc. Read the first page
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Big Sur
81% buy the item featured on this page:
Big Sur 4.5 out of 5 stars (40)
CDN$ 12.05
On The Road
6% buy
On The Road 4.1 out of 5 stars (482)
CDN$ 12.05
Naked Lunch: The Restored Text
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Naked Lunch: The Restored Text 4.1 out of 5 stars (192)
CDN$ 13.14
Desolation Angels
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Desolation Angels 4.8 out of 5 stars (28)
CDN$ 15.33
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Customer Reviews

40 Reviews
5 star:
 (28)
4 star:
 (9)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (40 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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4.0 out of 5 stars Why?, Oct 11 2006
By Real Name Attribution (There you are . . .) - See all my reviews
Why more people aren't drawn to this book, along with Mr. K's DESOLATION ANGELS, is beyond me. Forget about ONE THE ROAD--I read it years ago and didn't see what all the noise was about. So perhaps that's why I came to this book not expecting much . . . and got a lot more. The greatest piece of literature ever written? No, but it is a great chronicle, and a superb example of the "beat" generation's wordsmithery (if that even is such a word). If you're a fan of Kerouac, don't miss this book. If not, I'd suggest starting with DESOLATION ANGELS first.

Also recommended: Katzenjammer by McCrae, Post Office by Bukowski, and Naked Lunch by Burroughs
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4.0 out of 5 stars Essential Kerouac, Aug 14 2003
By A Customer
Though not my absolute favorite Kerouac novel, I can honestly say once again that I loved every bit of it(if you want some of my overall favorite Kerouac work, check out On The Road or The Dharma Bums). It was, though, one of the quickest flowing books to read. Big Sur grabs you and drags you vigorously through the psychotic barriers of Kerouac's impending insanity, and will not let go until you have completed the extremely intense final chapters. Kerouac also included at the end of the book a poem entitled "Sea" that he wrote while observing the ocean at Big Sur.

Read Big Sur. It is an amazing work of literature, and is guaranteed to catch hold of you from the very first page. And if you enjoy this, do not stop there. I recommend anything with Jack Kerouac's name on the cover. Take my word.

Also recommended: The Losers' Club by Richard Perez

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5.0 out of 5 stars I'll drink to that, Jul 10 2003
By ERIK (Appleton, WI United States) - See all my reviews
This book was written after all the damage had been done, and you can feel it as you read the book. Jack tried for years to get his writing out and by the time it was published he was well on to the state of mind you read in "BIG SUR".
I really think this is a brilliant book, you get to experience a bit of the torment he put himself through to get away from the critics that called his work childish. You even get to hear about Neal Cassady ten years after "ON THE ROAD".
A book well worth reading, slowly, Jack had a tendency to run paragraphs and sentences together, a technique he uses quite a bit in this book.
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 		 Most recent customer reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars may have some value as an artifact of the era
I stumbled onto _On the Road_ in my high school's library in Fresno in the mid-70s. Even at that time, the book struck me as very dated. Read more
Published on Jun 5 2004 by David Harris

2.0 out of 5 stars kerouac's attempt at being James Joyce
Jack Kerouac was one of the most dynamic figures in literary history. He was also one of America's greatest authors--he gave us two of the finest books written, _On the Road_ and... Read more
Published on Jan 8 2003 by adead_poet@hotmail.com

5.0 out of 5 stars Felt it in my soul
While I'm a fan of virtually any beat writers' works, I'm partial to books by Jack Kerouac. This one is the one that touched my soul the most. Read more
Published on Dec 5 2002 by C. Lukasik

5.0 out of 5 stars An Amazing Read
Some of his most beautiful & poetic lyrics in this memoir and at the same time very real, scary and certainly dark in large sections--it's a paranoid view of the world that... Read more
Published on Aug 4 2002 by Ian Caton

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful and Scary
It's taken me about a year to process this book, having read it during a three-week motorcycle tour of the West in the summer of 2001. Read more
Published on Jul 6 2002 by John M Flora

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing!
Someone else reviewed this book and said it is better than 'On the Road'. I completey agree. I would like to add that if you are new to Kerouac, this book is not the one to... Read more
Published on April 8 2002

5.0 out of 5 stars Reflections Upon a Zen Paradox
In this novel Keroauc starts to explore the possibilty
that he had become a victim of the caricature which he
had invented and chosen to portray. Read more
Published on Jan 18 2002 by Patrick Julian Cassidy

4.0 out of 5 stars Big Sur, An Extravagantly Interpretive Review
By the time I had made it to Kerouac's Big Sur, I had already traveled through the pages of On The Road and The Dharma Bums. Read more
Published on Dec 14 2001 by Robert Charpentier

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for anyone.
For those of you have read "On the Road" this book will not compare. In Big Sur Jack Kerouac is no longer a free-spirited youth in search of the Beat "Ideals"... Read more
Published on Oct 27 2001 by Bryan Eck

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing book
Big Sur is one of the most harrowing books ever written about alcoholism, mental illness, and fame. The demons that Jack Kerouac describes in this book will be nothing new to... Read more
Published on Sep 26 2001 by Jeffrey Ellis

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