Most helpful customer reviews
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing -- Truly Amazing -- Don't Miss It!, May 25 2004
By A Customer
This book contains everything that Kerouac did best, his long rambling descriptions of the world around him, his fantasy insights into the loneliness of everyone he passed and watched. It in essence captures the beat generation even more artfully than ON THE ROAD, and works as a more philosophical piece. It also stands as a great companion to ON THE ROAD; it is book that really is a necessity to read if you are going to read ON THE ROAD because it gives a more detailed look at Neal Cassady, presents a more in depth vision of his philosophy of America and shows strongly his Whitmanian influences and ideals, while holding a heartbreaking sadness and loneliness for what he sees at the heart of all man kind. It reads like poetry and, though it's not to be rushed through, moves quickly and insightfully through the post war generations reality. Don't miss this beautiful reading experience! Pick up VISIONS OF CODY right away! You won't be sorry! Another novel I recommend, an Amazon quick-pick, is THE LOSERS CLUB by Richard Perez
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5.0 out of 5 stars
AN ELEGY FOR A FALLEN AMERICA, April 11 2004
By A Customer
Kerouac's best book, no doubt about. As Ginsberg says in the intro, it's an elegy for a fallen America that no longer exists, especially today, an America where innocence and kindness and joy has been replaced by paranoia and selfishness, with Kerouac using Cody as a symbol of all that is good and lost in America. For this reason it's probably the most pertinent of Kerouac's books for the modern era. Not only that, but it contains the most personal and heartbreaking prose Kerouac ever wrote, sentences filled with love for his fellow man ("I'm writing this book because we're all going to die") and the pain he saw at what was happening to his country ("America is what laid on Cody's soul the onus and the stigma - that in the form of a big plainclothesman beat the s//t out of him till he talked about something that isn't even important anymore - it's where cody learned that people arent good, they want to be bad - and nobody cares but the heart in the middle of the United States that will reappear when the salesmen all die.") There are sentences like that throughout the book, just absoloutely beautiful heartfelt writing, plus little things such as Kerouac wondering whether a girl in a restaurant would like him, or what his dead father would think of him, small things from his day-to-day life that add up to a tapestry of love and compassion and longing. "I'm a fool, I loved the blue dawns over racetracks and made a bet Ioway was sweet like its name, my heart went out to lonely sounds in the misty springtime night of wild sweet America in her powers, I stood on sandpiles with an open soul... Goodbye, Cody. Adios, you who watched the sun go down, at the rail, by my side, smiling - Adios, King." If writing like that doesn't break your heart, looking at the way the world is run nowadays, then this book probably isn't for you. But if you mourn for a lost America, buy the book and find a soulmate - or a couple."What they want has already crumbled in a rubbish heap - they want banks." - Cody Pomeray.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Book Yet can be a Bear To Read, Nov 9 2003
I agree with many that say that the first 150 pages are really worth reading. They are beautiful and brilliant with images and gives you an inside seat as to how On the Road came about. Yet after that it is a tough read. The transcripts are long, go on forever and you wonder why they were included. The last half of the book is pretty good. This is defiantly one of those books you will want to read when you have the time, skill to concentrate , and desire for a wild ride. It took the two years to read this book and I am not a slow reader. But I was glad I had read it.
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by Jack Kerouac
by Jack Kerouac
