Wednesday, June 15, 2016

BIG SUR






Big Sur, Jack Kerouac, Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1962, 212 pp
 
 
Read from my 1962 reading list, this is the third Kerouac novel I have read. (The Road, Dharma Bums are the others.) I am even more impressed. 
 
Don't get me wrong, it is not a happy book. In fact, it is the most disturbing of the three. But his power to describe: the natural world, the intricacies of friendship, the inner life. And the sheer propulsive energy of the writing. Finally, he captured in all these books a lost era, the Beat generation, an important, if under-the-radar, element of American society. If it had not been important he would not have become so famous.

But in Big Sur, he paints the life of an author ruined by fame, having a major identity crisis, and driving himself deeper and deeper into depression. Also he is clearly in the grip of the alcoholism that will send him to an early grave-he died at age 47.

I know there are those who decry any writing done under the influence of alcohol and probably they are right. Even more then the wonder of this writer who could so vividly write the experience.

Throughout the novel he alludes to a breakdown he had, while telling of all the weeks leading up to it, as he careens back and forth from a cabin in Big Sur to San Francisco, from solitude to being surrounded by people, from moments when he transcends his existential anguish to the depths of depression. The pages where he describes the actual hours of his breakdown felt true and real to me. And then, overnight, he is fine.

I don't know what that ability is, to recall and record moments from drunkenness and psychic meltdown so accurately. Certainly not an ability that promotes a stable or happy life. But if, as mental practitioners claim, memories are lost in blackouts and during madness, Jack Kerouac belies that theory. 


(Big Sur is available in various formats by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

15 comments:

  1. Can you believe I've never read this author? Even my daughter took to him in high school.

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    1. Yes I can believe it. I thought I had only read On the Road until a few years ago when I reread it and remembered Dharma Bums. I am glad to hear your daughter liked him!

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  2. I just can't bring myself to read Jack Kerouc. I did try On the Road once or twice but never got very far. You've given me something to think about here.

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    1. That's fine Debbie. He is not for everyone nor is any author. I am curious what I gave you to think about though-:)

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    2. Judy: "his power to describe: the natural world, the intricacies of friendship, the inner life". If he's really that good, perhaps he's worth another try . . .

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    3. He really is that good in this book.

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  3. Another interesting review. You do inspire me to broaden my reading.

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    1. Thank you Dorothy and I feel it is mutual!

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  4. He probably wrote about his experience while he was drunk, or got drunk on purpose to have writing material.

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    1. Interesting thoughts. I guess we will never know.

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  5. I've been a Kerouac & Beats fan in the past -- having liked On the Road a lot the first time, but years later not so much the 2nd time, but alas I haven't heard too much about Big Sur before -- that book must have gone under the radar, or under my radar. He seemed to live life to the hilt but then suffer from it too; he had his demons ...

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    1. I had a similar experience. I first read On the Road in the late 60s and think I just felt cool because I had read it, plus I was really into road trips at the time. On rereading it, I wondered if it was even good. Then I read Dharma Bums a few years ago and thought, THIS is what it was all about for us hippies who liked Kerouac. So I decided to try another one, and Big Sur has all the guys from the other two books but it is later in time, they have all moved on in their lives, and so it was like what happened to us hippies when we started realizing we had to make a living, etc! Just one of those reading things combined with timing things.

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    2. Interesting. Thanks for sharing. I missed the hippy era unfort and was like 4 when my dad was an Army medic in Hawaii for troops coming from Vietnam. I'd like to try another of Kerouac's books sometime, either Dharma Bums or maybe even The Town and the City. hmm. I agree, I think timing of reading him perhaps plays a part

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  6. This story reminds me of the book by William Styron "Darkness Visible - A Memoir of Madness". As regards his account of his deep depression....I will add this one to my TBR pile

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    1. Funny you should mention that. I thought of the Styron book when I was reading this. Though I have never read it, I plan to one day.

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