Jack Kerouac Books

There are many books telling all about where Kerouac's road has taken him, but this is the first i've read that actually tells all about where it started. This book is a much needed asset for any Kerouac reader. I will refrain from giving a synopsis as it would reduce the element of surprise that this book preys on.

Tytell's book Naked Angels is divided into three sections, one each for Jack Kerouac, A. Ginsberg, and William Burroughs. Each section can be read independently of the others, for those just interested in one writer.

I was most interested in the chapter on Burroughs, and here is an appraisal:

A short introductory chapter on Burroughs gives biographical background. The Burroughs section of Naked Angels is entitled "The Black Beauty of William Burroughs," and is a 29-page exploration of Burroughs' writing, with useful comparisons to other writers, such as Poe, Baudelaire, and Nabokov. Tytell analyzes the work Burroughs published from 1953-1973, omitting or including only the slightest references to minor works. Early works which went unpublished for years, such as Queer and Interzone, are not discussed. The book has an index and bibliography. Tytell's book is not wholly given over to Burroughs, but as an introduction to the writer, it serves as well as any other.

If you have read the section on Naked Angels dealing with Burroughs, and you are eager for a more complete investigation of his life, turn to Ted Morgan's book LITERARY OUTLAW, which I believe to be the most thorough and fascinating biography of Burroughs.

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Originally published in 1963 Nothing More To Declare collects essays that appeared in locations as varied as the New York Times and Nugget. Nothing More To Declare's 16 essays on topics like sexuality, living in the Forties and Fifties and profiles of Holmes' friends like Kerouac in "The Great Rememberer" and Ginsberg, in "The Consciousness Widener".

Holmes is the Beat who grownups can read and understand, finding identification rather than the nostalgic kicks of Kerouac or the paranoid view (whose ultimate end is impotent helplessness) of Burroughs and, to an extent, Ginsberg. In his most famous essay, collected here, "This is the Beat Generation", he attempts to catalog the philosophy of his literary minded friends and present them to a wider audience. He did, and by 1958's "The Philosophy of the Beat Generation", a bit more had changed. The public was deep in love with the caricature of the Beats that they had begun to see in the media.

The collection also contains some of Holmes' finest stylistic turns; highlighting the sort of prose a poet who has turned his back on poetry can create. "I read All Quiet on the Western Front, and dreamed of star-shells over splintered skulls through which trench poppies grew. . . " Unlike so many of his contemporaries though, pretty prose like that doesn't stop him from taking a cold hard look at himself, he relates his wife telling him "Whatever made you so guilty, so despairing? I'm sick of your whipped tail.") or the results of excess wreaked by and upon his friends, the Beats.

For those readers who have previously focused only on Holmes' fiction and not his non-fiction, it's actually advisable to read Nothing More To Declare before novels like Go. Holmes' essay "The Forties" reflects back on the same time period in his first novel, but with a wisdom and a carefully restrained, style that bridges the gap between rollicking fiction and apologia por sui vida.

Today, Holmes is near forgotten. But as an unique Beat Generation voice, the fact that so little attention should be paid to Holmes is shocking and may soon be coming to an end -- I've heard a rumor that Kerouac biographer Ann Charters is preparing a biography of Holmes and by the sheer weight of her own reputation, Holmes' is sure to rise.

In his introduction to this small volume of poems, Kerouac indicates that it was his first book of poems written in 1954 in the form of blues choruses. He writes "...in these blues as in jazz, the form is determined by time, and by the musician's spontaneous phrasing & harmonizing with the beat of the time as it waves & waves on by in measured choruses." Indeed, the poems are divided into 80 one-page choruses and are quick snapshot-reflections on various details around the poet's everyday living, thinking, imagining, and walking in San Francisco. Some younger people may not readily understand the abstract "hipster" poetry, but it is obviously a great example of the great visionary poety and writings of Kerouac's world and time. It's a quick read and the reader's appreciation will grow with re-readings.

And I do mean glimpse...
There are flashes here of great insights into the personas of Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, and Gregory Corso
You see the psycho-sexual strands of Ginsberg/Orlovsky partnership played out in their gaudy technicolor glory (this is also a weakness...more on that later) and you get a real sense of G. Corso's suspicions and insecurities but to me the real value of this book is the insight it sheds on William Burroughs and his life during this period (tearfully reading Jack London) and in particluar his tempestous relationship with his son Bill Jr.
These insights were valuable to me as a huge Burroughs fan and were the main things I took away from this book...especially because most accounts of WSB's life and work in the 70's focus exclusively on the NYC Bunker period...
some negative aspects of this book are:
as R.Rhodes mentions in the review further down the page there is somewhat of a high school note-passing he has a crush on him style narrative that is tiresome
Anne Waldman and the whole who did or didn't sleep with Bob Dylan angle is irritating as is the narrator (unfortunately)
he seems like a genuinely decent guy but his tone is fairly off-putting most of the time and he and his observations are ultimately not that interesting.
I would recommend for diehard Beat collectors and/or Burroughs fans only

WHEN I WAS COOL: My Life at the Jack Kerouac School. A Memoir by Sam Kashner.
A memoir of a then skinny, naive teenage boy, from a liberal, fairly well-off Jewish family, who goes from thinking Walt Whitman "had something to do with food - Maybe the Whitman Sampler box of chocolates." to being the author of 3 nonfiction books and a novel. Kashner convinces his parent to allow him to enroll in the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodies Poetics, (of which he was the very first and, at the time, only one to do so), in lieu of conventional college. In the spring of 1976, Kashner's life has just begun. Hanging out with Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Peter Orlovsky and Anne Waldman, as well as cameos by the remaining Beat and non-Beat writers and muscians of the era, Kashner interweaves Beatlore with his own innocent reflections in a frank, humorous and extremely entertaining and informative platitude. A free-spirited "Kiss & Tell" theme runs through the pages as openly as the heroin in Burroughs veins. Hailed as a hero with his father's Diner's Club card, Kashner is called upon repeatedly to aid and abet the shenanigans of this anti-normal group of word artists. Between editing Ginsberg & Corso's manuscripts, baby-sitting Billy Burroughs the JR., backing way too many monetary expenses, one wonders who is actually benefiting from his enrollment. Intimacies of thwarting sexual advances from Ginsberg to succumbing to di Prima, are embarrassingly shared in all their sordid, ribald and ultimately bodacious glory. A "he loves him but he loves her" floats through this stew in chunks while Kashner ponders the directed aloofness of Walkman, while impregnating one of her troup. Marijuana fields, whores, drug houses, theft and mayhem.. all the elements of prime-time are just casual actualities of extra curriculum. Kashner also stands by, silently, as Ginsberg and his ilk follow the teachings of their oft drunk Tibetan Buddhist meditation teacher Chogyam Trungpa, Rinoche - who pounds on Ginsberg to "lose your ego" as he pads his own pockets and libido with admiration and servitude. Reflections from the Beats are also placed abundantly within as all give their good, bad or indifferent memories of Kerouac and Cassady an ear. One of the best "Beat" books I've read. Used and abused, we go from day one to graduation with his zany encounters and events, all the while hoping the school gets it's accreditation before he graduates. Reminiscent of Tom Wolfe's days of entrenchment with Ken Kesey & the Merry Pranksters, it's a fun, fast paced-read that shows us what happens when literary renegades become our teachers.

There are a lot of things to like about Sam Kashner's coming-of-age memoir, "When I Was Cool." First: Mr. Kashner wasn't cool and probably knows it. Second: he doesn't go through detox or recovery. Halleluia! A memoir without a recovery center or AA meeting. Third: his affection for these old lions, of whom only Peter Orlovsky is still with us. Fourth: the look at their everyday lives, from hemorrhoids to the keystone cops comedy of The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. Fifth: Mr. Kashner's long suffering, very cool, and funny parents. And Sixth: Mr. Kashner's teenaged, wide-eyed, intimidated, growing-up self.

Its not the last book that will be written about Naropa or any of the characters, but it's the only book written by the first (and for a long time only) student of the Kerouac school, and is sometimes lovely, often funny, and very easy - it's "a report of an intimate nature," i.e., gossip.

Kashner has the distinction of writing a book that is both priceless and very forgettable at same time. His anecdotes about his time at the Kerouac school in the late 1970s with Ginsberg, Corso, Burroughs, and Huncke are the priceless part. He gives us a real gift in these, a special glimpse of these lives as older and quirkier and more human than is easy to find. This is Kashner's gift and alone justifies the price of the book. This is what will ensure it's place in the Beat library.

But as for the rest... Kashner was a young man out of high school studying with tired writer-celebrities. Yet he endlessly bemoans the old Beats' disinterest in letting him into their inner circle of confidences and plans. One can forgive the young Kashner his dissapointment that his grumpy middle age teachermen didn't leap to treat the 19-year-old Kashner as the equal in life and thought that he was not. But the now middle-age Kashner who reflects for us still smarts about it, annoyingly still snaps at his old teachers for being too self absorbed to take him into their fold as a brother.

Kashner doesn't seem up to the task of elucidating on his old idols, doesn't seem to grasp their real richnesses among their messiness. At book's end, Kashner details how he eventually gave up on poetry and switched to fiction and prose when he became convinced he'd never find fame or fortune in it. That's just what's annoying about Kashner throughout this book: He went to study with the Beats to soak in the fame and get a piece, not for love of poetry or authentic living, nor the need to create and live as such. He criticizes this idols' selfishness and seeking of public love in fame. But these odd old men also had a fire in them for creation and expression and the poet's attentiveness to life and authentic living. They wrote poetry because they needed to, they felt the world as they did and needed to express it for themselves. They hungered for it. And Kashner will have none of it. He fell in love with the image and the dream of being a poet, and when he paid his tuition to the Jack Kerouac School he expected he was buying his place in the lineage of great poets. But he didn't feel what it was all about then and he doesn't now in this book, he has no feel for it or the folk who write it.

I think this is why Kashner's thoughts and critiques of the Beats fall so hollow. I closed the book glad it was over -- sad there would be no more rare humanizing glimpses and funny stories of my favorites, but glad to no longer be subject to Kashner's simplistic stabs at all the old men, glad to be done with his self interested narration. Read the book for the anecdotes, for a special outsider's look at very human myths, Kashner relays these funny stories competently enough. Leave the rest as Kashner himself seems to, without any real warmth or connection or depth.

Sam Kashner seems to want everything to be as it had been before his birth, but his timidity prevented him from acting out the 50's, 60's or the 70's. He didn't "get his hands dirty" as Naropa student Peter Marti put it, a poet who crawled from some serious wreckage to a sanity beyond shooting drugs and a heterosexuality based on what he wanted, not what he feared.

We'll skip the list of details Sam gets wrong (for example, Burroughs did not shoot an apple, but a shot glass, from his wife's head), but suffice it say there are enough of them to indicate he's not a scholar of the situation. The fact that he is actually a professional journalist who writes for GQ and VANITY FAIR confirms my worst fears about articles in these magazines. On the plus side, Sam's magazine background makes this as breezily readable as the best pop journalism. First, however, we are forced to examine some of the remarks reserved for women. Anne Waldman is glamorous and unavailable, thus a vain bitch. Diane di Prima has become heavy, and thus disappoints.

It is almost grim that Sam is in the middle of such interesting history and seems to be blowing it by insisting on his preconceptions. I visited Naropa in 1978. I'd known Allen for 4 years, and had already filmed Burroughs in NYC. Corso was a scary guy I'd met in SF and regarded as a great poet but I was never in his court, though I saw him at least a dozen times over the years. Naropa was an extension of what I already knew, and was for the brief week I stayed there, both a heaven and hell for me. In memory, it is a legend I brushed against gratefully.

I found this book interesting and illuminating in a gossipy sort of way. Amburn is obviously a writer in love with the genius of his subject, but appalled at the devastation alcoholism brought to Kerouac's life and art. The emphasis on his struggles with his homosexual tastes struck me as almost a side-bar to the tragedy of his alcohol abuse. Most of the characters come off as simply human and flawed, though some come off as sicker than others (Burroughs), while others come off as decidedly healthy (Snyder). In the end, the book made me want to read more Kerouac, and therefore I call it a success.

Jack kerouac's sexuality...ummm...a subject for a book on his life. I read it through. There isn't anything new here if you read or listen to any of the Beat novels, poems and journals. It's interesting that in Kerouac's "Vanity Of Duluoz" the dedication page states "Extra special thanks to Ellis Amburn for his emphatic brilliance and expertise". It's pretty evident what drove Jack to write. It's all in his books. "Dr Sax" comes to mind. One good place to look for the real Jack Kerouac is not with this waste of time book but at a clip of him reading on the Steve Allen Show...look at his face when he finishes...closely. It said more about him than a thousand pages of bio's and bad press.

Ellis Amburn's thesis is that Kerouac's personality and art were shaped by his struggle to reconcile his macho side with his latent homosexuality. His argument is not altogether convincing but thankfully it is basically a minor theme in what is otherwise an excellent biography. And Amburn's theme does raise valid unanswered questions about Kerouac's sexuality. Ginsberg's homosexuality is, of course, no secret, and both he and Kerouac acknowledge that there was some activity between them. And Neal Cassady's attempted hustle of the homosexual driver of the "fag Plymouth" in the motel scene in "On the Road" suggests that he was probably bisexual. But Kerouac himself is purposely vague on the details of his own homosexuality, so Amburn's interest is justified.
Anyone familiar with Kerouacs work, however, will likely have problems accepting Amburn's argument. Conflict over sexual ambivalence simply seems inadequate to explain Kerouac's obsession with life and death, joy and suffering, and man's relationship with God. Certainly Kerouac's loss of his brother Gerard at age 4 had a greater impact on his art than did reconciling whatever homoerotic feelings he had with his self-preferred image as a macho writer.
Many critics have apparently dismissed Amburn's book altogether. The fact that the chapters have been given ridiculously purple titles like "Muscles, Meat, and Metaphysics", and "Sucking Asses to Get Published" doesn't add much to the book's claim to respectibility. ButI found it a valuable and highly readable biography, which presents a picture of the author which I found more accessible and understandable than the Charters or Nicosia books. His research seems sound enough,and there are extensive notes and references, many from JK himself.
Amburn was Kerouac's last editor (he edited "Big Sur") and his comments on working with Kerouac are interesting in their own right, especially when he comes out and asks Kerouac just what he meant in certain ambiguous passages. He also presents numerous details that are omitted or glossed over in the other books, such as the details of the Kammerer murder and the exact nature of Bill Canastra's gruesome death during a subway prank. After reading his book I have a much better understanding of Kerouac's football career, the attraction he felt for Borroughs, and his comples relationship with his mother and with women in general. Details like this flesh out the picture, and do much to make Kerouac's personality more understandable.
I disagree with those who denigrate this book, and after two readings, it has become my favorite Kerouac biography. That Amburn's central thesis doesn't quite hold water (for me, at least) does nothing to lessen the value of this very enjoyable book.

This is pure, addictive reading pleasure as it leaves no stone unturned in its investigation of Kerouac the author and Kerouac the man. Not only that, but it also sheds light on a whole generation of bohemians and contemporaries of Kerouac whilst providing valuable background and insight into the literary masterpieces produced by this generation that included William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Paul Bowles, Neal Cassady and many others. Their lives prove that the path of excess often leads to the most sublime literature. This book has stimulated my interest in the Beat writers all over again and I shall reread their classics once more, this time with a clearer understanding of the interpersonal relationships and mutual influences underlying the text. I believe Amburn's excellent book is indispensable for a thorough understanding of the Beats and is a brilliant reference work with its copious notes, extensive bibliography and thorough index. The text is enlivened by black and white photographs all the important people, places and documents that played a part in Kerouac's life. Impeccable scholarship and an engaging writing style combine to ensure a riveting read and a valuable reference source that I certainly will return to again and again.

This book is a tricky one.

It's interesting to read a work that was so elegantly written and thoroughly researched but with the obvious agenda to "out" a man who is already well-known to have been "bisexual" in his activities. A credit to the author is that he does freely admit Kerouac's love (and in fact preference) for beautiful women, but do we as readers really need a diatribe about how wholesome homosexuality is?

It's kind of a stretch to blame most of Kerouac's problems on his supposed conflict between hetero and homo leanings. Sexuality seems more a spectrum that is embraced by bisexuals, not a stark decision that must be made on either the "hetero" or "homo" side. Kerouac seemed to revel in his openness, not always torment over it! Obviously gays experienced much discrimination in the fifties and Kerouac probably felt a bit of this tension. Many readers do not need to hear so much about his sexual feelings/behaviors in general and grandiose psychological theories about the underpinnings of his conflicts and genius.

The substantive portions on Kerouac's strivings as an artist and goal toward publishing are very well-written and quite informative. I really felt that I was taken into the mind of this ambitious genius beat writer.

Amburn's discourses on his closeness to Kerouac did not upset me; they seemed like ingenuous efforts to convey his fondness for Kerouac.

The football content was treated thoroughly and reverentially, which I enjoyed. Also, Subterranean sheds much light on the real itinerant nature of Kerouac, his undying love for his mother, and a variety of other tidbits seemingly culled from trusted sources.

Mainly the book is intelligently written, engrossing, and the fact that it's pissing off a lot of people would have probably warmed Jack's heart.

This book meets my number one criterion for a biography about a person who is no longer with us (if you can ever justify writing one) - that it is written mostly objectively, and with a lot of respect. This one successfully does just that.

I'm raising a glass right now.

B. Wallace/author/Labyrinth of Chaos

This book tackles the subject of Jack Kerouac. After reading this text, I found myself asking "Is that it?" These are literally the shortest chapters I have ever seen, with several of them spanning only 2 or 3 pages. Compared with the other biographies I've read, this one is too brief and, in a place or two, seems to draw primarily from heresay.

What I liked about this book was that it gave Kerouac a dimension of humanity. Too many biographies dissect their subjects with a mortician's instinct, and succeed in removing those people any trace of humanity they possessed in life - who they loved, hated, and what their failings were. For hard-core Kerouac fans, this book should be read, but only in addition to other Kerouac biographies to fill the holes in this one.

Christy offers an insightful and different look at Kerouac and his works than most biographies. He discusses what was important to Kerouac, such as religion, a topic often given only minimal treatment, and the literary acceptance he wanted but instead received infamy which pushed him along to the grave. Unfortunately, this excellent information is not really integrated into the biography but comes in the last few chapters. (Almost all biographical information about Kerouac's later years is also in Nicosia's Memory Babe.) For those dozen or so pages the book is well worth it!

This book would better be titled: A Short, Superficial, Almost Completely Unannotated Biography of Jack Kerouac and How Cool I Am by Jim Christy. To read this is to read about Jack Kerouac by the only man who claims to REALLY understand him. He gives no reason for you to believe this except his own allegations that it's true. He makes his own mistakes also (the song Beatnik Fly was recorded by "Johnny and the Hurricanes" not "Jay and the Hurricanes" for instance ). The ones that I saw were admittedly small but it led me to believe that there could be many more since most of his information is based on his own experiences and not even one remotely reliable source can be supplied. Lastly, he feels that he must defame other biographers,saying that Ann Charters book is "the worst" and that Nicosia,s Memory Babe should be read "under eyebrows raised high as they"ll go" If that is true then NOTHING in this book should be believed. The notes on the back of the jacket pretty much say it:"Kerouac thought of himself as a serious religious writer and never failed to stress this fact to anyone who would listen. Most didn't. Jim Christy did." And you had better believe old Jim but I sure don't know why.

Forget all the [junk] that most biographers scribble in their dark corners about perhaps the greatest writer of the 20th century (except for perhaps Blaise Cendrars) -- read this book and take a glimpse into Kerouac. Christy has given a great snapshot of the man that was Kerouac. Anyone who slags this book hasn't read it, let it roll around between their ears and finally digest the whole shooting match.

This is a great book!

Christy's book was obviously written for someone doing a Kerouac paper in their high school English class. This is the type of biography you wish had never been published. The fact that it is in print seems to validate what Christy has written. There is so little presentation of known fact--more hearsay and legend than anything else. For instance, Christy claims Kerouac's last words were, "It must have been the tuna fish." I'm shocked neither Charters nor Nicosia were able to dig up this information--but Christy was? Who will be the next self-proclaimed "Beat Researcher" to cash in on the Kerouac revival? This book is on par with "The Kerouac We Knew." Yet another shoddy attempt at exploiting Kerouac's celebrity.

Neil Cassady acted on the periphery of the Beat movement for much of his adult life and thus never enjoyed the fame that Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, and his other contemporaries did. His written legacy is primarily the correspondence that he wrote to members of his inner circle as well as a fragmentary autobiography. And yet, in many ways, Cassady lived the Beat life that most of his renowned friends only wrote about or experienced cyclically. The author refers to him as a "natural psychopath" who didn't possess the ability to abstain from hedonism. Contrariwise, he was one of the few Beats to lead something of a "traditional" home life. Namely, he held down a job with the railroad as brakeman for ten years, married, and raised a family.

The author of the present biography, William Plummer, does a reasonable job of recounting Cassady's life. He takes us through Cassady's birth on the side of a road, the turbulent years as a child prior to his parents' divorce, his adolescence in a flophouse, numerous criminal activities, various sexual encounters (men and women), efforts made towards self-improvement, a multitude of travels (of course!), a legion of marginal jobs, marriages, time with the Merry Pranksters, and, finally, death just a few days shy of his 42nd birthday. Whew! As I read the book, I couldn't help but be reminded of Jim Morrison of the Doors. It has been written that Morrison was a big fan of "On the Road" and identified particularly with the character of Dean Moriarty. Much of Morrison's antics seem to be intentionally or unintentionally inspired by Cassady/Moriarty. While in San Quentin, Cassady said "I just want to write by myself. I'd like to retire to a little house and write, just to cultivate myself. It would be just like working in a garden--cultivate myself and cultivate the garden......" In a 1970 interview with Salli Stevenson, Morrison said "If I had it to do over again, I think I would have...a...a..gone more for the...a...quiet...a...undemonstrative little artist plodding away in his own garden trip." Sound familiar? I think both men would have been interesting acquaintances, but exasperating friends.

While basic aspects of Cassady's life are conveyed, Mr. Plummer does tend to show a certain unbridled enthusiasm towards his subject. We are told that Cassady had some psychic gifts and that he could, on occasion, answer questions that he "picked up telepathically." The author feels no need to provide any proof of such assertions other than the rather dubious hearsay evidence of a few acquaintances. This, along with a certain thread of affinity that runs throughout the book, leads one to believe that the author has set aside objectivity. Thus, caveat lector. In the end, I think this biography would be instructive to someone with no knowledge of Cassady and his cohorts, but the reader would be advised to look elsewhere for deeper insight into the man and his times.

A Good Biography of an Interesting man {the muse of On the Road} Very Descriptive this book also covers Allen Ginsberg.Jack Keroauc,William Burroughs, and Several Other people of the Scene to a lesser extent.Very Informative and Engaging.

If you've ever read the Electric Kool Aid Acid Test then it would be hard for you not to remember the fastestmanalive. He was a wildman that crossed from the Beat generation (he was Moriarity in Kerouac's On the Road) to the first inklings of the hippie generation. He also died before his time. Maybe he lived longer than anyone thought. This book was fun. Most of the characters from this period crack me up. However, sometimes this read like a fan book. Although I don't know why he needs fans. But if you are interested in the 60s (yeah!) then this is one more thing that you will get a nostalgic kick out of.

Neal Cassady is a man both revered and despised. This book, which anyone interested in the given time period should read, gives an unbiased look at Neal (the Holy Goof and fastestmanalive) and the people who surrounded him: his family, lovers, and friends (Jack Keruoac, Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsberg, etc). It neither praises nor degrades him, presenting him merely as a remarkable man and letting you decide for yourself.

Neal Cassady was a very interesting and multi-faceted muse of the Beat writers and Kesey's Merry Pranksters, certainly an integral part of both generations. Anyone with an interest in these writers must familiarize themselves with Cassady. In this respect Plummer does an adequate job of presenting both Cassady's life and providing some background into the lives of those literary geniuses who immortalized him in their writing.
In all biographies one finds bias, it is an integral and valid part of the art. However, Plummer's bias is almost overwhelming. Constantly comparing Cassady to Chirst, lauding his virtues and beauty, Plummer creates a Cassady that becomes unbelieveable to the reader. Instead of getting to know an amazing man, one finds oneself reading a hero story, the immaculate life of Plummer's Cassady. Even Kerouac, in his works, presents a more balanced view of Neal, whom he loved as his best friend for years.
It is well written and is a decent read but if you are familiar with Cassady's life, you find your self reading a book about Willam Plummer, if you are unfamiliar you find your self reading a story about a man as realistic as Captian America.
There is so much more written on the man, and most is far superior. Read it if you must but you could do better. If adoration of Cassady is what you're looking for, read "Howl" or "On The Road" or "Visions of Cody" or even Cassady's own post-humously published autobiography "The First Third" (especially his letters) and get some great literature under your belt at the same time.

Two poems contained in this book make it worth the read (neither of which is haiku). The first is called "Masterpiece" and is a look at the trascendental (in a way), that is so light-hearted and whimsical that it actually brings itself full circle and is to a degree enlightening and fulfilling. Second is the longer and equally as amusing "Dirty (...)" poem - which attempts to show the commonality (and the problems) of human existence through none other than the one thing, as the authors see it, we all share; (...) in need of better upkeep.

The rest of the book is disjointed, haiku-like "poetry" and stories from the travels of the authors. There are some real duds (for example, and these are reproduced in their entirity, "(...) candy" and "(...) Deadwood // rides // a shortlegged // Mongolian pony"), but there are also some amusing bits, such as "Albert in the old // outhouse: "Years // And years of *hit // in there."

On the whole, I'd only get this book if you've had experience with one or more of the authors, or if you're one of those people who likes to give the impression that you've had experience with one or more of these authors.

TRIP TRAP IS YET ANOTHER ADDITION TO KEROUAC'S LEGEND, A SWEET LITTLE COLLABORATION. THIS BOOK TIES IN BEAUTIFULLY WITH BIG SUR (YOU'LL SEE) AND SHOULD BE PLACED NEXT TO IT ON THE SHELF. LEARN MORE ABOUT HAIKU; READ THIS BOOK.

"Trip Trap: Haiku on the Road" represents a collaborative effort by Jack Kerouac, Albert Saijo, and Lew Welch. There is also an editor's note by Donald Allen. The book is divided into 4 main sections. "A Recollection," by Saijo, is an 11 page memoir of the road trip during which the poems in the book were written. "We Started for New York," also about the trip, is the opening of an unfinished novel by Welch. The main text, "Trip Trap," is a body of poetry attributed to all three as a collaborative effort. And finally, "Dear Jack" is a collection of letters (dated 1959-60) from Welch to Kerouac.

"Trip Trap" is thus, despite its short length (69 + vii pages), a diverse text with a fascinating history behind it. The poems are not haiku in the strictest sense; I would call them "haiku-like." The poems offer some interesting imagery and reflections on the American landscape, as well as a number of literary references. We get many glimpses from the men's journey--radio antennas in Texas, cows in Nebraska, a cross on an Arizona highway, etc. A particularly interesting section involves a Saijo haiku with alternate versions by Welch and Kerouac.

The book overall is infused with the sense of discovery one gets in traveling across the USA. Saijo notes that the poetry in the book "has the fathomless art of random speech overheard through the course of a day." I really enjoyed "Trip Trap."

Lew Welch and Jack Kerouac...two of my favorite writers on the road with Albert Saijo (who turns out to be a fine memoirist) right after Kerouac's roaring success with On The Road. There they are madly yapping away in front seat and back of Lew's jeepster Willy, rushing through the nights and days of innocent (well, really not so) America, and stopping once in a while to record it all in haiku. It's got to be a classic, right? Think again. Sure there are one or two good haiku to be found in the collection, and Grey Wolf Press includes enough supporting material to add context and some pith to the purchase, but this book is really for the die-hard Gotta-Have-It-All-Right-Down-To-The-Laundry-Lists-fans of beatdom. Ring of Bone, On The Road, and just about every other book written by these greats will give you more for your money.

Such "haiku" - "They make good coffee / in Oklahoma" - not particularly haiku, not particularly interesting ... if I wrote the lines, they certainly wouldn't be published ... there are other similarly brilliant entries: "There's Mister I-Cower- / under-My Car" or brilliant stand-alone lines "Whore candy". Trip Trap leaves me unimpressed.

However, the book contains a recollection of the trip by Albert Saijo, the trip as described in an unfinished work of Lew Welch, Trip Trap itself which is a collaborative effort between those two and Jack Kerouac, and finally some letters of Lew Welch to Jack Kerouac. The net result is a book that gives insight into the beat movement and into the minds of Kerouac and Welch. For those with even a slight interest in either topic, this is an interesting and informative book.

What an idiot! Makes no sense.

Dr. Lardas' grounding of the early Beats' intellectual program in their communal reading of Oswald Spengler's _Decline of the West_ is an unusually substantive contribution to the field. Too often, monographs on the Beats are either tedious [strange] political treatises masquerading as literary history, or hagiographies of Kerouac's youthful wanderlust, neither of which category of inquiry could possibly add anything to the witness of the individual artists in question through their works. However, Lardas shows that Spengler's vision of the cyclical nature of civilization and the contemporeneity of the end of the Western European cycle led Burroughs, Kerouac and Ginsberg to look for the seeds of the next cycle in the vibrant, marginalized communities of which they were a part.

Dr. Lardas' prose style can best be described as "sparkling ramble". The energy of his ideas, bursting with the Mediterranean vigor of his jacket photo, at times overwhelms the larger structure of the book that is laid upon them. Happily enough this compositional tension congrues with the subject matter.

Bless my soul jelly roll, this is not ordinary literary criticism about sources and influences but an epic drama, a hero's journey. A murderer, a schizophrenic, a male prostitute and an alcoholic read a proto-Nazi theory of everything and find personal redemption through pop culture.

But is this the final frame of reference? Every generation since has struggled to re-frame the meaning of the past day by day, and I suspect that's what this book (or its subject matter anyway) is "really" about. It's post-modern, rock-and-roll, cheese bait and cadillac fins. You be the poem.