Jack Kerouac Books

The book dives into the similarities between the main character, McCracken and the legendary Jack Kerouac. From different aspects of the author's life do we see the independence and sensitivity that were such a major part of not only Kerouac but the author as well. Two of the underlying themes within the book deal with each of their conflicts with alcoholism, spirituality and their French-Canadian roots (The author does a good job of bringing up the conflict over just how much of importance Kerouac had placed on his Canadian ancestry). All in all, while the time sequences were a bit sparatic and therefore hard to follow, the basic themes were always prevelant without being overbearing. McGoogan does a good job of giving a subjective view of Kerouac within this fictional form. I would reccomend the book moreso for readers interested in the complexities of Kerouac than for the average reader. (But that could be because of the interest that I myself carry within the subject).

Growing up in the 60's & coming of age in the 70's, I was curious about what spawned the hippie movement. Having heard controversial reviews about this book, I bought it in the hope that it could shed some light on the so-called "Beat Generation." I suppose it did that to a degree. Kerouac's writing is very colorful and allows one to paint a picture in one's mind. Maybe I'm just too young to fully appreciate this work. I found the story line to be a bit tragic and quite abstract. It left me with more questions about the "Beat Generation" than before I read the book.

Je l'ai trouve si interessant. Kerouac parle de ses voyages atour les E.U. par une voiture ancienne. De temps en temps, il m'ennuie. On voit clairement le culture des "Beatnicks."

I applaude Jack Kerouac is Pregnant for a variety of reasons. The sarcastic, wry wit that gleams through the pages is evident after obvious examination. And the incredible, massive madness that seeps through the corners of the deliriously delightful assortment of plays. Carry on, Aurelie Sheehan. Be great.

Ah for the days of a linear plot and a novel that is not so self indulgent it blurs the line between fiction and non-fiction by being neither. Such is Jack Kerouac Is Pregnant, an amateur outing that rides soley on its clever title.

"It takes a long time to see you are a slave," muses one character in Aurelie Sheehan's debut collection, a line that succinctly captures the cumulative effect of her stories. These lyrical, sometimes bitingly funny chronicles of women breaking out of imposed roles feature misplaced waitresses, secretaries, prostitutes, and other working girls. In the title story, a woman yearns to be like Jack Kerouac, but is held back by a litany of rules teaching her to be a submissive girl, a "pansy." The main character in "Look at the Moon" is bored to distraction by her receptionist job but is still half under the influence of a Catholic upbringing when she hooks up with a flamboyant stranger and goes on a life-altering road trip with her. In "The Dove," a wealthy widow who was pressured by her family to marry a rich man spends her life fixated on an affair she had a week before her wedding. Women young and old, rich and poor, make soul-threatening sacrifices to adhere to societal or familial strictures. Love is passionately evoked here, as are the myths and illusions that sustain it. Non-linear, poetic, and arresting, Sheehan's storytelling skills ring with the authority of honesty, compassion, and experience.

A disappointing collection, probably put together to capitalize on the author's name.

Jack Kerouac, Scattered Poems (City Lights, 1971)

Over the few years Kerouac wrote, he dashed off a number of poems that managed never to get collected, many of them in letters to Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady. City Lights, with help from Ginsberg, compiled a small volume of these poems and released them some thirty years ago.

While a few of the works here (and, in some cases, a line or two within one of the works) shows the power and natural affinity for language that makes Kerouac one of the enduring figures of American literature, Most of what's here is solid evidence that, where uncollected poems are concerned, there's usually a reason why they weren't published in the first place. Perhaps it is the prominence of the author in question, but while reading most of this work, I got a sense of hopelessness, a pathetic (in the classic definition of the term) feeling of emptiness. Unlike both the surrealism and the jazz from which Kerouac and his fellow Beats drew their inspiration, and also unlike the authors
from that time who have been incorrectly labelled as Beats (Bukowski, Alfred Chester, to an extent Paul Bowles, etc.), Kerouac's material seems to lack either the underlying meaning or the sense of immediate purpose that separates the best of the aforementioned authors from their scads of less talented imitators.

One place in which Kerouac does shine here, though, is in a small selection of haiku at the end of the book. Kerouac was one of the first American authors to really grasp the spirit of English-language haiku, as mentioned in a brief intro to the book's last section. Kerouac quotes a few Basho haiku and bemoans the inability of English to imitate the free-flowing Japanese language, coming to the conclusion that the "seventeen syllable" rule should be dropped for American haiku (as most serious haiku writers and scholars in English have also done in the forty or so years since Kerouac originally composed the works here). In the haiku, where Kerouac is forced to work with tight lines and spare images, his gift comes through. Unfortunately, it does so in far too few other pieces in this book. **

There are few times in the history of mankind that we can sit back and allow ourselves to be manipulated by a pure mad man (brilliant writer). Kerouac's poems allow the mind to travel to the brink of truth and reality and come back unharmed and ... enlightened ... Thank God for kerouac ... he makes the world a better place and his poems are subconcious unfiltered visions of real life. "Pull My Daisy" with Ginsberg is a masterpiece as is "Old Angel Midnight". here is one poem : TO EDWARD DAHLBERG

Don't use the telephone. People are never ready to answer it. Use Poetry.

And Jack Kerouac does use poetry ... he uses it to give insight into a world he knew so well.