Big Sur

Classic Kerouac. It's rambling, it's messy, it's Jack.

Love Jacks writing style. Nothing to dislike about anything i've read so far. Helps build my own vocabulary which in turn transports me further into his story due to increased interest. This story and Desolation Angels are my current favorites, although On The Road is close as well.

I consider my four star review as being generous. This is my first exposure to the writings of Jack Kerouac. I am a fan of "bad boy" type authors, which is why I chose this novel. I was a bit troubled by the complete, and I do mean complete, lack of any traditional notions of grammar and usage. Most paragraphs are long, run-on sentences, with no periods, few commas, and dialogue quotation that is completely unorthodox and frequently confusing. All that said, the book was ultimately readable; however, it was broken and rambling and, at times, redundant. The author's words do have value and his use of imagery is fairly effective. His characters seem real and not at all standard faire. As for his description of his experience with (apparently) delirium tremens, frankly, I've read better, but his was also informative and interesting. My only suggestion would be that if you're looking for this type of subject matter and blunt writing, I would highly recommend reading all of the novels by Charles Bukowski and Dan Fante first. In my view, they tell better and more cogent stories, while sticking to more traditional and readable writing standards.

Smoking and drinking while reading is pure life. Poetry is one of the arts that Jack provided to us and will never be forgotten.

Very dark compared to his other works. I first started reading Jack , I was 20 years old and now I’m 40. This book makes so much more sense now! Age and alcoholism don’t mix, LOL!

I loved On The Road, so I figured I’d really like this book too. It was an interesting read and I didn’t hate it all, but I struggled to get through it. It’s basically the writings of a manic drunk, so get ready to be confused. He also doesn’t use any punctuation, so everything is one big long running sentence, which makes it even more difficult to read. Wouldn’t necessarily recommend this to my book worm friends.

Don't read Big Sur for enjoyment; read it for understanding Kerouac and yourself. Before or after reading Big Sur, read Dharma Bums and join the mass human transit searching for Peace-In-Life. Big Sur helps illuminate how Christianity and Buddhism failed Kerouac: or you could say how Kerouac failed Christianity and Buddhism. There is a beautiful madness in his rabid search. I believe it was Han Shan who wrote: We spend our lives like vermin running around and around in a bowl; one day we wake up and find that we're old.

I thought this would be more reflective of the places and spaces they went to. That’s the only thing. Otherwise I like this book several lines will be in my lexicon from here after, and there are some images it conjures up the character of the coast, but def more a a psychological rhetoric of how we all young and old are continuing what thru call a coming of age narrative that goes on and on while we are still seeking, experiencing, diving into our self awareness, and evolving