Big Sur

by Jack Kerouac

Overview

Five years after On the Road, the book that made him an overnight celebrity, Kerouac examines with wrenching clarity his unwished for fame, escalating alcoholism, and troubling alienation from nature. In a thinly veiled autobiographical account of his time in Big Sur at the cabin of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and with friends in San Francisco--among them fellow iconoclasts Neal Cassady, Gary Snyder, and Alan Watts--he chronicles a ruinous alcoholic bender with searing psychological candor. Kerouac displays full mastery of pace, structure, and idiom in Big Sur--a tale that ends with a crescendo as finely wrought and poignant as any in American literature. Includes a character key and a detailed biographical timeline.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781734029260
Publisher:	Warbler Classics
Publication date:	11/14/2019
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	302,921
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.44(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) was an American novelist, poet, and, with Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, a central figure of the Beat Generation. He was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, of French-Canadian parents and briefly attended Columbia University before falling in with a group of friends that would eventually define a literary movement. Big Sur is considered by many critics to be his finest literary achievement.

Table of Contents

Contents

Author’s Note v

Big Sur 1

Character Key 178

Biographical Timeline 179

Editorial Reviews

"In many ways, particularly in the lyrical immediacy that is his distinctive glory, this is Kerouac's best book . . . certainly, he has never displayed more 'gentle sweetness.'"
—San Francisco Chronicle 

"Kerouac's grittiest novel to date and the one which will be read with most respect by those skeptical of all the Beat business in the first place."
—The New York Times Book Review 

"Big Sur is so devastatingly honest and painful and yet so beautifully written....He was sharing his pain and suffering with the reader in the same way Dostoyevsky did, with the idea of salvation through suffering."
—David Amram

From the Publisher

Ethan Hawke doesn't just give a stellar performance. He delivers a living embodiment of Kerouac's work, sustaining a quality that’s consistently startling. This is no small feat as Kerouac’s audiobook features his legendary free-flowing stream of consciousness, following no reliable path. Hawke's confident performance is an anchor. Kerouac, weary of constant attention after his earlier works helped inspire the Beat Generation spirit of the 1950s, seeks solitude in coastal California. However, his alcoholism can't be escaped. As the story progresses, we hear a shift in tone, possibly a form of paranoia. Hawke's skill here is to project this work as a kind of a sustained open mic—his highs and lows among and between the words are like waves crashing on the rocks. S.P.C. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2020 - AudioFile

Ethan Hawke doesn't just give a stellar performance. He delivers a living embodiment of Kerouac's work, sustaining a quality that’s consistently startling. This is no small feat as Kerouac’s audiobook features his legendary free-flowing stream of consciousness, following no reliable path. Hawke's confident performance is an anchor. Kerouac, weary of constant attention after his earlier works helped inspire the Beat Generation spirit of the 1950s, seeks solitude in coastal California. However, his alcoholism can't be escaped. As the story progresses, we hear a shift in tone, possibly a form of paranoia. Hawke's skill here is to project this work as a kind of a sustained open mic—his highs and lows among and between the words are like waves crashing on the rocks. S.P.C. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2020 - AudioFile