MoGrubb Posted August 22, 2007 Report Posted August 22, 2007 re: tedious reading I read a few pages of Burrow's Naked Lunch one time, talk about tedium... Maybe someone with an exceptional memory and oversight could make sense of it but to me it seemed like repetitive, rambling gibberish. Quote
7/4 Posted August 22, 2007 Report Posted August 22, 2007 OTR ain't in the Top 5 Jack but at least it was a motherfucking effort, I agree. It's not my favorite Kerouac. Quote
MoGrubb Posted August 22, 2007 Report Posted August 22, 2007 (edited) 528 posts in & that's the best you can riff, Grubb stake? (put your hand on the good book & swear you'll do better.) if at least half the pages in Naked Lunch don't crack your Carolina ass up than you're just goddamn lost so try harder, hoss (& that ain't no comedy). OTR ain't in the Top 5 Jack but at least it was a motherfucking effort, all contradictions (& future ones) exposed (which is even moreso Burroughs' genius). ya'll give us what by comparison? weak-ass bbq that pretends it ain't? as for Con 50-- epitome (or is it epigone?) of the real-- right on! edc general editor library of gritsvilleWell, fuck you, clem. I agree about the humor, but, how much can you laugh at the same repetitive diatribe? It's a happening book. Lots of very hip people aren't usually wrong, but damned if I saw it. [Maybe I'll get another copy and give it another shot.] Edited August 22, 2007 by MoGrubb Quote
rostasi Posted August 22, 2007 Report Posted August 22, 2007 (edited) Editing? EDITING? It's a stream of consciousness book that's finally released without the censoring. It's supposed to stream! Hey, let's go back and take all of that nature crap out of Thoreau's Journal too! (welcome to the 21st Century straight-jacket of the mind...) oh yeah, let's fix that spelling in Finnegans Wake as well... Edited August 22, 2007 by rostasi Quote
jazzbo Posted August 22, 2007 Report Posted August 22, 2007 Thanks R. I didn't quite know how to express that and you did. Quote
Larry Kart Posted August 22, 2007 Report Posted August 22, 2007 Off the top of my head, my favorite Kerouac book is "Desolation Angels," followed by "Big Sur" and "Book of Dreams." Quote
7/4 Posted August 22, 2007 Report Posted August 22, 2007 Off the top of my head, my favorite Kerouac book is "Desolation Angels," followed by "Big Sur" and "Book of Dreams." Desolation Angels is at the top of my list. Quote
Big Al Posted August 22, 2007 Report Posted August 22, 2007 Hey, let's go back and take all of that nature crap out of Thoreau's Journal too! (welcome to the 21st Century straight-jacket of the mind...) oh yeah, let's fix that spelling in Finnegans Wake as well... and properly capitalize all of e.e. cummings poetry while were at it Quote
rostasi Posted August 22, 2007 Report Posted August 22, 2007 Well, you know Lon...we're on a freekin' JAZZ forum and people are talking about editing and the "rambling" nature of OTR(?) I'm going over to "rec.music.classical" now and start a new topic: "Bach: Without the Mathematics" I'm with ya Big Al! The last words of Outlaw Sam Bass: "The world's-a-bobbin'..." Quote
rostasi Posted August 22, 2007 Report Posted August 22, 2007 BTW...anyone left who cares... The last pages have a reconstruction of what Jack probably wrote as an ending "before the dog ate it." It seems quite faithful based on notes that he left. Yes to Desolation Angels and Big Sur too (for Alex Aums/Arthur Wayne as my real life influence)! R~~ Quote
connoisseur series500 Posted August 22, 2007 Report Posted August 22, 2007 Editing? EDITING? It's a stream of consciousness book that's finally released without the censoring. It's supposed to stream! Hey, let's go back and take all of that nature crap out of Thoreau's Journal too! (welcome to the 21st Century straight-jacket of the mind...) oh yeah, let's fix that spelling in Finnegans Wake as well... OK, let me get this straight: any old crap written in stream of conscious style is well written, as long as it is done in such style. Right? Compare that garbage to Faulkner's "Sound and the Fury," which was also done in Stream of Conscious style but is very effective. Same holds true for some Joyce and Virginia Woolf. But the truth is that old Jack couldn't mf write! Thoreau's journals are wonderful. (somebody's mind could stand to be in a straight-jacket for a short while here) Quote
connoisseur series500 Posted August 22, 2007 Report Posted August 22, 2007 And writers don't edit their stream of consciousness writing, right? You could say that old Jack never edited his stuff which made it what it is (yeah, which is bad!) I don't think you can compare it to jazz. Even a very good writer would not write very well in one or two uninterrupted sessions. That's journalism! Just my opinion, but I think "On the Road" has prominence only because it can neatly be identified with a movement, and that it represents the zeitgeist of a few people at a certain period of time. But that doesn't mean it's necessarily good art. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation" depicted a movement and represented the zeitgeist of a group of white folks at a certain period of time. Well you can call that movie good art if you like. I haven't seen it, but I doubt that I would label it as such. But--hey!--it fits nicely into categorization and periods, such as scholar squirrels (Vidal's term-not mine) and academicians love! Quote
rostasi Posted August 22, 2007 Report Posted August 22, 2007 Different kettle of kool-aid altogether. The Faulkner, tho SOC, is purposely put together into interlocking major themes - it's the Braxton/Iridium of novels. Kerouac's was written in three weeks on a single scroll of paper with no paragraph breaks - all in a big block of streamed text and meant to be like life lived - sprawling, inconsistent, occasionally daft, etc. There's a life lived and learned in both, but I think more natural and "real" in the Kerouac. Quote
clifford_thornton Posted August 22, 2007 Report Posted August 22, 2007 I can respect the work's cultural position without "liking" work. Now, get me some Henry Miller pronto. Quote
jazzbo Posted August 22, 2007 Report Posted August 22, 2007 I respect it, I like it, I like the Faulkner, and Henry Miller and Phillip K. Dick were responsible for parts of my current mind. Miller rules. Quote
connoisseur series500 Posted August 22, 2007 Report Posted August 22, 2007 I can respect the work's cultural position without "liking" work. Now, get me some Henry Miller pronto. yeah, I like Miller too. Quote
Stereojack Posted August 22, 2007 Report Posted August 22, 2007 to me it seemed like repetitive, rambling gibberish. That's the beauty of it. Definitely of its time. Quote
ghost of miles Posted August 23, 2007 Report Posted August 23, 2007 A friend of mine last week played me an acetate of Kerouac, John Clellon Holmes, and Seymour--Weiss, I think? not Krim--doing a vocalese rendition of Tristano's "Intuition" and "Digression." This was circa 1950... not as bad as you might think. I have a soft spot for THE SUBTERRANEANS and parts of VISIONS OF CODY. Have not read DESOLATION ANGELS or BIG SUR, but on the basis of this thread will make a point of checking them out. (And how's DR. SAX?) Probably the reverse of most folks, but I've actually come to like Kerouac better than I did when I first read him around age 19 or 20. I think I may have been prejudiced by the two or three awful Kerouac disciples in my creative writing class (but I shouldn't have been throwing stones, living as I did at the time in the big Glass house of J.D. Salinger devotion). Quote
jazzbo Posted August 23, 2007 Report Posted August 23, 2007 A friend of mine last week played me an acetate of Kerouac, John Clellon Holmes, and Seymour--Weiss, I think? not Krim--doing a vocalese rendition of Tristano's "Intuition" and "Digression." This was circa 1950... not as bad as you might think. I have a soft spot for THE SUBTERRANEANS and parts of VISIONS OF CODY. Have not read DESOLATION ANGELS or BIG SUR, but on the basis of this thread will make a point of checking them out. (And how's DR. SAX?) Probably the reverse of most folks, but I've actually come to like Kerouac better than I did when I first read him around age 19 or 20. I think I may have been prejudiced by the two or three awful Kerouac disciples in my creative writing class (but I shouldn't have been throwing stones, living as I did at the time in the big Glass house of J.D. Salinger devotion). I like "Dr. Sax," it was one of the first Kerouacs I read. . . . Another JK fan I have known a long time HATES it. I have NO idea how you'll find it! Quote
AllenLowe Posted September 8, 2007 Report Posted September 8, 2007 my fav is Subterraneans - I used a quote from it, about dreams, for years - Quote
BruceH Posted September 9, 2007 Report Posted September 9, 2007 "On the Road is about...being...on the road." Quote
king ubu Posted January 20, 2010 Report Posted January 20, 2010 rather than starting a new thread... thought this might be of interest to some here - annoying story! Jack Kerouac’s estate went to his mom, instead of his third wife. When mom died, she gave it back to the wife, cutting out his kids. Was mom’s will a fake?... more Quote
jazzbo Posted January 20, 2010 Report Posted January 20, 2010 (edited) Yes, interesting, read that yesterday. Just finished reading Was a great read. Edited January 20, 2010 by jazzbo Quote
AllenLowe Posted January 20, 2010 Report Posted January 20, 2010 why don't we do it on the road? Quote
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