Showing results by author "Jack Kerouac" in All Categories

The legendary 1951 scroll draft of On the Road, published as Kerouac originally composed it “The sparse and unassuming scroll is the living version [of On the Road] for our time. . . . It is a dazzling piece of writing.”—The New York Times Book Review During three weeks in 1951, Jack...

In the mid-1950s, Jack Kerouac, a lifelong Catholic, became fascinated withBuddhism, an interest that had a profound impact on his ideas of spirituality andlater found expression in books such as Mexico City Blues and The Dharma Bums.Originally written in 1955 and now published for the first...

More than 60 years ago, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, two novice writers at the dawn of their careers, sat down to write a novel about the summer of 1944, when one of their friends killed another in a moment of brutal and tragic bloodshed. Alternating chapters, they pieced together a hard-boiled tale of bohemian New York during World War II, full of drugs and obsession, art and violence.

Ray Smith is a young man seeking a life of simplicity and truth. Another young man, Japhy Rhyder, becomes instrumental in leading Ray to Buddhism as they embark upon a spiritual quest. Their journey takes them from the Bohemian parties of San Francisco to the natural beauty of the High Sierra mountains. Through such books as Doctor Sax and The Subterraneans, Jack Kerouac was an inspiration to the beat culture, hippies, and dharma seekers of the 1950s and 60s.

While his masterpiece On the Road languished on the desks of unresponsive editors, Kerouac turned to Buddhism, and in 1953 began writing reading notes on the subject intended for his friend Allen Ginsberg. As his Buddhist study and meditation practice intensified, what had begun as notes evolved into a vast, all-encompassing work of nonfiction into which he poured his life, incorporating poems, haiku, prayers, journal entries, fragments of letters, ideas about writing, sketches, and more.

From a young age Kerouac was a spiritual thinker and questioner, and he always considered himself a spiritual writer. Buddhism gave more meaning to Jack’s work as a writer: he was working not for personal accomplishment and glory but for human betterment. And Buddhism justified his lifestyle: with its vision of the material world as empty and illusory, he was free to do what he wanted.

This novella tells the story of a ten-year-old Black boy named Pictorial Review “Pic” Jackson, who lives with his grandfather in North Carolina in the 1940s. After his grandfather dies and Pic is living with another relative, his older brother, Slim, shows up to take him out of that dysfunctional home, and they journey from the rural South to New York City. They head for Harlem, where Slim lives with his girlfriend and where Pic sees firsthand the economic hard times his brother is experiencing. After losing job after job, Slim sends his pregnant girlfriend off to San Francisco.

In 1955, novelist Jack Kerouac detoured from his cross-country American travels to Mexico City, where a group of junkie expatriates he had known from the New York City post-war scene had gone for the cheap and plentiful supply of heroin and morphine. Fellow beat writer William S. Burroughs, who had been a part of the Mexican expatriate community, had introduced Kerouac to Bill Garver (named Old Bull Gaines in the novel), a much-older, long-term addict who had in turn introduced Kerouac to Esperanza Villanueva, whom Kerouac named Tristessa in the novel.

In the summer of 1956, Jack Kerouac hitchhiked from Mill Valley, California, to the North Cascades to spend two months serving as a fire lookout for the US Forest Service. Taking only the Diamond Sutra for reading material, he intended to spend his time in deep contemplation and to achieve enlightenment.

“To read On the Road but not Visions of Cody is to take a nice sightseeing tour but to forgo the spectacular rapids of Jack Kerouac’s wildest writings.”—The New York Times Book Review “The centerpiece of all [Kerouac’s] novels.”—The Washington Post Originally written in...

Jack Kerouac tells the story of Jack Duluoz, a French-Canadian boy growing up in Kerouac’s own birthplace, the dingy factory town of Lowell, Massachusetts. There, Doctor Sax, with his flowing cape, slouched hat, and insinuating leer, is chief among the many ghosts and demons that populate Jack’s fantasy world. Deftly mingling memory and dream, Kerouac captures the accents and textures of his boyhood in Lowell in this novel of a cryptic, apocalyptic hipster phantom.

Arguably his finest post- On the Road novel, Big Sur captures Kerouac (here named Jack Duluoz) trying to escape the clamor of beatnik adulation by retreating to Lawrence Ferlinghetti's peaceful cabin in Big Sur. What begins as a pastoral regeneration descends into a personal hell when Kerouac suffers an alcoholic breakdown.

Jack Kerouac’s archive is vast. Throughout his life he was constantly writing, and he meticulously saved and catalogued his material. The result is that beyond the work published in his lifetime there has been a rich stream of posthumous writing that is far from tapped. This collection of previously unpublished writing culled from the Kerouac archive, and as a companion to Paul Maher Jr.'s Becoming Kerouac, spans Kerouac’s adult life, from a journal written at age seventeen to autobiographical reflections a few years before his death.

Maggie Cassidy is one of Kerouac's most nostalgic recollections of his past, focusing on his first true love when he was a high school senior and a local star athlete. Filled with the sweet innocence of youth and the daily heartbreak of quarrels and unfulfilled sexual yearnings, Kerouac employs his stylishly Beat observations toward the bygone era of pre-World War II Lowell, Massachusetts, when he was torn between the companionship of his gang of buddies and the sirens' call of the opposite sex.

Alla radice di questo romanzo, pubblicato nel 1958 e subito processato per oscenità, c'è una vicenda reale, la storia d'amore vissuta da Kerouac con una ragazza di colore, che in queste pagine rivive come in una confessione tanto difficile quanto liberatoria. Al centro, la figura di Mardou, sensuale, fascinosa, attorno alla quale gira, ossessivamente, la vita dell'amante, e la città stessa (New York nella realtà, San Francisco nella finzione letteraria): una città onirica, cupa, frenetica, piena di alcol, di droghe, di sesso, di arte e di vita.

"I vagabondi del Dharma" rappresenta il seguito ideale del romanzo più celebre di Kerouac, quel "Sulla strada" considerato fin dal suo primo apparire una sorta di "Bibbia della Beat Generation". Anche nei "Vagabondi", sempre di forte matrice autobiografica, lo scrittore racconta le avventure dei suoi discepoli e confratelli beatnik impegnati nella ricerca, disordinata ma sincera, di una nuova verità. Verità che, soprattutto grazie all'influsso della scuola Zen di San Francisco, Kerouac e i suoi identificano con gli insegnamenti buddhisti.

Sal Paradise, un giovane newyorkese con ambizioni letterarie, incontra Dean Moriarty, un ragazzo dell'Ovest. Uscito dal riformatorio, Dean comincia a girovagare sfidando le regole della vita borghese, sempre alla ricerca di esperienze intense. Dean decide di ripartire per l'Ovest e Sal lo raggiunge; è il primo di una serie di viaggi che imprimono una dimensione nuova alla vita di Sal.

Primero estuvo en 1952, para visitar a su amigo William Burroughs. Allí conoció a Bill Garver (rebautizado «Bull Gaines» por Kerouac) y a la joven Esperanza Villanueva (rebautizada «Tristeza»), morfinómana desde los dieciséis, prostituta ocasional y casada con un traficante llamado David Tercerero («Dave», en la novela). Es la historia de una redención frustrada (una redención doble, porque Kerouac, al tratar de salvar a la muchacha de la drogadicción, trata de salvarse a sí mismo), y también un recorrido iniciático por el infierno de la capital mexicana.

Dive into Big Sur, a timeless classic from the iconic bohemian traveler, Jack Kerouac. The narrative, told through the eyes of Jack Dulouz - a character largely inspired by Kerouac himself, orbits around his struggle to balance the unexpected fame from his successful writing career and his personal battle with alcoholism. The backdrop for this introspective journey is the serene and isolated cabin in the heart of Big Sur, California. (Narration by Ben Tucker)

Maggie Cassidy (escrita en 1953 y publicada en 1959) es el tercer volumen del magno ciclo La leyenda de Duluoz. En ella, el joven Jack Duluoz, de dieciséis años, conoce a una chica en el baile de Nochevieja de 1939, coquetean, vuelven a verse, se dan celos, son víctimas de murmuraciones, se pelean, se reconcilian y se enfrentan a las primeras decisiones de la vida adulta. Es la historia del primer amor del protagonista, un amor adolescente que engloba otros despertares: al mundo exterior, la sexualidad, la espiritualidad, los estudios, el trabajo, la vocación.