[.ca] Vanity Of Duluoz (ISBN 0140236392)

Wonderful and mostly honest rewrite of his debut:
A rewrite of "The Town and the City" after ol' Jack shook off the Wolfe influence (to a degree). Terribly honest just as most of Jack's work is, often unflattering, but terrific to read. It breathes the spirit of life into memory retold.

The last of Kerouac:
For all intents and purposes this is Kerouac's last real novel. With great fondness and honesty, he goes over a lot of the same themes and events as in his earlier works, but now he's tired, not feeling the need to prove anything and just barely holding on to hopes that things ever get better. This is a sincere, lovely, heartbreaking and haunting book of reflections at the end of a pained but adventurous life.

One of the best from THE best!:
No, this isn't just for fanatics! If you want a history of good ol' Jack, then yes, it is just for fanatics. However, if you just want an exciting adventure, it's for anyone. This book has got something for everybody, seriously. It has crime, "romance", adventure on the high seas, everything and more.... and then there's always sport (now there's an obscure M. Python reference! Good thing it fits(:) Anyway, this book is a clasic, no matter what stuffy old lit scholars say. One of my favourite quotes comes from this one: "Insofar as nobody loves my dashes anyway, I'll use regular punctuation for the new illiterate generation." What's my favourite Jack quote? "Holy suffering cows!", that's what (:

FOOTBALL AND WAR:
All of Jack Kerouac's writings don't really fit into the category of novels. They are more in the form of the sentimental memories of Proust or a man looking back on his life as if he were already dead. The Vanity of Duluoz is no exception to this style. Of course, Kerouac takes the title for his work from the Bible verse in which it is said "all is vanity". Written just two years before his death, most of the book seems a Cliff's Notes to his entire body of work. The book is subtitled "An Adventerous Education 1935-1945" and basically covers ground already seen in other works. Except in this one, he is writing a book for his wife, as if to fill in the story of his life to someone. The driving force behind this work is football and war. It follows Kerouac from early high school football games into college and then into the merchant marines and to the formative years of the beat movement. Even though one of Kerouac's biographers, Barry Miles, said this book was written in his "fat Elvis period", I found the book quite good. Not among the best of his work, but he still had the spark of writing even in the midst of alcoholism. Especially good are his experiences in entering Columbia University and the politics that got involved with his playing time. I didn't know that Jack pretty much decided to write because the coach of his team refused to let him start. So, basically, Kerouac just said "I have better things to do than take this. I'm gonna become a writer". Something not really touched on in other novels but included in this one is Jack's service in the armed forces and the merchant marines. He wasn't afraid to serve in the military during World War II, he just couldn't take being ordered around. Back then, merchant ships crossing the Atlantic were in just as much danger from German u-boats as any battleship. When the book starting to lose its power was when Jack met the other Beats, who really in the end were a bunch of losers. Kerouac was like Cool Hand Luke. His friends fed off him and on him, draining his energy and sapping his ideas. Kerouac makes up names that are so thinly artificial for his friends that you feel like you're reading a Dickens novel. When he concentrates on himself, he is a genius. When he writes about others, he becomes weak. He should have kept the radar squarely on himself. This book is pretty good. Average for Kerouac. It is a paradox. It is a novel written about his a joyous youth by a man who sees himself in bitter old age.

Deja vu all over again (well not quite):
Thomas Wolfe served as a mentor to the young Jack Kerouac and greatly influenced Kerouac's first novel, "The Town and the City," in both scope and syle. And although Kerouac would soon develop his own unique vision and voice he could never tear himself completely from Wolfe's influence and the need to re-write or re-tell what had already been written or told. Just as Wolfe retold the story of Eugene Gant in his "The Web and the Rock" and "You Can't Go Home Again," Kerouac did the same with this novel. Readers of "The Town and the City," "Doctor Sax," and "Maggie Cassidy" will recognize the same characters (although under different names) and events that populate these other novels. What separates this novel from the others, however, is Kerouac's point of view. Gone is the childlike, wide-eyed enthusiasm that often drives Kerouac's writings (even in the depressing "Big Sur"); this is replaced with a middle aged cynicism and bitterness. This novel covers the events from 1935-46, and follows the author from his teen age years in Lowell, Mass. to New York City. It is a time of football, college at Columbia, stints in the merchant marine and the U.S. Navy, introduction to the bohemian lifestyles of Morningside Heights and Greenwich Village, experimentation with marriage, experimentation with drugs. William Burroughs, Alan Ginsberg and other writers and artists who would eventually comprise the Beat Generation are encountered and described in a more critical light than in other of Kerouac's writings. Ginsberg is described as "a Puerto Rican nonentity bus boy in a nowhere void," and Burroughs as a great writer, "a shadow hovering over western literature." The pivotal point of this novel is the events surrounding the manslaughter of David Kammerer by Lucien Carr, an event in which Kerouac was peripherally involved (having observed Carr dispose of the weapon and Kammerer's bloody eye glasses). This book was the last major work that Kerouac was to write. In 1967 he was living with his mother in a small house in Florida, politically conservative, grossly overweight, drinking heavily and strapped for cash. He had lived to see his own legend become irrelevant and see himself replaced by a new generation of writers like Ken Kesey, Tom Wolfe and the other Merry Pranksters. No wonder the vitriolic tone of some of the prose, especially when discussing hippies, LSD, and the attendant sixties culture. Many of the other reviewers of this book have stated that this is not a good book in which to be introduced to Kerouac. I agree totally. However, for those Kerouac fans and for those who want to experience the complete Duluoz Legend, this is required reading.