Jack Kerouac
Paperback | Pages: 464 pages Rating: 3.57 | 3880 Users | 128 Reviews
Mention Books Supposing Visions of Cody (Duluoz Legend)
| Original Title: | Visions of Cody |
| ISBN: | 0586091599 (ISBN13: 9780586091593) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | Duluoz Legend |
| Characters: | Jack Duluoz |
Interpretation Concering Books Visions of Cody (Duluoz Legend)
What can I say? As much as I love Kerouac for all that he has meant for literature and counter culture, this book was too experimental for me to enjoy. And I love experimentation! It helps keep literature fresh, interesting, and evolving. Even so, I thought that The Visions of Cody needed more structure...because there was practically none. There was no story. No narrative. No plot. No development of character. It wasn't about ANYTHING.The first section felt like a collection of unrelated creative writing exercises---What do you see right now? Describe it. That type of exercise. So we get descriptions of city streets, strangers, cafes, diners, brick buildings, and glowing neon signs. This is the stuff that inspires Kerouac in its raw form. But great artists take that raw material and shape it into something tangible. This is where craft comes in. The ability to perfect one's craft is what separates the good artists from the bad ones.
Then we get a 150 pg transcript of a series of conversations between Jack, Neal, and friends. It didn't bother me that they were drunk, stoned, and high on benzies. It bothered me that they were incoherent ramblings. It was impossible to follow without references. There was no context other than the little the reader knows about their lives. I thought it was a cool idea, but I found it very frustrating instead. The most I could get out of it is that they were getting fucked up talking about old times when they were getting fucked up. Following this is an "imitation of the tape" which was even more confusing and incoherent. Truthfully, by this point I had lost patience, skimmed through the rest, and gave up.
Besides the incoherent ranting and disjointed musings, I found myself reacting to Jack and Neal's reckless lifestyle---mainly the drug abuse. I lost some of the romanticism that I attributed to the beats. Jack died of alcoholism in his 40's. Neal died in his 40's as well, most likely because of drugs. I read a quote in which Neal was giving advice to a 19 year old kid: "Twenty years of fast living – there's just not much left, and my kids are all screwed up. Don't do what I have done." As I find myself growing older and maturing the concept of BALANCE is becoming extremely important to me. Listen, I think it's healthy to experiment with drugs and open new doors of perception, to live life passionately and intensely, to question authority and reject many of the social norms in our society that seem to trap people and suffocate their spirit. But once you get to a certain level of awareness, you cannot evolve further doing the same shit all the time. Sooner or later, that behavior becomes self destructive, and it's important to find healthy alternatives to continue to evolve mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
Particularize Containing Books Visions of Cody (Duluoz Legend)
| Title | : | Visions of Cody (Duluoz Legend) |
| Author | : | Jack Kerouac |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 464 pages |
| Published | : | November 19th 2001 by Flamingo (first published 1959) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Classics. Novels |
Rating Containing Books Visions of Cody (Duluoz Legend)
Ratings: 3.57 From 3880 Users | 128 ReviewsJudgment Containing Books Visions of Cody (Duluoz Legend)
Read: In Visions of Cody, Visions of Gerard, Big Sur - hardcover from libraryI'm not a big fan of the Beat authors. I appreciate their role in American literature, but I'm usually left wondering what was so great about it. At least, that's how I felt about this book.Kerouac rambled on too much for me. Really long sentences that I thought would never end. Aimless storytelling. This book was really all over the place. I get that it was experimental, but I can't imagine anyone truly enjoying thisI may only have enjoyed 30 pages of this. Most of it is drugged out stupidity. Cody and Jack both struck me as complete assholes. The only good things I take away from this book are the memories of where I was when I read it. The first half I read curled up in bed beside Sean. The second half I read on the boat trip around Komodo National park.
Sixteen years after I read "On the Road," I tried "Visions of Cody," partly because I had embarked on a road-trip around the Eastern Seaboard, and partly because I wanted to give Kerouac another chance. "On the Road" had been a formative, nearly biblical experience for me, but when I read "Dharma Bums" earlier this year, I found it a little childish. I was afraid that I had completely outgrown the Beats, the way a kid no longer finds amusement in an Etch-a-Sketch.But "Visions of Cody" was a
Jack Kerouac (1922 -- 1969) wrote his long, sprawling book "Visions of Cody" in 1951-52, but the book was not published in full until 1972.. The book shows great nostalgia for a lost America of the 1930s and 1940s. The work is a meditation of Kerouac's friend Neal Cassady (1926 -- 1968), who is called Cody Pomeray in this book. Kerouac portrayed Cassady under the name Dean Moriarty in "On the Road". The book is about Kerouac himself as much as it is about Cody and about America.The book includes
What can I say? As much as I love Kerouac for all that he has meant for literature and counter culture, this book was too experimental for me to enjoy. And I love experimentation! It helps keep literature fresh, interesting, and evolving. Even so, I thought that The Visions of Cody needed more structure...because there was practically none. There was no story. No narrative. No plot. No development of character. It wasn't about ANYTHING.The first section felt like a collection of unrelated
It was dawn; he lay on the hard reformatory bed and decided to start reading books in the library so he would never be a bum, no matter what he worked at to make a living, which was the decision of a great idealist.
What can I say? As much as I love Kerouac for all that he has meant for literature and counter culture, this book was too experimental for me to enjoy. And I love experimentation! It helps keep literature fresh, interesting, and evolving. Even so, I thought that The Visions of Cody needed more structure...because there was practically none. There was no story. No narrative. No plot. No development of character. It wasn't about ANYTHING.The first section felt like a collection of unrelated
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