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Summary: Enter The Mind
Review: In my opinion, this is it, this is the best Kerouac book ever written! Why?....HMMMM.....First and formost, this book takes you inside of Jack's mind, you know the things you think about but won't tell anybody for fear they will think your on drugs, well Jack isn't and yes, he was on drugs. But don't let that stop you from reading a GREAT book, the tape recorded conversations Kerouac and Cassady had while under the influence are reason enough to read this book let alone the fact that this IS the real "ON THE ROAD". This book is a insightful walk through the authors mind,though at times it may seem more like a rollercoaster.
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Summary: Amazing, truly amazing
Review: Jack's sketchbook notepad version of "On the Road" fills in so much background. It's beautiful. Aside from the tape transcriptions. Read the first half and you'll walk away staggered by beauty.
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Summary: AN ELEGY FOR A FALLEN AMERICA
Review: Kerouac's best book, no doubt about. As Ginsberg says in the intro, it's an elegy for a fallen America that no longer exists, especially today, an America where innocence and kindness and joy has been replaced by paranoia and selfishness, with Kerouac using Cody as a symbol of all that is good and lost in America. For this reason it's probably the most pertinent of Kerouac's books for the modern era. Not only that, but it contains the most personal and heartbreaking prose Kerouac ever wrote, sentences filled with love for his fellow man ("I'm writing this book because we're all going to die") and the pain he saw at what was happening to his country ("America is what laid on Cody's soul the onus and the stigma - that in the form of a big plainclothesman beat the s//t out of him till he talked about something that isn't even important anymore - it's where cody learned that people arent good, they want to be bad - and nobody cares but the heart in the middle of the United States that will reappear when the salesmen all die.") There are sentences like that throughout the book, just absoloutely beautiful heartfelt writing, plus little things such as Kerouac wondering whether a girl in a restaurant would like him, or what his dead father would think of him, small things from his day-to-day life that add up to a tapestry of love and compassion and longing. "I'm a fool, I loved the blue dawns over racetracks and made a bet Ioway was sweet like its name, my heart went out to lonely sounds in the misty springtime night of wild sweet America in her powers, I stood on sandpiles with an open soul... Goodbye, Cody. Adios, you who watched the sun go down, at the rail, by my side, smiling - Adios, King." If writing like that doesn't break your heart, looking at the way the world is run nowadays, then this book probably isn't for you. But if you mourn for a lost America, buy the book and find a soulmate - or a couple."What they want has already crumbled in a rubbish heap - they want banks." - Cody Pomeray.
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Summary: Kerouac Essential
Review: Most readers come to know Kerouac through On the Road. Those who develop a relationship with his work invariably point to Visions of Cody as the one that hooked them for life. While the plotting and structure aren't nearly as sound as On the Road, this isn't exactly a novel. More like a rambling, poetic love letter to a period in Kerouac's life that was quickly slipping away. Incidentally, Kerouac did not intend for this to be a companion to On the Road. If the author had had it his way, this would have been the definitive version of On the Road. Most readers agree that the first 150 pages is by far the best writing in this book. Read this section, even if you put the book down for good afterward. These 150 pages are pure, loose, and brilliant. Kerouac sketching unequaled by any other part of his oeuvre. As with all Kerouac books, this one has its faults. The middle 200 pages are overwrought and self-indulgent. But that can be said of most of Kerouac's work. The tape transcripts are important reading if you want a first-hand account of the dynamic that existed between Jack and Neal. But this section could have been shortened substantially. Also, for every perfect sentence, there are ten that fall flat--examples of how the spontaneous prose technique had its drawbacks. But no writer is great all the time. And Kerouac's sporadic greatness more than makes up for the notes he doesn't quite hit. For those new to Kerouac's work, you would be better off reading The Subterraneans first just to get acclamated to the spontaneous prose style. Even then, it will be tough going. But you read Kerouac for more than the storytelling. Faithful Kerouac readers cite the author's inventiveness, his fearlessness, and his unwavering devotion to the written word. Most writers go their entire lives without a sentence as good as, "So pull that skull cover back and smile." And that one is buried in a heep of perfectly constructed, evocative sentences. For a more critical look at this book, try reading Kerouac's Crooked Road by Tim Hunt (with help from Ann Charters). It offers a thorough breakdown of Kerouac's techniques, while providing an insightful comparison between Visions of Cody and On the Road (two versions of the same idea).
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Summary: Experimental Yet Entertaining
Review: Not the best Kerouac novel but one of the more entertaining, Vision Of Cody follows Kerouac's hero Neal Cassidy through his endless exploits and meaningless discourse. Sometimes dubbed as Kerouac's Finnigan Wake, according to particular critics, the book utilizes a style of an architectural text format on the printed page, as well as inventive diatribes and phonetical play on words. However, the book is definitely a challenge (writing close to 500 pages) and requires a lot of patience. Nevertheless, it still is a fun read once the reader overcomes the Joycean first two chapters. The book's highlight is the tape-recorded transcriptions concentrating on Jack and Cody's contentions of Jazz and sex.
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Summary: Often brilliant, sometimes maddening
Review: The best parts of this book are poetic, sad, exhilarating, and rank with the best of Kerouac. The maddening parts are self-indulgent, repetitive, boring, and sexist. Most of the latter are in the long central section (pages 120-250 of a 400 page book)and consist of transcriptions of tape recordings mostly of Kerouac and Cassady, with a party scene and some other people at times. Some of it is interesting, and some of it is of historical interest, but the rest doesn't need to be there. The book itself is a tribute to Cassady (like much of On the Road) and a lot of the sadness can be attributed to the fact that when it was written, Cassady had settled down to the type of married-with-children-and-a-job life that was what much of Kerouac's writing and adventures on the road were rejecting. Another part of the sadness has to do with the gap between America's promise and America's reality. Kerouac was hardly the first writer to notice this, but there weren't many writers, besides his friends, during the post-war economic boom and the complacency of the McCarthy and Eisenhower 50's who were noticing this. And while many have tried, no one has captured his unique poetic voice and vision. The fact that much of the book is like a long prose poem makes it difficult to read, but in the end, well worth it.
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Summary: This is the one the separates the men from the boys.
Review: There are many readers that have read "On the Road" and rightfully appreciate it's narrative and structure. This is for the true Kerouac fan; this is a joy to read and to see what he can do with a sentence. There is a strong similarity between Kerouac turning a phrase and Miles Davis turning a note here. The story, in one sense, or the song, in another, is not important, but the song/story moves and grooves. It's the Bebop that drove Neil to bang on the dashboard that Keoruac is using. What become crucials is the flow and rhythym of the words. They flow and bounce. There is a cadance and and a movement. It's not following a easily developed narrative structure, but it doesn't try to.
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Summary: Amazing -- Truly Amazing -- Don't Miss It!
Review: This book contains everything that Kerouac did best, his long rambling descriptions of the world around him, his fantasy insights into the loneliness of everyone he passed and watched. It in essence captures the beat generation even more artfully than ON THE ROAD, and works as a more philosophical piece. It also stands as a great companion to ON THE ROAD; it is book that really is a necessity to read if you are going to read ON THE ROAD because it gives a more detailed look at Neal Cassady, presents a more in depth vision of his philosophy of America and shows strongly his Whitmanian influences and ideals, while holding a heartbreaking sadness and loneliness for what he sees at the heart of all man kind. It reads like poetry and, though it's not to be rushed through, moves quickly and insightfully through the post war generations reality. Don't miss this beautiful reading experience! Pick up VISIONS OF CODY right away! You won't be sorry! Another novel I recommend, an Amazon quick-pick, is THE LOSERS CLUB by Richard Perez
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Summary: Kerouac as Scribner for Life
Review: This is Kerouac at his most rambling, confused, rampant, unedited, and disturbing. No, I am not giving a bad review, this is the way Kerouac was meant to be read. One must read this book if ON THE ROAD interested them at all. It gives a complete look at both Kerouac and Cassady, and the relationship between the two. Also, this book gives insights into the origins of marijuanna in mainstream america. Kerouac immortalizes taped conversations between the two men when they are both high on Tea. The result is an exhilirating, often funny, sometimes unbelievably depressing, look into the lives of two cultural icons. Read it!
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Summary: a perfection on the fine art of "sketching"
Review: this is not really the type of book to snuggle up with if you're sleepy. if your mind is awake enough you will be jolted into a feverish state of yearning to be there as the voyeur or casual observer chronincling young cody pomeray (neal cassady) through his wild hedonistic life, never stopping, always going, never bored, always high; high on tea (pot), high on life, high on kicks. always jack kerouac is watching some young woman with a sense of sexual arousal but withdrawal (kerouac was quite explicit in his describing of woman, so you are forewarned) it was mainly this reason that voc was for so long rejected from the publishers, but at least we have it now!! and then there are the tapes which, you again need to be in a different state of mind then before to read- these are transcripts of jack dulouz (kerouac) and neal cassady talking while high on tea or amphetamines, which is really just useful to the collecter or historian, but they provided an interesting speeches about william s. burroughs, and the hole william tell ordeal. a nice read, vaguely familar to "Seymour: An Introduction" by j.d. salinger, mainly in its use of a narrartor describing his hero or idol, and the loose narrative style, and above all the wonderful crafting of descriptions that salinger and kerouac are so good at. i know this guy who never did finish this book because it always scared him- i told him to just pick it up and read one paragraph/sentence. if you need a quote for the yearbook or something, this is the book. just open the book and look. one of kerouac's best.
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