Big Sur

Rating:
Summary: Essential Kerouac
Review: This book was written after all the damage had been done, and you can feel it as you read the book. Jack tried for years to get his writing out and by the time it was published he was well on to the state of mind you read in "BIG SUR".
I really think this is a brilliant book, you get to experience a bit of the torment he put himself through to get away from the critics that called his work childish. You even get to hear about Neal Cassady ten years after "ON THE ROAD".
A book well worth reading, slowly, Jack had a tendency to run paragraphs and sentences together, a technique he uses quite a bit in this book.

Rating:
Summary: Felt it in my soul
Review: While I'm a fan of virtually any beat writers' works, I'm partial to books by Jack Kerouac. This one is the one that touched my soul the most. Worn down by alcohol and drugs, he bounces in and out of sanity, and everything he writes comes from the truest, rawest part of his pain. After reading this I took a roadtrip to Big Sur and even stopped in his old hangout, Nepenthe. I bought a journal there and started writing like mad. Thanks for the inspiration, Jack!