Desolation Angels

Rating:
Summary: No, Kerouac is Not a God...
Review: But he is an awesome writer, human being, and metaphysicist (which I believe is the whole point of his work). What Kerouac does in his literature, particularly this piece, is thoroughly illustrate the rift created in the worlds of those who are torn between a culturally prescribed allgience/addiction to idealism and a fear that existentialsm is the only truth to which one can rightfully subscribe.
I would certainly point to "Desolation Angels" as the pinnacle of the body of Kerouac's work, and reccomend the book to anyone similarly riddled with Kerouac's spiritual affliction. Or anyone who wishes to study his genre of literature.
I do not reccomend the book to anyone who is easily bored. Though BEAUTIFUL, the text is long, complex, and a bit heavy at times, which can become frustrating. Better to start out with (hey - if you're going to read Kerouac you need to read this book anyway...) "On The Road", which is more of a thrill ride and will compel you to keep reading so you might adjust and become more prepared to digest the poetry he puts into paragraphs and stretches into hundreds of pages.

But that's just my ten-cents' worth. You can decide for yourself.

Rating:
Summary: No, Kerouac is Not a God...
Review: But he is an awesome writer, human being, and metaphysicist (which I believe is the whole point of his work). What Kerouac does in his literature, particularly this piece, is thoroughly illustrate the rift created in the worlds of those who are torn between a culturally prescribed allgience/addiction to idealism and a fear that existentialsm is the only truth to which one can rightfully subscribe.
I would certainly point to "Desolation Angels" as the pinnacle of the body of Kerouac's work, and reccomend the book to anyone similarly riddled with Kerouac's spiritual affliction. Or anyone who wishes to study his genre of literature.
I do not reccomend the book to anyone who is easily bored. Though BEAUTIFUL, the text is long, complex, and a bit heavy at times, which can become frustrating. Better to start out with (hey - if you're going to read Kerouac you need to read this book anyway...) "On The Road", which is more of a thrill ride and will compel you to keep reading so you might adjust and become more prepared to digest the poetry he puts into paragraphs and stretches into hundreds of pages.

But that's just my ten-cents' worth. You can decide for yourself.

Rating:
Summary: This is one of the best book's I've ever read!
Review: Desolation Angels is by far my favorite Keruoac book. I own eight other Keruoac books, and this was one of the quickest reads, most emotional, spriritual, honest books you'll ever have a chance of experiencing. This book is so well written it should be mandatory college level reading for creative writing classes.

Rating:
Summary: A Trifle Over-Rated
Review: For some readers who found this book after reading some of Kerouac's more conventional literary works, this novel may come off as a bit tedious. Kerouac wasn't that great an experimental novelist, or at least not as graceful with spontaneous prose and extra-sensory perceptive description as his pier William S. Burroughs, as exemplified by the book's more incoherent and often undermanaged meanderings. As a piece of creative autobiography, however, the novel is a symbolic giant of originality, fearlessly defying traditional literary convention and organization. For those seeking out Kerouac for more traditional entertainment, however, the novel proves far more complex than a single reading may warrant.

Rating:
Summary: Desolation indeed...
Review: From the moment I opened On the Road, I knew Jack Kerouacwasn't just any author. A new spirit and new feelings, stirredup by mere words...It doesn't happen often enough. In that respect, Desolation Angels is typical Kerouac. The incredibly flowing mad descriptions and details, his friends as real as the stars, beautifully rendered real personalities. From his isolation as a fire lookout, long time to be sober for Kerouac, he jumps back into his old life...Drinking screaming talking crazy friends Ginsberg Cassady et al. A trip to Mexico, living above an old junky, Mexican women, writing. Friends come to Mexico...you can imagine. Tangier and William Burroughs, another junky...Kerouac helps him, typing the manuscript of Naked Lunch (Nude Dinner, he calls it, just like the other pseudonyms he assigns...)... Back to the States, more of the wonderful same, always fresh and exciting...But in the end, I was only surprised. He left his Desolation Angels.

Rating:
Summary: Jack Kerouac delivers one of the finest novels of the Beat
Review: generation in Desolation Angels. Kerouacs frank accounts and vivid style draw you into the heart of a man both idealistic and cinical, naive and experienced, proud and downtrodden, as well as buddist and Catholic, living the life of a "Dharma Bum" as he travels to Mexico. From the fire lookout high on Desolaion Peak, to the junk steets of Mexico, Kerouac shares with his readers every experience and emotion, carring the reader deep into the lifestyle of the Beats as few authors ever accomplished. Its no wonder Kerouac became the symbol of the Beat generation for millions of kats in the 50's, for even today his writing is hep, and inciteful. He could very easily be an icon for generations to come.

Rating:
Summary: Further reflections of a lonesome traveler
Review: I disagree with the 5-star consensus of the previous reviewers - Kerouac's writing is not 'faultless prose', as he characterizes it himself in this novel. But 'Desolation Angels' is another fascinating glimpse into the heart of this daring and nomadic - literally and spiritually - author. One star gets shaved from my review for the unfocused, enigmatic opening section of the book, 'Desolation in Solitude'. A rethinking of 'Alone on a Mountaintop' from 'Lonesome Traveler', this section only thickens the fog in both the reader and in the author, it seems. It's not that it rambles - all Kerouac's writing does, and to point it out as a flaw is like insisting that Bob Dylan's voice sucks. Of course it does, that's the point. But Kerouac characterized the Desolation Peak experience before and did it better in 'Lonesome Traveler'.

However, once Kerouac makes his descent and rejoins the world in the second half of Book One and through all of Book Two, the way that his mountaintop experience informs his perspective in places like New York, Mexico, and Europe is engrossing and surpisingly intelligent. Drawing from a wide variety of influences from St. Paul to Buddha to Hemingway, Kerouac revisits familiar places and people with a broadened and more cynical point of view. Desolation Angels is more candid, forthright, even explicit, than its predecessors about drug use and sex. But it also reveals a more exhaustive spiritual hunger in Kerouac, and leads the reader to conclude that the author, in his quest to meet God, realized he had indeed found Him.

By turns a thoughtful, pensive, funny and risk-taking novel, Desolation Angels is canonical Kerouac.

Rating:
Summary: A journey into the mind of a true madman!!!
Review: If you've read On the Road, then this is a must read. It is a true journey into the mind of a madman. A more intimate look into the man that defined a generation of our parents, parents. As a younger reader of the generation today it is beneficial for us to see how people lived in past generations and take with us their experiences that in a sense you could not experience today. If I've taken anything from this book its the showing of the need for insanity in the life of Kerouac. And the need for constinent movement, not just in the physical sense but also in the mental sense of having his mind in constient movement.

Rating:
Summary: A journey into the mind of a true madman!!!
Review: If you've read On the Road, then this is a must read. It is a true journey into the mind of a madman. A more intimate look into the man that defined a generation of our parents, parents. As a younger reader of the generation today it is beneficial for us to see how people lived in past generations and take with us their experiences that in a sense you could not experience today. If I've taken anything from this book its the showing of the need for insanity in the life of Kerouac. And the need for constinent movement, not just in the physical sense but also in the mental sense of having his mind in constient movement.

Rating:
Summary: "I am part of the beatific generation"
Review: In an era where taking your backpack and your self out onto the open road is a non-existant practice Kerouac brings us right back there with this novel. Starting at the top of a mountain with just himself and the Void to San Francisco and the hipsters to his mother to Neal Cassady and back full circle we truly taste the life of the epitome of the term "beat" in Desolation Angels. Why did this era ever have to end...and why don't we all spend some time with ourself and the Void......