- Hardcover: 241 pages
- Publisher: New York (1962)
- Language English
- ASIN: B0007DK7IA
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I enjoyed "Big Sur" more than any of the other Kerouac books I have read. All his books were suposedly "fiction" but, as anyone who has studied the man will know, they are largely among the most honest, open, autobiographical writings that have been published anywhere! Big Sur is no exception. It charts the painful breakdown (largely due to his alcoholism) of this very complex man. The other characters in the book are present but I found they took on an almost dreamlike quality. Kerouac has the ability to communicate and involve us so that we are truly experiencing the nightmare with him. To me it has to be the most painful, honest and enlightening account of descent into mental illness that has ever been recorded. By all accounts Kerouac,in life, was a complex,difficult and often unpleasant man but those who have read him know otherwise! He communicated best through his writing, which he was passionate about, and through this we have a greater insight into the flawed, but beautiful, person that he was.(spoken from the heart!)
By the way, if you want to read a moving and stunningly beautiful episode of a fleeting Kerouac romance try "The Subterraneans".
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Like most of Kerouac's other works, this is autobiographical. Kerouac writes of his attempts to get away from the pressures of fame by hiding out in a friend's cabin, out in the wilderness of Big Sur. Unfortunately he finds himself still sinking into old habits and cracking up.
This is, in all honesty something of a difficult book in places - Kerouac's prose is somewhat unorthodox and may require some getting used to, yet this book is so vivid in some places that it is well worth the effort. It's like nothing I've ever read before. Although it's not a happy book, there are parts of it that are oddly sweet and touching.
I'd recommend reading On The Road first to put this all in some kind of context.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Big Sur is one of my favourite Kerouac books, mainly because in parts its tone is so haunting. As Kerouac descended further into alcoholism and his will for self-negation increased, he wanted to get away from his mother, friends and the circus of fame to write in solitude, as he had tried to do (with varying degrees of success) before. So the poet and publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti (Lorenzo Monsanto in the book) lent him his isolated cabin at Bixby Canyon on Big Sur for several weeks.
This is the premise of the book, which develops as an autoboigraphical account of his time there, with Kerouac alternately loving the solitude and desperate to escape his own company. He comes across as a man incapable of self-possession, both hating society and yet craving it. Despite his new-found (and hated) 'King of the Beats' tag, and his recent literary success, in Big Sur Kerouac seems to know that he is coming to the end of something, and there's an air of melancholy and desperation about his experience. At one point, he sits hitching on highway one, waiting forlornly for a lift back to San Francisco and civilisation. But he's out of touch with the road, and all that goes past him are tourists and family sedans wary of the ragged traveller and we realise how divorced he now is from the freewheeling young hitchiker of 'On the Road', and all things seem out of reach, even hope.
Kerouac fictionalises his San Francisco circle of friends, but the biggest characters are the Pacific Ocean and Big Sur itself. This is where the book is really so haunting - with the huge cliffs and roaring sea, Kerouac is literally at the edge of both the world and himself, and he's terrified of it all. On arriving, Big Sur frightens the hell out of him, and at one point he tries to listen to what the Pacific Ocean is saying, writing it down, as if it is the only way he can understand the enormity of it. For me, this particular aspect was so powerful that whenever I hear about, or see pictures of, Big Sur, my mind goes back to this lonely book.
Big Sur is not flawless by any means - it jumps and digresses like most Kerouac stuff, and varies wildly in intensity. But I would not discourage you from reading it even if you are new to Kerouac - Big Sur was the first Keoruac book I read, and it still says more to me than a lot of his earlier work. To a large degree, Kerouac withdrew from the world after this book. He wrote 'Satori in Paris' before he died, but I still regard Big Sur as the swansong of a troubled genius.
This is the premise of the book, which develops as an autoboigraphical account of his time there, with Kerouac alternately loving the solitude and desperate to escape his own company. He comes across as a man incapable of self-possession, both hating society and yet craving it. Despite his new-found (and hated) 'King of the Beats' tag, and his recent literary success, in Big Sur Kerouac seems to know that he is coming to the end of something, and there's an air of melancholy and desperation about his experience. At one point, he sits hitching on highway one, waiting forlornly for a lift back to San Francisco and civilisation. But he's out of touch with the road, and all that goes past him are tourists and family sedans wary of the ragged traveller and we realise how divorced he now is from the freewheeling young hitchiker of 'On the Road', and all things seem out of reach, even hope.
Kerouac fictionalises his San Francisco circle of friends, but the biggest characters are the Pacific Ocean and Big Sur itself. This is where the book is really so haunting - with the huge cliffs and roaring sea, Kerouac is literally at the edge of both the world and himself, and he's terrified of it all. On arriving, Big Sur frightens the hell out of him, and at one point he tries to listen to what the Pacific Ocean is saying, writing it down, as if it is the only way he can understand the enormity of it. For me, this particular aspect was so powerful that whenever I hear about, or see pictures of, Big Sur, my mind goes back to this lonely book.
Big Sur is not flawless by any means - it jumps and digresses like most Kerouac stuff, and varies wildly in intensity. But I would not discourage you from reading it even if you are new to Kerouac - Big Sur was the first Keoruac book I read, and it still says more to me than a lot of his earlier work. To a large degree, Kerouac withdrew from the world after this book. He wrote 'Satori in Paris' before he died, but I still regard Big Sur as the swansong of a troubled genius.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Kerouac has mid-life crisis on wine.
Jack takes three trips to a cabin in Big Sur in an attempt to de-stress but ends up having a psychotic episode due to the amount of wine he is drinking and the company he is... Read more
Published 9 months ago by nicholas hargreaves
Very Readable
Beat literature seems very popular again right now, and this book is one of Kerouac's most readable. Read more
Published on 24 Dec 2006 by sunsoul
Escaping from the Beat
This is a book written by Kerouac several years after On the Road had made him famous. Fame did not sit easily with him and most of this book is his attempt to escape from fame and... Read more
Published on 31 July 2006 by Lisa
BIG SUR
By the time of writing "Big Sur" Keoruac had developed this style of spontaneous writing and had a certain confidence in his work that payed remarkable dividends. Read more
Published on 13 Mar 2004
beautiful
This is the first of Kerouac's books I have read. Somewhat of a strange beginning being that it was towards the end of his life. Read more
Published on 21 Nov 2001
Exactly what I wanted!
This is the first Jack Kerouac I have read, and will most certainly not be the last!
I feasted on his writing with such relish and satisfaction. Read more
Published on 10 April 2001
Jack burning but not burnt
This book is one of my favorites because although all of his books were about him and his travel etc, this is the the first book where I feel he is actually talking to you. Read more
Published on 12 April 2000
Not for the Kerouac neophyte
This isn't for the faint of heart hippy wannabe Kerouac fan; to me it was a chronicle of his descent into madness, and, as vivid an author as he is, you definately go with him. Read more
Published on 17 Mar 2000
On the road to destruction
I have to admit that I had my doubts about this book when I read the back cover.
I'd read a fair bit of his work but suffered from what could be called "Road... Read more
Published on 20 Jan 2000
A different chord, yet just as beautiful
Those in search of the optimism and hipsterism often associated with the author's work should most probably look elsewhere. Read more
Published on 4 Jan 2000
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