The Subterraneans
by Jack Kerouac
List Price:
Our Price: $7.65
You Save: $6.35 (45%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $2.79 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Jack KerouacEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1994-01-27
ISBN: 0802131867
Number of pages: 111
Publisher: Grove Press
Book Reviews of The Subterraneans
Book Review: Young America - Bohemian Mystery, Existential Void
Summary: 5 Stars
A very Kerouac novel. The love affair of Leo Percepied and a beautiful Black/Indian girl named Mardou, who the hoodlum looking Leo, separated her from the subterranean pack. Whirling in spiral moving descriptive memories of people, places, insecurities, unconscious thoughts and affairs. There's the good, bad and the ugly, thoughts and words that you'd find in many love relationships, in this instance, in one of the beats with the crazy tea smoking, bar hopping, relational attachments, sexual encounters, distancing of themselves, interior questions of unspoken thoughts that live subconsciously, some of them from dating outside the race, from drinking excessively, from jealously and the idea of not finding or really knowing who the self really is in the beat existential movement of spontaneity, where the plan, one day, was to go to Mexico, but first to buy some clothes and Gerry Mulligan records. But in the end jealously, a lack of passion, which is very existential and yet the pattern of inability to sit still and rest becomes emotionally impossible.
The story is great Kerouac. It has this subtle sadness of existential angst, the emptiness of life as in Dostoevsky and Camus, the casual nature and lost souls of modern living and living in indulgence, drunkenness, socialness that lacks a depth of stability, a stronghold where intellectual and literary meanings can not fulfill, devoid of a centering which can not be found in the subterranean life of the late 40's - 50's avant garde.
And this appears to me as the Kerouac trademark: a jazz styled prose of spontaneous expression from the "real," non-conditioned, non-image-to-portray self, an existential life of despair in fast paced living with the rush of jazz, drink, sex, travel, under the literary and scholarly ideals of avant garde sophistication, adventure, desires, seeking new discoveries, walking places one never has been before, risk taking and traveling, all so under this empty void of utter lonely existence, devoid of substantial meanings of foundational holds and securities, walking in the desert not knowing when water will appear and if it does, if this water will sustain life or poison it. So there's this emptiness, this sadness of it all in the modern man and woman, both subterranean and beatnik.
Summary of The Subterraneans
Written over the course of three days and three nights, The Subterraneans was generated out of the same ecstatic flash of inspiration that produced another one of Kerouac's early classic, On The Road. Centering on the tempestous breakup of Leo Percepied and Mardou Fox--two denizens of the 1950s San Francsico underground--The Subterraneans is a tale of dark alleys and dark rooms,of artists, of visionaries,
Literary Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Literary Books
Island (Perennial Classics)by Aldous Huxley
Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Published: 2002-07-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
Angelsby Marian Keyes
William Morrow; Published: 2002-05-28; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.18
Price in other shops:
A Tree Grows in Brooklynby Betty Smith
Harper; Published: 2001-11-13; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.81
Price in other shops:
The Devil and Miss Prym: A Novel of Temptationby Paulo Coelho
Harper; Published: 2006-07-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.50
Price in other shops:
Boonville: A Novelby Robert Mailer Anderson
Harper Perennial; Published: 2003-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
Carameloby Sandra Cisneros
HarperAudio; Published: 2002-10-01; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops:
Headhunterby Timothy Findley
PERENNIAL PUBLICATIONS; Paperback; Book
The Crimson Petal And The Whiteby Michel Faber
Harcourt, Inc./Harvest; Published: 2003; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.50
Great Expectationsby Charles Dickens
Macmillan Pub Co; Published: 1979-06; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops:
This Side of Paradiseby Fitzgerald
Scribner Paper Fiction; Published: 1988-09-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.95
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Howl and Other Poems (City Lights Pocket Poets, No. 4)by Allen Ginsberg
City Lights Publishers; Published: 2001-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.83
Price in other shops:
Tristessaby Jack Kerouac
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1992-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops:
Dr. Saxby Jack Kerouac
Grove Press; Published: 1994-01-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.75
Price in other shops:
Naked Lunch: The Restored Textby William S. Burroughs
Grove Press; Published: 2004-01-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.50
Price in other shops:
Visions of Codyby Jack Kerouac
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1993-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.75
Price in other shops:
The Portable Beat ReaderPenguin Classics; Published: 2003-07-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.50
Price in other shops:
On the Road: The Original Scroll (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)by Jack Kerouac
Penguin Classics; Published: 2008-08-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.64
Price in other shops:
Big Sur: (Penguin Ink)by Jack Kerouac
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2011-04-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.08
Price in other shops:
The Dharma Bums (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)by Jack Kerouac
Penguin Classics; Published: 2006-10-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.07
Price in other shops:
Desolation Angelsby Jack Kerouac
Riverhead Books; Published: 1995-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.59
Price in other shops: