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Visions of Cody by Jack Kerouac
Book Summary InformationAuthor: Jack Kerouac Edition: Paperback Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published) Published: 1993-08-01 ISBN: 0140179070 Number of pages: 448 Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of Visions of CodyBook Review: AN ELEGY FOR A FALLEN AMERICA Summary: 5 Stars
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elegy for a fallen America that no longer exists, especially today, an America where innocence and kindness and joy has been replaced by paranoia and selfishness, with Kerouac using Cody as a symbol of all that is good and lost in America.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.
Summary of Visions of CodyWritten during 1951-52, this novel was an underground legend by the time it was finally published in 1972. Written in an experimental form, Kerouac created the ultimate account of his voyages with Neal Cassady, which he captured in a different form for On the Road.
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