Customer Reviews

The First Third

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

A few chosen people are meant to be artists. Of the artists, there are painters: others sculptors, musicians, poets or writers. For some, like Neal Cassady, their medium was Being.

Although a muse for the likes of Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Ferlingetti, and in many ways the adrenaline to the Beat Generation, Cassady was not a writer. Writing wasn't Neal's gig. Perhaps the pen was too slow for him; the medium just couldn't convey his essence. Rather Neal was a live show. It seems cruel to find him trapped on paper - like watching a tiger at the zoo, the wild drained off through those all confining bars.

The first few chapters of The First Third are slow and seem forced. However, the vibe changes drastically once Neal's family tree is throughly discussed. It's as if Cassady has quit the pretentious wordplay and dictated thoughts to paper, which give the remainder of the book a much more genuine feel.

The most enlightening segment of the book is the select correspondence between Neal, Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey and others. It provides an insight into Neal that is raw, unedited and seems a much more accurate description than Cassady's own attempt at biography.

The First Third documents neal Cassady's childhood, illustrated through his adventures with his homeless father and inpoverished upbringing. It includes some fabulous ideas inside many intentional run on sentances. Not for the grammatically correct. I got to the end and wished it had been longer. Cassady is an addictive writer, with easy language and deep ideas.

This is the true life story of the main inspiration behind the beat movement and the early Acid movement. This autobiography examines the first 13 years or so of Cassady's life. The only problem with it is that it is too short. However, it redeems itself with the addition of letters and exerpts in the back. These are more entertaining than the book in some ways. Check out the letter to Ken Kesey. When you are done with this book check out the movie, "The Last Time I Committed Suicide." It is based on one of the exerpts from the book. Overall, this is a fun book that gives insight into Cassady's early life.

While I didn't find the actual writing style to be as exciting and wonderful as anticipated (considering his friends were always so wowed and impressed with his letters), you get an idea of how Neal talked through his writing. This is an incredibly important book as far as trying to figure out who Neal was. It is hard to wade through the idealised american holy hero angel kerouac identified him as, as well as the viewpoint of those such as carolyn and allen and figure out who he is. for the first time we get his words about what happened to him in the earlier years of his life. the only bad thing about this book is that he didn't get farther before he died.

The First Third is a far cry from being one of the best books that I have read. However, if you are a fan of Jack Kerouac, as I am, this book is a must read. In reading this book you get an understanding of who neal thought that he was, and how he got that way. This book is essential if you want a more complete understanding of Kerouac's On the Road. The fashion in which this book is written borows much style from Cassidy's compaions, consisting of some of the greatest minds of twentieth century literature.

As a reader who came to this book from a curiosity about Neal Cassady the person, I was disapointed to say the least. It's ironic that the book that offers the least insight into the workings of Neal Cassady's mind would be his own autobiography. I can't say very much about his prose either--his letters, if anything, capture the best of his essence for posterity. Perhaps Neal was just too pragmatic before a daunting typewriter and the task of recording his life--he is too chronological and spends too much time on his family tree, which is not fascinating enough to warrant it. The book, which reads more like a school paper, ends with Neal still a child. He should have started with "The Third Third" and worked backwards.

I have read beat literature for years and am completely fascinated with the culture and characters of the time. I've read Kerouac, Kesey, Wolfe, Ginsbug and was impressed with them all. When I finally scrounged up enough money to pick up this collection of Cassady's writings, I was very excited about what I expected to find. And then I started reading.

Cassady had some great ideas, but his prose was forced and eclectic. He doesn't have any one writing style. Instead he jumps from style to style, sometimes as often as he breaks for paragraphs. It makes for some very frustrated reading at times. The other problem is with the editing of the novel. I'm not terribly concerned with grammar and punctuation, but several times a page there were editing mistakes. Whether this was a carryover from the original document or a mistake of the actual editor I can't say, but it again distracts one from the true thread of the book.

Overall, I would have to rate this collection fairly poorly, for its inconsistancy and lack of real purpose. I don't mean to demean from the legend that Neal Cassady was, but I simply believe that he was a man of action, not of words.

This book starts with Cassady's autobio of his childhood years, and a brief history of his ancestors. while the prologue was interesting, because of where neal came from, it wasn't as exciting as the actual text of the first third, which was excellent, and why i gave this four stars. it was written in a style very much similar to kerouac. i only wish he had completed the manuscript. following the first third is a selection of NC's unfinished writings, which i have to say was a dissapointment. it isn't much of a surprise that he wrote nothing, and that kerouac is the primary figure of the beats. next follow a few of neal's letters to kerouac, which are a great insight to the mind of one of the central figures of the beats (in fact, one of the letters discussed an incident that i recognize from on the road). the final selection is a letter to ken kesey. i'm sure there are much better letters to chose from, this one was boring and one of the weaker selections. the letters seem to have no particular reason for being here, just to fill the book with cassady's writings. still, a valuable book to have for any fan of the beats.

This book is great if you truly want to get into the mind of the fastest man on the planet. just like neal who could jump around from one topic to the other in mid-sentence, that is exactly the way he writes the book. Don't confuse neal with jack, because neal is to fast to sit down and read in one setting. And the letter at the end make for some good and funny reading. If you truly love the beats and want to see what the heartbeat is really all about, check this book out.

Neal Cassady, the epitome of beat, wrote this volume of work (the First Third, and other writings), with a completely amateur approach, the book contains a lot of biography-oriented material that must be read in order to appreciate his chaotic poetical climaxes which occur sporadically throughout the text. The First Third is the least impressive part of the book, while the excerpts from letters stand out as the highlights for me, only because they contain the majority of Cassady's insane spontaenous surges.

I loved "The First Third" because I have always been enthralled with Neal Cassady as the human being he really was, and not so much the mad voodoo child that Kerouac sometimes makes him out to be. "The First Third" ultimately shows Cassady as a relatively normal individual who popped like a firecracker out of middle-class Denver into the party known as the Beat Generation.

This book is great for its history and few moments of glory, but had not Neal Cassady wrote it, but some other guy who lived in the fifties, the book wouldnt have been all that impressive.