Customer Reviews

Jack Kerouac's Duluoz Legend: The Mythic Form of an Autobiographical Fiction

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This book is among the first to finally piece together a coherent path in Kerouac studies. Jones's book thoroughly delves into Kerouac's Proustian-like epic approach to the Duluoz legend. It is so refreshing to emerge with fresh ideas apropos Kerouac's technique verses the over zealous biographers and cultural blow-hards who pipe in regularly on the Beats. Much of Kerouac's real life had little to do with Beat ethos, and much more with that of the writer. What the author provides is much more than a run-down of the authobiographical mystique that Kerouac injected into his work, but moreso, the complexity of a narrative that turned American literature on its end. This book deserves much more attention and suffices itself as the most import and vital accomplishment in Kerouac studies to date. It will far outlive much of what has been written about one of America''s most misunderstood novelists.

This is one of the worst works of scholarship I have ever read. The book consists mostly of plot summaries, badly written ones at that. Jones needs to re-read (read?) The Elements of Style.

As for the theory--whew! It's awful. Jones attempts to provide a Freudian reading, which would be fine if he'd bothered to understand Freud first. But he didn't. In the Works Cited, he lists only a couple works by Freud, and I believe that's because that's all he read.

Jones shows no understanding of Freud. He seems to argue that Kerouac read about Freud's theory of the Oedipus complex and then consciously tried to organize his novels around that theory. Of course that's ridiculous, but Jones seems to have no clue that the complex operates unconsciously. It's absurd to argue that Kerouac chose to apply it.

It's transparent that Jones doesn't believe the very Freudian theories he (superficially) presents. Generally, he avoids referring to psychoanalysis at all, focusing instead on plot summary and occasionally popping in to point out hostility to a father figure, etc. The theory is NEVER discussed in depth, just referred to in an offhand fashion.

Jones often claims that Kerouac's novels were modelled on the works of other writers, but he offers no support for these claims. He seems to believe that pointing out parallels constitutes evidence.

This writer is in over his depth.