Old Angel Midnight [Paperback]

Jack Kerouac (Author), Ann Charters (Preface)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2001

Old Angel Midnight (1959) was one result of Kerouac's automatic writing experiments in which he would spill his chemically inspired thoughts onto paper to see what came out. Though Kerouac was initially denounced by literary critics as an oddball, his spontaneous twistings and turnings of language rate well with those of Joyce and Stein, and time has proven him to be an important and enduringly popular American writer.-Library Review

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"Never before has inconsequentiality been raised to such a peak that it becomes a breakthrough," poet McClure writes in one of this volume's two prefaces. Culled from five notebooks, the writing presented here--one continuous prose poem--spans 1956-59, a period when Kerouac (1922-1969) had immersed himself in Buddhist theory. Offbeat, sometimes preposterous references to religion are to be found throughout: "This holy and all universe is a wonderful white wild power, why, hell, should, heaven, interfere, words, waiting, flesh, sure, I know . . ." While it seems redundant to call anything by Kerouac "spontaneous," Beat critic and biographer Charters points out that Kerouac ( On the Road ) conceived of this work as a map of his subconscious, "without the end or narrative direction" that his novels often groped for. Thus even more unconstrained, he plays with words, puns, delights in juxtaposed sounds, invents new words and throws in foreign ones almost at random: "Shoot, pot, proms were flowery purple lilac Richmond eve roadsters redlegs sweetdolls . . ." Like Kerouac's other manuscripts, this material was kept from publication until after his widow's death. At the time of its writing, this volume might have been considered an experimental "breakthrough," but it feels tired and trite now.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Old Angel Midnight (1959) was one result of Kerouac's automatic writing experiments in which he would spill his chemically inspired thoughts onto paper to see what came out. Though Kerouac was initially denounced by literary critics as an oddball, his spontaneous twistings and turnings of language rate well with those of Joyce and Stein, and time has proven him to be an important and enduringly popular American writer. Also newly available from Grey Fox is Kerouac's Good Blonde & Others (
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 89 pages
• Publisher: Grey Fox Press (January 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0912516976
• ISBN-13: 978-0912516974
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #130,225 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliance unencumbered by usefulness, January 23, 2005

By 

Ant (Tokyo Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Old Angel Midnight (Paperback)

Man, this is a hard slog. This is truly a work of spontaneous prose and you quickly realize this as you try to follow any path of sensible thought until you get to the point where you realize `It's not there'. This is not the written sounds of anything that flowed through Kerouac's midnight window, as he has you believe in a letter to a friend. I have never heard anything like that anywhere through any window of my life. This is purely Kerouac's mind at play with words as they pop into his thoughts. There are some beautiful subtle fragments to be found in this work, mixed in with, phew, with umm, all sorts of stuff. It's a potpourri of poetry written upon the meditation of his own mind & quite often very funny. I believe he succeeded in what he set out to do, but that outcome by its nature is not something appealing to most people. Only a hard core Kerouac fan could truly love this book. I read it in one hit. Perhaps the secret is to pick it up & read stanzas at a time, over time. It's very interesting, means nothing, demands concentration & leaves you scratching your head. I liked it but could love it with time. I'd give it five stars for its brilliance & inventiveness but its inaccessibility can only grant it four.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars read it outloud, May 25, 2000

By 

pukerua (New Zealand) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Old Angel Midnight (Paperback)

This book is about the time the author just sits in his lonely shack and listens to the sounds around.I guess if you just sit and listen intendly right now to all the sounds coming into your universe you will get the message jack was trying to put across. The best way to read this book is to read a section at a time out loud to someone. The result is quite magical. The words somehow all become clear and the visions and situations become real. This is not an easy book to comprehend in the normal manner of a read but hey delve in deep and it becomes a cosmic comet in the universe of your mind.

5.0 out of 5 stars Kerouac's Greatest Poem, January 6, 2012

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Dr. Kush (Dallas TX USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Old Angel Midnight (Paperback)

If you are a bystander to Kerouac's voice this may seem confused and a bunch of prattle, but this is an actual succient voice of Kerouac's being: Caught between being the soft sweet catholic mamma's boy and the aloof buddhist and the carnal man who wants to embrace all experiences however they come... no doubt Finnagan's Wake played a role in how Kerouac's words flow but the cadence and jazz notes and vast knowledge of languistic idiosyncrocies are from Kerouac's own experiences, eventhough this is a brief book it contains a great deal of the writers soul, fun and musical.