Customer Reviews

Satori in Paris and Pic: Two Novels (Kerouac, Jack)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've read a lot of Kerouac's stuff and liked most of it. this, however, is truly pathetic, uninteresting and unnecessary. I guess if you for some reason need a portrait of the artist in decline... this is it.

If you've never read him please dont start here. This is only for those who already love and know what jack was capable of- we're better prepared to forgive disappointments like these. If you're new to kerouac do yourself a favor and start with things like the dharma bums, on the road and subterraneans- there's a reason these are as popular as they are.

It's nice and short, though.

I also want to mention that this is my first review- I'm not in the habit of trashing great writers lesser works. I dont need my opinions heard or validated. I just want to steer fledgling beat readers away from what could be an instant kerouac dealbreaker.

satori is kerouac being kerouac, the end of the Duluoz Legend, almost like he's just writing you letters. i wish there was a bit more to it, something to end it all, but alas it ends not with a bang but a whimper.

pic, his last novel, is great, this is kerouac being mark twain and really shows his talent as a writer, that he can write about something other than himself. and ties into his Duluoz Legend in a cool sort of way too.

It helps to be a bit of a Kerouac fan to like this short book, and it helps if you've been to Paris as well I guess. I liked it, and tho Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac was pretty wasted thru his whole trip here, he is funnier than hell!!! The way he puts down the American businessman tourist, comments still on a coupla giggly schoolmarms from Iowa, how he gets offended that his French (real French, if olde-timey) and his bum demeanor are not quite what Parisians dig... Kerouac by the end is sick of traipsing around France (and wants to get back to the American funny papers in St Pete!) but not before a beer and calvados soaked journey ostensibly to find his ancestry (he even admits he only ate one real meal while in Paris--hot dogs and saurkraut!). This is a good book, we all know he died soon after, the fact that he even got this written after his trip is amazing.

This is by far Kerouac's most enlightening book. He expresses his deep emotion of the Buddhist culture. Satori comes only when the main character follows the Path of Enlightenment and the Four Noble Truths of Tibetian Buddhism. a must read for any Kerouac fan or anyone who wants to share the experience of Eastern wisdom and thought.

Straight from the hip[flask] of Kerouac, a simple tale about the search for his family's history, which means (like every Kerouac novel) it's not REALLY about that at all, but more about life in general. I loved chapter two (which you can read all of through the link, above) because it sums up Kerouac's writing philosophy in an nutshell (a good starting point for anyone diving into his works for the first time). Since we all know booze would kill Kerouac not too long after he wrote this novel, it's tough not to feel sorry for him as you read -- and, at least for me, wish I could go back and smack his drunk ass out of it -- but I guess that's what made him tick. After reading Kerouac's vivid, rambling accounts of the most mundane events, one can't help but to find a greater appreciation for life and everything in it. God bless him.

There's no Satori here. No Dharma bums or Dharma either. Just the sad druken ramblings of a once great writer. Gone is the energy and excitement of On The Road and The Dharma Bums. And there's no interesting characters like Neal Cassady or Gary Snyder for Kerouac to bounce off of. Its just poor druken Kerouac wandering through France in an inebriated haze. And also this book was written in the mid sixties, the Beat Generation was well past its prime, already eclipsed by its progeny, the flower children. And unlike Allen Ginsburg, Gary Snyder and Neal Cassady, Kerouac was hopelessly out of touch with the times. And it shows. That's not to say that Satori in Paris is without interest, just that it pales in comparison with his earlier work. And Pic is an example of an interesting early experiment. I believe an early draft of On The Road, before he quite got his bearings and figured out how to write that masterpiece.

This book provides the reader with the best chance of
exploring the roots of Kerouac's spitituality. Far too
often the beats are viewed as a bunch of intellectual
hedonists whose love for verse was equalled only
by their indulgence in the various permetations of
chemical abuse. The beats set the stage for the 60's,
and America's search for a true a national spirituality.
As "King of the Beats", Kerouac takes the reader into an
in depth analysis of what lay at the very heart of the

beat movement-the journey is the reward in and of itself.

"Satori in Paris" explores a trip to France by Mr. Kerouac. In it we vist many of the interesting people and places that Jack runs into during his odyssey of sorts of self exploration. If memory serves me right I think this may have been his last novel published. Like many of his other great works "Satori" perfectly captures the vibe and feel of the pre-sixties, pre-Vietnam era beat generation.