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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Kerouac We Never Knew, January 16, 2002
Yes, this is Kerouac's first published novel. Yes, it is fundamentally autobiographical. Yes, it is stylistically derivative of Thomas Wolfe's epic novels. But there is more here for Kerouac devotees than these standard descriptions. First, when centered between the works written immediately before and after The Town and the City (specifically, the selections of short pieces recently published in Atop an Underwood and Kerouac's second published novel, On the Road)a clear picture of a writer's development emerges. The Town and the City has a sustained narrative that builds to a satisfying conclusion. This would change over time as Kerouac became more focused on episodic writing in his novels--for instance, lengthy descriptions of jazz club settings in The Subteraneans, or maybe the best example, the tape transcriptions of conversations with Neal Cassady in Visions of Cody--and found little need for pure resolution. The beginning of this shift is noticeable in On the Road, when the detailed re-creation of a car ride takes precedent over plot. This type of writing is not to be found in The Town and the City. Second, Kerouac's development as a human being presents itself as his themes are precipitated by the death of his father and the implicit responsibility for his family Kerouac (embodied in the character of Peter) would wrestle with for the rest of his life. Third, Kerouac, almost shockingly, finds his literary voice in the final two-hundred pages of the novel. While most of the book moves along with the languid prose of a young writer imitating his idols, the "City" sections show Kerouac opening up, taking more risks, and discovering the type of writing that would become his trademark: Rythmic, unique, and energized accounts of characters almost willing their lives to unfold before them, and dead-on, perfectly real dialogue that makes you believe Kerouac had a tape recorder with him everywhere he went. Finally, for those who've studied Kerouac's life and those that have visited his hometown of Lowell, you will see Kerouac struggling to fictionalize people, places, and events. This is a struggle he pretty much abandoned with On The Road, going so far as to use "Real Names" in the original draft. It is especially apparent in The Town and the City when Waldo committs suicide by jumping out of a window at Kenneth Wood's apartment. This episode was undoubtedly based on Lucien Carr's murder of David Kammerer. But Kerouac changes the murder to a suicide, and then attempts to fill Kenneth Wood with the same guilt Lucien Carr felt over the incident by implying that Kenneth might have pushed Waldo out the window. The result? It's not believable. Something Kerouac himself must have felt. Kerouac claimed that the original inspiration for his spontaneous prose style was a forty-page letter he received from Neal Cassady before writing On the Road. The Town and the City shows Kerouac was already discovering a voice of his own and exploring the places and people that would dominate his fiction for the remainder of his career. It was that letter, though, that hurled him into a different realm, showing him the possibilities of a wild, new bop prosody, later leading to a recognition of Kerouac as a pioneering, risk-taking, totally unique writer. Had Cassady never sent that letter, we might well be talking of Kerouac today as a stylistic extension of Thomas Wolfe, or we may not be talking of him at all. Still, The Town and the City proves, with or without Neal's letter, Kerouac had greatness in him all along.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
My Favourite Beat Angel..., August 9, 2000
The Town And The City tracks the lives of the Martin family (5 sons and 3 daughters) growing up, living loving and discovering themselves, the world and others in the small town of Galloway in Massachusetts in the early 1900's. From the football star, to the lonely scholar, to the forever wandering heartbreaker of a truck driver, Kerouac deals with each of the siblings separately, describing their very different lives and in doing so, gives us the readers, a glimpse into each of their souls. The book can be read as a largely autobiographical account of Kerouac's life, with each of the Martin sons representing alternative parts of himself, his feelings, thoughts and personality. Alternatively, the reader can lose themselves in the lives of the Martin family without concerning themselves with the real or the elaborated. Kerouac reaches the reader with soaring, descriptive writing, which transform the mundane and everyday into feelings and emotions which describe the things you've always thought and felt but could never articulate into words... "He was sick now with a crying lonesomeness, he somehow knew that all moments were farewell, all life was goodbye." Kerouac himself describes the book as, "The sum of myself as far as the written word can go." The great American novel? Possibly, but this book is definately an essential for all Kerouac fans, people who have ever wondered what somebody else was thinking and all those who have raged on into the lonely night looking for an `angelheaded hipster' to give them meaning.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely Jack, November 7, 1997
This book is a poingnant tale of the trials of life, as seen through the eyes of a boy, who watches his family changing and aging, even as he does the same. Peter Martin's reactions to everyday life are heartwrenchingly accurate. We watch his family scatter throughout the earth with the onset of WWII, and see first-hand the devastating repercussions of the war on this all-too-real household. The Town and the City was Kerouac's first novel, and what a work of literature to call your first! He was compared numerous times to Thomas Wolfe upon the first publishing, and it's no wonder. Filled with lush description and prose, this book will take your breath away and break your heart. For those who are skeptical of Kerouac's sometimes chaotic "spontaneous prose" style, fear not. While The Town and the City echoes the spontaneity of Kerouac's future works, it also contains a solid, beautiful sructure to relish and savor. Intricate layers of life intertwined so delicately they will make you cry, I promise you it will be highlighted, tattered and dogeared in a very short time. If you're looking for a book you can keep at your bedside that contains any kind of pre-sleep passage you could long for (from jubilant to forlorn, and everything in between), this is it. The Town and the City is the book you feel inside you everyday, playing out as the very essence of living itself, and the most beautiful thing of all is that it's already been written for you to enjoy again and again.
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