38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Kerouac's most overlooked novel, and his best., August 6, 1996
By A Customer
Kerouac has fallen in and out of cult hero worship, for many
reasons. He was the forefather of the spectacularly popular
Beat Generation, his books are full of raw energy and
rebellion, and he died of a brain hemorrhage watching "The
Galloping Gourmet". These are all wonderful reasons to read
"On the Road" or "Subterraneans". Do not read "Tristessa"
for these reasons. Read "Tristessa" for its pure Kerouac
voice, for its wonderful hollow music which echoes the
wildest romantic poets, the heroin-desperate streets of Mexico
City, and the soul of Kerouac himself. This is Kerouac's
most haunting, melodic, and starkly religious work,
the story of true love and the lie of love, the story of
hope and of the crush of drugs, poverty and despair.
To read this
book is to be Kerouac, to be crazy-drunk with no place to
sleep and no money to eat, but to be crying with happiness
because the woman you love is unconscious in the gutter beside
you. You can hear the words inside your head long after
you close the book... "shouldna done it Lord, Awakenerhood,
shouldna played the suffering-and-dying game with the children in
your own mind, shoulda whistled for the music and danced..." "I love her but the song
is---broken---"
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing romantic novel!, August 14, 2003
By A Customer
The basic story line in this book surrounded a junky Mexican prostitute named Tristessa of whom Jack(Kerouac's "alias") has fallen madly in love with. Jack can't find a way to tell her, and she sends him completely mixed signals, and is constantly too hung up on her drug addiction to care about love. At one point he leaves to go up to California(in which period of time "The Dharma Bums" takes place), and the story picks up a year later when Jack returns with his urgent need to see Tristessa.
Another story line of Tristessa involves Jack sitting in the pad where Tristessa and her friend Cruz live, and his fasination with the animals that live there (a Chihuaua, a cat, a hen, a rooster, and a dove). He meditates and watches them, wondering what they're thinking and trying his best to earn their trust and respect.
This was quite an amazing book, the second best book I've read this year after The Losers' Club by Richard Perez. I find any of Jack Kerouac's works hard to put down, as there is always something new and interesting and fascinating to read and learn from his writing. I would recommend this story to any Beat Generation or Kerouac reader.
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A story of love and suffering, April 19, 2002
Jack Kerouac's "Tristessa" is a short novel about an American poet (named, like the author, Jack) and his love for Tristessa, a Mexico City drug addict. The book follows the experiences of Jack, Tristessa, and their circle of friends in the seedy underside of Mexico City.
Kerouac's language in this book is startling: a prose poetry that reminds me of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl." The words in "Tristessa" tumble at you in a wild, hypnotic rush. There are lots of apparently made-up words, sort of "Spanglish" flourishes, and pop culture references. Buddhism serves as a frequent subtext to the novel; I would recommend reading this together with Kerouac's "The Scripture of the Golden Eternity."
"Tristessa" is a sad look at the human toll taken by drug abuse, and is full of vivid details of the title character's world. Recommended as a companion text: "Quiet Days in Clichy," by Henry Miller.
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