Visions of Cody [Paperback]

Jack Kerouac (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 1, 1993

"What I'm beginning to discover now is something beyond the novel and beyond the arbitrary confines of the story. . . . I'm making myself seek to find the wild form, that can grow with my wild heart . . . because now I know MY HEART DOES GROW." —Jack Kerouac, in a letter to John Clellon Holmes

Written in 1951-52, Visions of Cody was an underground legend by the time it was finally published in 1972. Writing in a radical, experimental form ("the New Journalism fifteen years early," as Dennis McNally noted in Desolate Angel), Kerouac created the ultimate account of his voyages with Neal Cassady during the late forties, which he captured in different form in On the Road. Here are the members of the Beat Generatoin as they were in the years before any label had been affixed to them. Here is the postwar America that Kerouac knew so well and celebrated so magnificently. His ecstatic sense of superabundant reality is informed by the knowledge of mortality: "I'm writing this book because we're all going to die. . . . My heart broke in the general despair and opened up inward to the Lord, I made a supplication in this dream."

"The most sincere and holy writing I know of our age." —Allen Ginsberg

Editorial Reviews

Review

'His most ambitious novel. An opportunity to sample the tenderness, richness and vibrancy of his writing.' New Statesman 'It is easy enough for us now to read the distress of America in the movies and novels of the Fifties, to see the panic and disarray behind the cosy fictions. But Kerouac read it then, when the Fifties had scarcely started. His best work is always elegiac, a mourning for something vanished before it has even properly arrived.' New Society '"Visions of Cody" recreates Cody's world in a series of epiphanies, all recorded with the expansive lyricism of a Whitman whose America has reached the end of the road. It is at once an epitaph and a rhapsodic celebration of the American Beat world.' TLS --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Jack Kerouac(1922-1969), the central figure of the Beat Generation, was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922 and died in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1969. Among his many novels are On the Road, The Dharma Bums, Big Sur, and Visions of Cody.

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books; Reprint edition (August 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140179070
• ISBN-13: 978-0140179071
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.8 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #278,672 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), the central figure of the Beat Generation, was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922 and died in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1969. Among his many novels are On the Road, The Dharma Bums, Big Sur, and Visions of Cody.

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#63 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Classics

#63 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Classics

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 39 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Kerouac Essential January 3, 2001

By MyComa

Format:Paperback

Most readers come to know Kerouac through On the Road. Those who develop a relationship with his work invariably point to Visions of Cody as the one that hooked them for life. While the plotting and structure aren't nearly as sound as On the Road, this isn't exactly a novel. More like a rambling, poetic love letter to a period in Kerouac's life that was quickly slipping away.

Incidentally, Kerouac did not intend for this to be a companion to On the Road. If the author had had it his way, this would have been the definitive version of On the Road.

Most readers agree that the first 150 pages is by far the best writing in this book. Read this section, even if you put the book down for good afterward. These 150 pages are pure, loose, and brilliant. Kerouac sketching unequaled by any other part of his oeuvre.

As with all Kerouac books, this one has its faults. The middle 200 pages are overwrought and self-indulgent. But that can be said of most of Kerouac's work. The tape transcripts are important reading if you want a first-hand account of the dynamic that existed between Jack and Neal. But this section could have been shortened substantially. Also, for every perfect sentence, there are ten that fall flat--examples of how the spontaneous prose technique had its drawbacks. But no writer is great all the time. And Kerouac's sporadic greatness more than makes up for the notes he doesn't quite hit.

For those new to Kerouac's work, you would be better off reading The Subterraneans first just to get acclamated to the spontaneous prose style. Even then, it will be tough going. But you read Kerouac for more than the storytelling. Faithful Kerouac readers cite the author's inventiveness, his fearlessness, and his unwavering devotion to the written word. Most writers go their entire lives without a sentence as good as, "So pull that skull cover back and smile." And that one is buried in a heep of perfectly constructed, evocative sentences.

For a more critical look at this book, try reading Kerouac's Crooked Road by Tim Hunt (with help from Ann Charters). It offers a thorough breakdown of Kerouac's techniques, while providing an insightful comparison between Visions of Cody and On the Road (two versions of the same idea).

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars How To Read The Tape Transcripts... March 24, 2007

By Miguel

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Yes, at first I thought the tape transcripts were just a lot of useless padding to fill out Jack's book. Boy, was I wrong! Here's how to read them:

1. Get a couple of Charley Parker albums (Bird and Diz will do nicely.)

2. Procure a jug of red wine and a joint.

3. Put on Bird, pour a glass of wine, and just relax with the music for a while.

4. Take a few tokes. Drink more wine. Get a nice mellow buzz.

5. NOW, begin reading the tape transcripts, and voila! You are invited to the party!

You will be sitting there with Cassidy and Kerouac, digging the flow of music and conversation and experiencing a new comprehension of their friends, wives and lovers. The gossip, the stories, the subtle oneupmanship between them is a delicious fly-on-the wall experience. By recreating the set and setting of these long ago conversations, you will experience an intimacy that is uncanny. I've done this a few times and was amazed at the greater understanding I had of these two complicated men. I read and re-read the transcripts with delight and was sorry there wasn't more of them.

This is surely what Kerouac intended. It's like the modern day extras and behind the scenes specials you get on movie DVDs. I mourn their passing more than ever and the fact that there doesn't appear to be anyone out there to take their place.

Ever wonder why Hollywood depictions of the Beats are laughable failures? HERE'S why.

Go now...

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Often brilliant, sometimes maddening September 2, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

The best parts of this book are poetic, sad, exhilarating, and rank with the best of Kerouac. The maddening parts are self-indulgent, repetitive, boring, and sexist. Most of the latter are in the long central section (pages 120-250 of a 400 page book)and consist of transcriptions of tape recordings mostly of Kerouac and Cassady, with a party scene and some other people at times. Some of it is interesting, and some of it is of historical interest, but the rest doesn't need to be there. The book itself is a tribute to Cassady (like much of On the Road) and a lot of the sadness can be attributed to the fact that when it was written, Cassady had settled down to the type of married-with-children-and-a-job life that was what much of Kerouac's writing and adventures on the road were rejecting. Another part of the sadness has to do with the gap between America's promise and America's reality. Kerouac was hardly the first writer to notice this, but there weren't many writers, besides his friends, during the post-war economic boom and the complacency of the McCarthy and Eisenhower 50's who were noticing this. And while many have tried, no one has captured his unique poetic voice and vision. The fact that much of the book is like a long prose poem makes it difficult to read, but in the end, well worth it.