Buying Options
Digital List Price: | $4.99 |
Print List Price: | $10.99 |
Kindle Price: |
$2.99
Save $8.00 (73%) |


![Big Sur by [Jack Kerouac]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41DKS6vP9dL._SY346_.jpg)
Follow the Author
OK
Big Sur Kindle Edition
Jack Kerouac
(Author)
Find all the books, read about the author, and more.
See search results for this author
Are you an author?
Learn about Author Central
|
Price
|
New from | Used from |
Kindle, March 30, 2018 |
$2.99
|
— | — |
MP3 CD, Audiobook, Unabridged
"Please retry"
|
$10.00 | — |
-
LanguageEnglish
-
PublisherCaramna Corporation
-
Publication dateMarch 30, 2018
-
File size284 KB
Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Download to your computer
|
Kindle Cloud Reader
|
Customers who bought this item also bought
- The Dharma Bums: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)Kindle Edition
- Desolation Angels: A NovelKindle Edition
- The Subterraneans (Kerouac, Jack)Kindle Edition
- On the RoadKindle Edition
- Visions of CodyKindle Edition
- Lonesome Traveler (Kerouac, Jack)Kindle Edition
Customers who viewed this item also viewed
- On the RoadKindle Edition
- The Dharma Bums: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)Kindle Edition
- Big Sur (Warbler Classics Annotated Edition)Kindle Edition
- On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)Kindle Edition
- The Subterraneans (Kerouac, Jack)Kindle Edition
- Desolation Angels: A NovelKindle Edition
Editorial Reviews
Review
For a narrator [this book] contains extraordinary difficulties, for the writing flies off into inebriated, overly long sentences that reflect, describe, or just babble forward in a kind of free association. To keep such passages flowing while making sense out of them is no mean feat. Tom Parker [Grover Gardner] pulls it off....He even manages to sound as if he were enjoying himself. AudioFile
Big Sur is so devastatingly honest and painful and yet so beautifully written....He was sharing his pain and suffering with the reader in the same way Dostoyevsky did, with the idea of salvation through suffering.'-- David Amram
Critic Richard Meltzer referred to Big Sur as Kerouac's 'masterpiece, and one of the great, great works of the English language.'
His grittiest book...sensual and uninhibited. --New York Times --. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
Review
--San Francisco Chronicle
"Kerouac's grittiest novel to date and the one which will be read with most respect by those skeptical of all the Beat business in the first place."
--The New York Times Book Review
"Big Sur is so devastatingly honest and painful and yet so beautifully written....He was sharing his pain and suffering with the reader in the same way Dostoyevsky did, with the idea of salvation through suffering."
--David Amram --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
From AudioFile
About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : B07BTQLRBL
- Publisher : Caramna Corporation (March 30, 2018)
- Publication date : March 30, 2018
- Language : English
- File size : 284 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 143 pages
- Lending : Not Enabled
- Best Sellers Rank: #406,676 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
Customer reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
In a Waldenesque approach, Kerouac captures Duluoz’s desperate retreat into the wilderness of northern California, in an attempt to escape civilization and reclaim meaning and order in his life. Despite the protagonist’s best efforts, he struggles to detach himself from the hypocrisy and alienation that haunts him. One might think, echoing the footsteps of Thoreau, the sublimity of Big Sur, would inspire a sense of peace and unity in the perceiver, however, Jack is reminded of the transitory and ephemeral nature of life and mankind, plunging him into an existential crisis. Thus, the terrain of California, like the state itself, embodies many contradictory symbols.
Throughout the narrative Jack confronts, and in many instances, deconstructs the transcendent values of his peers, caught between the nostalgic innocence of his past and the destructive and oppressive numbness of his present. In spite of his best effort Jack struggles to connect to the environment of Big Sur or the people around him once he returns to civilization. Jack’s alienation is a powerful theme in the novel, driving him to peruse perverse and superficial relationships with his fellow beatniks. Many of the character’s struggle with sexual oppression, despite the liberal values projected by the movement. Jack’s paranoid and prevalent homophobia, and his swinger lifestyle, represent manifestations of his own hidden homoerotic desire for his best friend Cody. Jacks desire and need for intimacy leads to the sexual objectification and exploitation of the women in the novel, this abusive behavior is popular among the other male beatniks. Many of the female beatniks silently suffer, while the male characters justify their sexual infidelity using narcissistic and hedonistic reasoning.
Jack constantly invokes philosophical and religious texts, tracing the intellectual stream of ideas that nourishes the sexual and social attitudes of his characters. It is evident that Jack is extremely educated, he pulls from a variety of sources both eastern and western. Likewise, many of his characters represent a diverse array of cultures and perspectives brought together by the Romance of the beat movement. This mixture of ideas also reflect the melting pot community of California culture as a whole.
However, Jacks behavior belies a darker side to the idealism of the beat movement as it faced decline in the mid-sixties, leaving its members disheartened. Jack’s alcoholism, represented as the norm in his social circles, plays an important part in his mental and physical decline. Likewise, his interpersonal relationships are dysfunctional and in some cases downright abusive.
I think this book is essential to any California canon, many of these themes and values are relevant to contemporary California culture. This book represents the values of a not so distant past, and the Romantic and progressive attitudes of the characters is still alive and well. I think the criticism of those values is priceless in terms of its relationship to modern ethos, narcissism and rugged individualism being popular topics. From his nihilistic perspective, Jack is able to analyze the idealism behind the beat or hippie movement, portraying it through a true unglamorized lens. On the other hand, Jack is unreliable in the sense that he fails to recognize the narcissism and cynicism that undermines his own perspective. In this sense, Jacks nihilism is portrayed as a natural progression of his perverse idealism, yet, it is not the answer to the issues that torment him. In a sense, the character’s failure lies in their inability to establish any real connection to the environment or the people around them. Free love is represented as an extension of the oppressive patriarchal system not an escape from it. True strength, love, and unity cannot be achieved through the selfish, destructive, and individualistic motives of the male characters. It is important to recognize that these anxieties are not new or unique to the present generation, they have evolved as part of popular movements in California’s cultural past. Jacks idealistic language is pure, it is his actions that are corrupt and self-destructive. The failure lies in his determination to drown the contradictions in alcohol, drugs, and sex, rather than reforming the movement. While so many other novels and media outlets glamourize this aspect of the California past, Kerouac offers a refreshing contrast, depicting the grit and conflict with powerful accuracy. This book is most certainly a wonderful addition to any library and an eye opening read for anyone interested in California’s past.
I recommend reading this book if you are out in the Bay Area because you will be able to see where we were, how we have changed, and maybe guess where we are going.
Top reviews from other countries





What other items do customers buy after viewing this item?
- On the RoadKindle Edition
- The Dharma Bums: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)Kindle Edition
- Big Sur (Warbler Classics Annotated Edition)Kindle Edition
- On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)Kindle Edition