Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Grove Press (1981), Edition: Revised Black Cat, Paperback, 152 pages
Description
Classic Literature. Fiction. Literature. HTML: Written over the course of three days and three nights, The Subterraneans was generated out of the same kind of ecstatic flash of inspiration that produced another one of Kerouac's early classics, On The Road. Centering around the tempestuous breakup of Leo Percepied and Mardou Fox�two denizens of the 1950s San Francisco underground�The Subterraneans is a tale of dark alleys and smoky rooms, of artists, visionaries, and adventurers existing outside mainstream America's field of vision..
User reviews
LibraryThing member gbill
This short novel is about the fling Kerouac had with Alene Lee (Mardou Fox in the novel), an African-American woman who had been hanging out with the intellectuals who were part of the Beat movement in San Francisco; Allen Ginsberg (Adam Moorad), William S. Burroughs (Frank Carmody), Gregory Corso
Quotes:
On jealousy; this after being told by Mardou she slept with Yuri:
“’Well baby we made it together,’ – that hip word – at the sound of which even as I walked and my legs propelled under me and my feet felt firm, the lower part of my stomach sagged into my pants or loins and the body experienced a sensation of deep melting downgoing into some soft somewhere, nowhere – suddenly the streets were so bleak, the people passing so beastly, the lights so unnecessary just to illumine this … this cutting world – it was going across the cobbles when she said it, ‘made it together,’ I had (locomotive wise) to concentrate on getting up on the curb again and I didn’t look at her – I looked down Columbus and thought of walking away…”
On regret:
“I come out to tell Mardou we have decided to take later train in order to go back to house to pick up forgotten package which is just another ringaroundtherosy of futility for her, she receives this news with solemn lips – ah my love and lost darling (out of date word) – if then I’d known what I know now, instead of returning to bar, for further talks, and looking at her with hurt eyes, etc. and let her lay there in the bleak sea of time untended and unsolaced and unforgiven for the sin of the sea of time I’d have gone in and sat down with her, taken her hand, promised her my life and protection – ‘Because I love you and there’s no reason’ – but then far from having completely successfully realized this love, I was still in the act of thinking I was climbing out of my doubt about her…”
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(Yuri Gligoric), John Clellon Holmes (Balliol MacJones), and others are all present. It takes you into bars and jazz clubs, listening to Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker, onto the forlorn streets of San Francisco in the morning after riotous nights, and into discussions which fuse Whitman and Thoreau and Dostoevsky in search of a different truth. However, it’s hardly idealistic. Kerouac is honest, if nothing else. He does not sugarcoat his own shortcomings, and it’s clear that his relationship with Lee is doomed from the start because of them. As always, he lets it rip, alcohol-fueled and grammar be damned, putting down prose that often reads like poetry, but with occasional nuggets of pure gold. Quotes:
On jealousy; this after being told by Mardou she slept with Yuri:
“’Well baby we made it together,’ – that hip word – at the sound of which even as I walked and my legs propelled under me and my feet felt firm, the lower part of my stomach sagged into my pants or loins and the body experienced a sensation of deep melting downgoing into some soft somewhere, nowhere – suddenly the streets were so bleak, the people passing so beastly, the lights so unnecessary just to illumine this … this cutting world – it was going across the cobbles when she said it, ‘made it together,’ I had (locomotive wise) to concentrate on getting up on the curb again and I didn’t look at her – I looked down Columbus and thought of walking away…”
On regret:
“I come out to tell Mardou we have decided to take later train in order to go back to house to pick up forgotten package which is just another ringaroundtherosy of futility for her, she receives this news with solemn lips – ah my love and lost darling (out of date word) – if then I’d known what I know now, instead of returning to bar, for further talks, and looking at her with hurt eyes, etc. and let her lay there in the bleak sea of time untended and unsolaced and unforgiven for the sin of the sea of time I’d have gone in and sat down with her, taken her hand, promised her my life and protection – ‘Because I love you and there’s no reason’ – but then far from having completely successfully realized this love, I was still in the act of thinking I was climbing out of my doubt about her…”
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LibraryThing member Fenoxielo
Spontaneous prose is not for everyone, and it's safe to say the first 10-15 pages of The Subterraneans will be near incomprehensible for most people. It's impossible to really accurately decide if you like this book without getting into the rhythm of the prose and Kerouac's mind. It's just about as
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long as it could possibly be: his ecstatic disregard for all forms, both grammatical and narrative, couldn't really be sustained much longer. It has less of a "beat" feel than On The Road, and doesn't feel quite as dated in terms of language. Show Less
LibraryThing member Robert_R._Mitchell
While On the Road’s Sal Paradise bombs back and forth from coast to coast compelled largely by the infectious, manic restlessness of Dan Moriarty; The Subterraneans focuses more keenly on the “San Francisco Scene,” and the paradise Leo Percepied finds on Heavenly Lane, a paradise soon lost.
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The jazz prose Kerouac pioneered; a stream-of-consciousness prose with the lyricism, consonance and super-concentrated imagery and literary references usually reserved for poetry; shares center stage with the subterraneans themselves and the jazz prophets to whom they throng in smoky, stoned, drunken pilgrimages. The subterraneans are “urban Thoreaus” and Frisco is their Walden Woods. If Sal Paradise seemed a saint to Dan Moriarty’s fallen angel, Leo Percepied is a deeply flawed, juvenile, narcissistic, alcoholic writer unable to successfully process the small success he’s experienced. The novel is an uncompromising, painfully critical first-person indictment that forces readers looking for a hero to look elsewhere. Show Less
LibraryThing member bookworm12
As I've said in the past, I think there's an ideal time period in which people should read Kerouac to best appreciate him. When you're young and have little to no responsibilities, the author's beautiful words and carefree life are much more appealing. When you are grown up and have a mortgage,
At the same time, even when I'm frustrated by what Kerouac is saying I still admire the way he says it. His writing is like jazz. There's often no discernible pattern and I'm never sure what will happen next, but it's beautiful. He can always see the poetry in the world around him, but he also seemed incapable of overcoming his own failings.
"Just to start at he beginning and let the truth seep out, that's what I'll do."
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etc. it's harder to embrace his drunken nights, callous treatment of women, and complete disregard of responsibility. At the same time, even when I'm frustrated by what Kerouac is saying I still admire the way he says it. His writing is like jazz. There's often no discernible pattern and I'm never sure what will happen next, but it's beautiful. He can always see the poetry in the world around him, but he also seemed incapable of overcoming his own failings.
"Just to start at he beginning and let the truth seep out, that's what I'll do."
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LibraryThing member Stahl-Ricco
Well, I love Kerouac, but I only liked this book. It's a stream of consciousness, frenetic paced thing, that I found a bit hard to follow, and at times, tedious to read. Basically, it is the story of Jack's brief romance with "Mardou Fox", a young African-American girl he meets in San Francisco.
SPOILER ALERT!
the end is perfect. "And I go home having lost her love. And write this book."
Wow.
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But Jack seems a bit crazy in here, sort of bi-polar, and definitely alcoholic. Some issues with race. Lots of mother issues too! He basically loves this gal, and wants to figure out how to be rid of her. And his behavior, basically his love of booze and a good time, strain this relationship beyond all measure. I liked it, but it did make me think a bit less of the man behind the typewriter. Still, the end ...SPOILER ALERT!
the end is perfect. "And I go home having lost her love. And write this book."
Wow.
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LibraryThing member bethanyinthetaiga
Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for Jack Kerouacian prose, but I found myself continuing to read the book mainly to find a period somewhere at the end of the sentence. A bit too raw for my tastes, but still manages to end with one of the closing lines I've read -- "And I go home having lost her
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love. And write this book." Show Less
LibraryThing member dbsovereign
A Who's Who of Kerouac's friends who turn themselves out in the light of his own unique brand of perceptual bias. And what a set of bias-prone narrations he provides us! Still he was a jerk who could write.
LibraryThing member BradKautz
An interesting book, probably a 3.5 as I was reading it, until I got to the very last line, which, in a manner similar to The Dude's rug, tied the whole story together. Four words, moving the rating from 3.5 to 4. Imagine that!
LibraryThing member DanielSTJ
This was another great book by Kerouac. The language is so infused with power, poetry, and rhythmic structure that it is immense in its undertaking and what it sets out to do. The story itself is simple, but this is one of the cases where the way it is told truly denotes the whole and tells what
4 stars- well worth the read!
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the tale is all about. A short novel by Kerouac, but definitely a worthwhile one. It also gives insight to Kerouac's San Fransisco experiences and I'm certain that there are many self-autobiographical, insightful details plugged into it. 4 stars- well worth the read!
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LibraryThing member kcshankd
Re-read on the recommendation of a Gary Snyder interview. He called it Kerouac's greatest other novel. Hard disagree, Gary, maybe because it was set before Jack knew Gary?
Written in the same frantic style, but missing the go, man, go! of it.
Written in the same frantic style, but missing the go, man, go! of it.
Subjects
Original publication date
1958
Physical description
152 p.; 6.9 inches
ISBN
0394179528 / 9780394179520