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Available
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Collection
Publication
Penguin Books (1992), Paperback, 256 pages
Description
Coming down from his carefree youth and unwanted fame, Jack Kerouac undertakes a mature confrontation of some of his most troubling emotional issues: a burgeoning problem with alcoholism, addiction, fear, and insecurity. He dutifully records his ever-changing states of consciousness, which culminate in a powerful religious experience. Big Sur was written some time after Jack Kerouac's best-known works, following a visit to northern California and the first feelings of midlife crisis. Kerouac stayed for several weeks in a cabin in Big Sur, California, and with friends in San Francisco. Upon returning home, he wrote this account in a two-week period. Critic Richard Meltzer referred to Big Sur as Kerouac's "masterpiece, and one of the great, great works of the English language.".… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member gbill
A heart-breaking story and not for the first-time Kerouac reader. All of the elements of what make him great are here: honesty, kindness, a love of nature, and poetic philosophy -- but the backdrop is Kerouac's addiction to alcohol, which is killing him.
As Aram Saroyan says at the end of the
While reading it it's hard not to wish that someone had saved Kerouac from himself. He suffers episodes of DT's and paranoia, and one of the lasting images is "trying to squeeze the last red drop out of the rancid port bottle" when there is no alcohol left. The people around him are good at heart (with the exception of a frightening pedophile), but they indulge Kerouac and in the full spirit of the 60s believe in things like making love in front of the kids. Kerouac is at his best and at peace when he's at one with nature in Big Sur; unfortunately he cannot resist returning to parties in the City and his self-destructive ways.
Kerouac was a great spirit and it's a shame that he died in 1969 at age 47. I found myself thinking about him for weeks after reading this book, wishing he was still in this world, seeing what I was seeing, and writing more of The Duluoz Legend. It's a hard read and I don't know that I would recommend it to anyone other than a Kerouac fan, but I give it four stars for the emotional staying power it had with me.
Quotes:
On nature and man:
"Even the first frightening night on the beach in the fog with my notebook and pencil, sitting there crosslegged in the sand facing all the Pacific fury flashing on rocks that rise like gloomy sea shroud towers out of the cove, the bingbang cove with its seas booming inside caves and slapping out, the cities of seaweed floating up and down you can even see their dark leer in the phosphorescent seabeach moonlight - That first night I sit there and all I know, as I look up, is the kitchen light is on, on the cliff, to the right, where somebody's just built a cabin overlooking all the horrible Sur..."
"...who cant sleep like a log in a solitary cabin in the woods, you wake up in the late morning so refreshed and realizing the universe namelessly: the universe is an Angel..."
On being kind:
"There's the poor little mouse eating her nightly supper in the humble corner where I've put out a little delight-plate full of cheese and chocolate candy (for my days of killing mice are over)...'
On the important things in life:
"On my deathbed I could be remembering that creek day and forgetting the day MGM bought my book, I could be remembering the old lost green dump T-shirt and forgetting the sapphired robes - Mebbe the best way to get into heaven."
On the transience of life:
"And as far as I can see the world is too old for us to talk about it with our new words - We will pass just as quietly through life (passing through, passing through) as the 10th century people of this valley only with a little more noise and a few bridges and dams and bombs that wont even last a million years..."
On lamenting changes in what is now Silicon Valley:
"Soon we're set straight and pointed head on down beautiful fourlane Bayshore Highway to that lovely Santa Clara Valley - But I'm amazed that after only a few years the damn thing no longer has prune fields and vast beet fields like at Lawrence when I was a brakeman on the Southern Pacific and even after, it's one long row of houses right down the line 50 miles to San Jose like a great monstrous Los Angeles beginning to grow south of Frisco."
On driving the Pacific coast:
"When Cody comes to a narrow tight curve with all our death staring us in the face down that hole he just swerves the curve saying 'The way to drive in the mountains is, boy, no fiddling around, these roads dont move, you're the one that moves' - And we come out on the highway and go right battin up to Monterey in the Big Sur dusk where down there on the faint gloamy frothing rocks you can hear the seals cry."
On love:
"It always makes me proud to love the world somehow - Hate's so easy compared..."
On corruption:
"Not so much that I'm a drunkard that I feel guilty about but that others who occupy this plane of 'life on earth' with me dont feel guilty at all - Crooked judges shaving and smiling in the morning on the way to their heinous indifferences, respectable generals ordering soldiers by telephone to go die or drop dead, pickpockets nodding in cells saying 'I never hurt anybody,'....
On optimism in spite of it all:
"On soft Spring nights I'll stand in the yard under the stars - Something good will come out of all things yet - And it will be golden and eternal just like that - There's no need to say another word."
As Aram Saroyan says at the end of the
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introduction, "Above all, he was a tender writer. It would be hard to find a mean-spirited word about anybody in all his writing." As Kerouac himself says in Big Sur: "It's hard to explain and best thing to do is not be false."While reading it it's hard not to wish that someone had saved Kerouac from himself. He suffers episodes of DT's and paranoia, and one of the lasting images is "trying to squeeze the last red drop out of the rancid port bottle" when there is no alcohol left. The people around him are good at heart (with the exception of a frightening pedophile), but they indulge Kerouac and in the full spirit of the 60s believe in things like making love in front of the kids. Kerouac is at his best and at peace when he's at one with nature in Big Sur; unfortunately he cannot resist returning to parties in the City and his self-destructive ways.
Kerouac was a great spirit and it's a shame that he died in 1969 at age 47. I found myself thinking about him for weeks after reading this book, wishing he was still in this world, seeing what I was seeing, and writing more of The Duluoz Legend. It's a hard read and I don't know that I would recommend it to anyone other than a Kerouac fan, but I give it four stars for the emotional staying power it had with me.
Quotes:
On nature and man:
"Even the first frightening night on the beach in the fog with my notebook and pencil, sitting there crosslegged in the sand facing all the Pacific fury flashing on rocks that rise like gloomy sea shroud towers out of the cove, the bingbang cove with its seas booming inside caves and slapping out, the cities of seaweed floating up and down you can even see their dark leer in the phosphorescent seabeach moonlight - That first night I sit there and all I know, as I look up, is the kitchen light is on, on the cliff, to the right, where somebody's just built a cabin overlooking all the horrible Sur..."
"...who cant sleep like a log in a solitary cabin in the woods, you wake up in the late morning so refreshed and realizing the universe namelessly: the universe is an Angel..."
On being kind:
"There's the poor little mouse eating her nightly supper in the humble corner where I've put out a little delight-plate full of cheese and chocolate candy (for my days of killing mice are over)...'
On the important things in life:
"On my deathbed I could be remembering that creek day and forgetting the day MGM bought my book, I could be remembering the old lost green dump T-shirt and forgetting the sapphired robes - Mebbe the best way to get into heaven."
On the transience of life:
"And as far as I can see the world is too old for us to talk about it with our new words - We will pass just as quietly through life (passing through, passing through) as the 10th century people of this valley only with a little more noise and a few bridges and dams and bombs that wont even last a million years..."
On lamenting changes in what is now Silicon Valley:
"Soon we're set straight and pointed head on down beautiful fourlane Bayshore Highway to that lovely Santa Clara Valley - But I'm amazed that after only a few years the damn thing no longer has prune fields and vast beet fields like at Lawrence when I was a brakeman on the Southern Pacific and even after, it's one long row of houses right down the line 50 miles to San Jose like a great monstrous Los Angeles beginning to grow south of Frisco."
On driving the Pacific coast:
"When Cody comes to a narrow tight curve with all our death staring us in the face down that hole he just swerves the curve saying 'The way to drive in the mountains is, boy, no fiddling around, these roads dont move, you're the one that moves' - And we come out on the highway and go right battin up to Monterey in the Big Sur dusk where down there on the faint gloamy frothing rocks you can hear the seals cry."
On love:
"It always makes me proud to love the world somehow - Hate's so easy compared..."
On corruption:
"Not so much that I'm a drunkard that I feel guilty about but that others who occupy this plane of 'life on earth' with me dont feel guilty at all - Crooked judges shaving and smiling in the morning on the way to their heinous indifferences, respectable generals ordering soldiers by telephone to go die or drop dead, pickpockets nodding in cells saying 'I never hurt anybody,'....
On optimism in spite of it all:
"On soft Spring nights I'll stand in the yard under the stars - Something good will come out of all things yet - And it will be golden and eternal just like that - There's no need to say another word."
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LibraryThing member Robert_R._Mitchell
It’s funny reading the accolades on the cover of the 1963 Bantam paperback edition. When people realized that Kerouac could make them money, all the mainstream papers and critics elbowed each other to award the most hyperbolic, sensational, scandalous praise possible to a book that is NOT so
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different from his previous works, the glaring red teaser on the back notwithstanding. Take the alcoholism, psychological contortions, existential torment, Catholic guilt and hyperconsciousness of The Subterraneans and dial it up five notches. Take the yearning, desire and scatterbrained chaos of On the Road; the mystical communion with Nature of The Dharma Bums; add an interesting “King of the Beatniks tells all” Hollywood scandal vibe; throw in a heaping pile of Kurt Cobain-style horror at success (“teenage angst has paid off well”) and then kill Jack’s cat and you’ve got a pretty good feel for Big Sur. If Big Sur truly is “His most powerful novel“ (big red teaser on back cover again), it isn’t because the writing is that much better or the story is ground-breaking, it’s because we’ve been following Kerouac all over the U.S. and Mexico for years and it hurts like hell to see him tormented by the hyperconsciousness and alcoholism that in large part fueled his early works. Kerouac’s drinking killed him about 7 years after Big Sur was published and if the book is any indication of his real condition, it’s amazing he lasted that long. The shroud of his imminent death covers the work as soon as the thin veneer of fictionalized names is pulled away. Kerouac’s beat poetry fills the pages and he includes his lengthy work “Sea” at the end. Show Less
LibraryThing member keebrook
i’m not sure i get it.
maybe it’s just because this is one of his last books, from what i’ve read, and it’s one of those “i know how to get more money for booze - i’ll write another book!” kind of things. it certainly does have a contractual obligation air about it.
i found this book to
he’s obviously had an epiphany or two and reached the pinnacle of the mountain once or twice, i can tell by the way he holds his prose. but this book seems like he’s stretched a bit too thin, trying to recreate something that has past beyond grasping. so, he recounts his adventures in flirting with insanity in and around Big Sur while attempting to find God or himself; or God in himself; or God in a bottle; or maybe escape from finding God in a bottle.
maybe it’s just because this is one of his last books, from what i’ve read, and it’s one of those “i know how to get more money for booze - i’ll write another book!” kind of things. it certainly does have a contractual obligation air about it.
i found this book to
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be a drunken, near-stream-of-consciousness, run-on sentence that coalesces into a bit of profound thinking at random spots. seeing it as a peek into a by-gone culture and lifestyle makes it more interesting but i didn’t find anything really too deep in all this. Kerouac, to me, sounds like a restless mooch, looking to self-medicate and pop-off the occasional piece of writing to pay heed to the necessity of money in our modern economy. he’s obviously had an epiphany or two and reached the pinnacle of the mountain once or twice, i can tell by the way he holds his prose. but this book seems like he’s stretched a bit too thin, trying to recreate something that has past beyond grasping. so, he recounts his adventures in flirting with insanity in and around Big Sur while attempting to find God or himself; or God in himself; or God in a bottle; or maybe escape from finding God in a bottle.
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LibraryThing member Dharmabum28
Here we find Jack in the fallout of his fame after the events of 'On the Road' and the 'Dharmabums'. The book itself is excellent insofar as prolific writing is concerned, however it gets very tough to read as the book goes on since it is a narrative of Jack's descent in to madness and alcholism.
D.
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The saddest part is that there is little or no resolution for Jack as he struggles through his depression, just a nightmarish end. I would only recommend this to the most avid of Kerouac fans. If your looking for a more inspirational read check out the 'Dharmabums', probably one of Jack's best worksD.
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LibraryThing member AndrewBlackman
Jack Kerouac is tired. Tired of aspiring young beatniks knocking on his door in the middle of the night wanting to go on a road trip, tired of parties, tired of hitch-hiking, tired of drinking, tired of people, tired of being tired. He goes to a friend's cabin at Big Sur on the Californian coast to
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unwind, but finds himself back in San Francisco getting drunk in no time. The cycle of binge drinking followed by remorseful vows never to do it again followed by immediate binge drinking will be familiar to any alcoholic, but Kerouac's mesmerising writing style kept me following happily along all the way to the brutally unsatisfying, weakly abrupt cop-out of an ending. Show Less
LibraryThing member mayumikamon
One of Kerouac's weaker pieces. A self indulgent work towards the end of his life.
LibraryThing member atram113
I got really in to Kerouac when I was 14. On the Road was the first Kerouac book I ever read, but this one remains my favorite. A scene that has always stuck with me was when Billie goes to dig a hole for the garbage and digs it so it would be the perfect grave to fit the kid with them. I've never
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been able to get that image out of my head. What I also loved is seeing the absolute destruction of Kerouac. In the beginning he talks about young kids coming to his mother's home trying to get him to take a road trip with them. But he wants them to know that On the Road was years ago, he's no longer that man. I love no story more than the one where the character is completely and totally beaten down. Depressing that he's not just a character. Show Less
LibraryThing member wilsonknut
This is Kerouac's darkest book. It is 196,0 and he is sick from drinking too much. The notoriety of On the Road is starting to get to him. He tries to dry out and get back to the basics in Ferlinghetti's cabin in the woods of Big Sur, but he just can't resist the bottle and the social scene that
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goes with it. He captures his nervous breakdown in this book, but it is an omen of what will become of the last few years of his life. Show Less
LibraryThing member mikaela11
I didn't love this as much as I loved On the Road, maybe because Big Sur truly reveals Kerouacs's serious affliction and has less of a youthful quality, obviously due to the fact that it was written in later years. Yet I love the dream-like approach of the rant, with disjointed sentence structure,
In this revealing account written at the peak of his suffering, Kerouac shares with us the poets and beatniks of San Francisco, and of course, more Dean Moriarty. The seamless quality lets us drift along with profound insight into the more serious side of Kerouac's alcoholism. It's a very moving, introspective read.
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brilliant characterization and his edgy signature style. His "free form" approach is to me, a combination of Hemingway and William Burroughs, with direct homage to the latter.In this revealing account written at the peak of his suffering, Kerouac shares with us the poets and beatniks of San Francisco, and of course, more Dean Moriarty. The seamless quality lets us drift along with profound insight into the more serious side of Kerouac's alcoholism. It's a very moving, introspective read.
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LibraryThing member kcshankd
Drunk, strung out, and famous. Haunting when you know the end is near, six or so years in the future, puking up his liver in his mom's bathroom. Hard for a parent to read for various reasons I won't go into but will be immediately apparent if you've read the book. Goddamit Jack.
LibraryThing member gkyoungen
Poor Jack. Reading this book was like watching a train wreck. Seeing the alcoholism overtake his sanity toward the end was a difficult read, but I couldn't put it down. Having only read On the Road, and The Dharma Bums, this is probably the last Kerouac book I'll read. It puts his whole life in
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context. Show Less
LibraryThing member alanteder
Audiobook editions of stream-of-consciousness beat generation novels are not an ideal medium, particularly when you are going to be listening while doing other things such as driving and walking. But I have an indefatigable need for audiobooks due to not wanting to waste good reading time while
The reading by Tom Parker had the right tone to it and certainly had the correct beat type passion when it was appropriate. A few woody, forestry pronunciations did stick out. I remember hearing delirium tremens pronounced as delirium tree-mens (although subsequently I looked this up and it is an acceptable pronunciation); and timbre as timber.
Overall it just washed over me with only a few things sticking in the memory: the promotion of the European style of bidet hygiene being the funniest; Kerouac (here under a roman à clef name of Jack Duluoz) missing a meeting with Henry Miller due to a carousal and the older man calling off an attempted midnight rescheduling because he wanted to go to sleep; the casual homophobia and female objectification; and lastly (due to my own lack of concentration) thinking that in the conclusion Kerouac had gone all out Finnegans Wake with guttural onomatopoeic text replacing the narrative. The latter was only because I had not read the promotional blurb for the book to its conclusion so that I did not know to expect that the book had an addendum that included the Kerouac poem "Sea: Sounds of the Pacific Ocean at Big Sur." A momentary concentration focus on driving caused me to miss the pause in the audio transition from book to poem. But it made for an entertaining conclusion!
So overall, it was just ok. You should probably read the book first before listening to an audio performance.
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either commuting or exercising. So at a $1.95 for the Audible Daily Deal on March 6, 2017, "Big Sur" was a bargain that had to be picked up.The reading by Tom Parker had the right tone to it and certainly had the correct beat type passion when it was appropriate. A few woody, forestry pronunciations did stick out. I remember hearing delirium tremens pronounced as delirium tree-mens (although subsequently I looked this up and it is an acceptable pronunciation); and timbre as timber.
Overall it just washed over me with only a few things sticking in the memory: the promotion of the European style of bidet hygiene being the funniest; Kerouac (here under a roman à clef name of Jack Duluoz) missing a meeting with Henry Miller due to a carousal and the older man calling off an attempted midnight rescheduling because he wanted to go to sleep; the casual homophobia and female objectification; and lastly (due to my own lack of concentration) thinking that in the conclusion Kerouac had gone all out Finnegans Wake with guttural onomatopoeic text replacing the narrative. The latter was only because I had not read the promotional blurb for the book to its conclusion so that I did not know to expect that the book had an addendum that included the Kerouac poem "Sea: Sounds of the Pacific Ocean at Big Sur." A momentary concentration focus on driving caused me to miss the pause in the audio transition from book to poem. But it made for an entertaining conclusion!
So overall, it was just ok. You should probably read the book first before listening to an audio performance.
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LibraryThing member DanielSTJ
An amazing journey of self-discovery amidst the backdrop of California. Kerouac embarks on a wild romp through his own mind, his philosophies, hallucinations, drunkenness, and everything else while incorporating intimate passages about his life, and his understanding, of the world around him. This
4 stars!
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is another revealing painting of the artist and is peppered by fine prose (and even a poem at the finish.)4 stars!
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LibraryThing member ProfH
I read On the Road as a teenager and thought it was great. Reread in my late twenties and became bored. Got inspired to read Big Sur because I had a brief trip out to California and wanted to read something (not too long) on the fight.
My take is that Kerouac may have had a little bit of talent,
My take is that Kerouac may have had a little bit of talent,
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but more than that he had timing and personality. He wrote about a particular American idea first and with a personal style/look/attitude that sold well. That's not his fault, but Big Sur makes it feel like it was his downfall. He didn't want this much attention because he didn't have any big idea or really that much to say. The talent is pretty much gone (with the exception of a couple of good lines or jokes, but you'd feel like any hack could stumble onto given two-hundred pages), and all that remains is the alcoholic's psychosis and paranoia. I did think it was interesting at times as he explores how addiction pulls him away from what he knows he needs. It seems like the drinking in San Francisco or with old friends isn't even fun. There's no joy, just gut-rotting self-destruction. The last chapters feel a little like a bad acid trip--which is what I suppose you arrive at when you go on a decade long bender. Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original publication date
1963
Physical description
256 p.; 7.76 inches
ISBN
0140168125 / 9780140168129